Court Opinion

ID: 9751568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:37:15.777887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:52.365365
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I dissent and would quash the Commonwealth’s appeal. The Opinion announcing the judgment of the *404Court concedes, as it must, that the seven-month delay in filing an appeal from the trial court’s September 7, 1972 order was due solely to the Commonwealth’s negligence. Not quashing this appeal, therefore, distorts accepted appellate practices and sub silentio ignores all our prior cases holding that the untimely filing of an appeal divests this Court of jurisdiction.
Assuming the assertion is correct that the instant appeal is also prematurely taken, there is still no excuse for not quashing it. An appeal to fairness and justice is offered to rationalize the result reached by the Opinion announcing the judgment. However, nothing exists to explain in what fashion the entertaining of this premature appeal is either fair or just.
Obviously troubled, the three justices joining the Opinion announcing the judgment seek to avoid the impact of their view by stressing that it is not meant as precedent. It would be naive indeed to think that incantation, however long or hard, of the supposedly magic words “this is not precedent” will deter litigants intent on having their appeals improperly considered from relying on the instant case. If this Court’s adjudications are to be something other than “a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only,”* then surely all similarly-situated litigants are entitled to the same treatment today accorded the instant appellant.
Mr. Chief Justice Jones and Mr. Justice Nix join in this dissenting opinion.

 Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 669, 64 S. Ct. 757, 768 (1944) (Owen J. Roberts, J., dissenting).