Court Opinion

ID: 9750908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:46:39.289448+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:28.536056
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Jones:
The record clearly and unequivocally reveals that in the litigation between Catherine Noonan (plaintiff) and Manuel McHugh (original defendant) the jury did not render any verdict whatsoever. The only verdict rendered was in favor of Catherine Noonan (plaintiff) and against Patrick Noonan (additional defendant).
*343Under these circumstances and on this record, I am at a loss to understand how the majority of the Court can take the position that the trial court could have molded the verdict and directed a verdict in favor of McHugh and against Catherine Noonan and that, even now, this Court could remand the record to the court below for such a purpose. My reading of this record does not persuade me that the jury clearly and unequivocally by their verdict rendered against Patrick Noonan intended to absolve McHugh of liability to Catherine Noonan.
The majority translates the absence of any verdict in the litigation between plaintiff and the original defendant and the presence of a verdict in the litigation between the plaintiff and the additional defendant into a jury intent to absolve the original defendant, a non sequitur in my opinion. To reach its result the majority speculates — without any basis of record — as to the jury’s intention; such action is beyond the power of a court. See: May v. Pittsburgh Railways Co., 209 Pa. Superior Ct. 126, 224 A. 2d 770 (1966). Cf.: Wadatz v. Taormina, 356 Pa. 481, 52 A. 2d 220 (1947).
Moreover, I believe that the result reached by the majority offends a Constitutional right of Catherine Noonan. Article 1, Section 6, of our Constitution provides : “Trial by jury shall be as heretofore and the right thereof remain inviolate.” That the right to a jury trial exists in trespass actions is beyond question. Inherent and basic in the right to trial by jury is that the jury not only hear the factual issues but arrive at some determination after such hearing. Unless a jury comes to some conclusion as to the facts the right to trial by jury is meaningless. In the case at bar, the jury did hear all the competent and relevant facts as to the liability of McHugh to Catherine Noonan but arrived at no determination whatsoever. Catherine Noonan was entitled to a verdict either in her favor or *344against her in her lawsuit against McHugh; that she did not receive. In my opinion, absent any verdict, Catherine Noonan did not receive the trial by jury contemplated by our Constitution.
I would reverse the order of the court below* and grant a new trial to Catherine Noonan in her suit against McHugh.

 Time and again we have held that an appeal lies only from a judgment entered on a verdict and that an appeal from an order granting or refusing a new trial is not an appealable order. However, the instant appeal lies because, in the absence of any verdict, the entry of judgment was impossible and, by reason of this most exceptional circumstance, the appeal must be entertained.