Court Opinion

ID: 9733773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:17:05.963218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:55.542310
License: Public Domain

Justice CASTILLE,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion with the exception of its discussion of In Re Nomination Petition of Anastasio, 820 A.2d 880 (Pa.Cmwlth., 2003), aff'd per curiam, 573 Pa. 512, 827 A.2d 373 (2003), including the notation that this Court supposedly “clarified” Anastasio in In re Nomination Petition of Benninghoff, *427578 Pa. 421, 423, 852 A.2d 1193, 1194 n.3 (2004). As I noted in my Concurring Opinion in Benninghoff, rather than distinguish and impliedly approve the Commonwealth Court’s opinion in Anastasio, I would specifically disapprove of it. The unexplained affirmance in Anastasio created no precedential authority in this Court. I disagree, as I did in Benninghoff, with the fictional reinterpretation of Anastasio, construing it as if it was decided under the new “substantial compliance” rule set forth in Benninghoff. Anastasio employed a draconian per se approach to defects in Financial Statements, which was displaced by the entirely different, albeit amorphous “substantial compliance” rule manufactured in Benninghoff. Anastasio should be specifically disapproved to end any confusion in this area.
Justice EAKIN joins this concurring opinion.