Court Opinion

ID: 9702895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:29:49.845974+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:42.936138
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Cohen :
Pennsylvania R. C. P. 1252, in pertinent part provides, “A foreign attachment may be issued to attach property of a defendant not exempt from execution, up*631on any cause of action at law or in equity in which the relief sought includes, a judgment or decree for the payment of money. . . .” To me, this rule clearly permits the commencement of an action by the issuance of a writ of foreign attachment irrespective of whether the tort was committed within or without this Commonwealth. . Our courts have recently adopted the doctrine of forum non conveniens, (See Plum v. Tampax, 399 Pa. 553, 160 A. 2d 549 (1960)), which could be invoked in the event that the cause of action has such limited contacts with this Commonwealth that to entertain the suit would subject the defendant to great inconvenience or unnecessarily burden our courts. I would reverse the lower court and remand the case with instructions to apply the standards set forth in Plum v. Tampax, supra, to determine whether it will exercise the jurisdiction which it now has over both the subject matter and the person.
By taking such action we would wisely reject the contention that Rule 1252, in expanding the scope of foreign attachment enlarged the jurisdiction of our courts in contravention of the Act of 1937, P. L. 1982, as amended, 17 PS §61 (pocket part), and was thus invalid. That foreign attachment under our statutes and our rules is a form of process and not a jurisdictional matter is evident from the Act of June 13, >1836, P. L. 568, §44, titled, “An act relating to the commencement of actions,” which first provided for foreign attachment. Hence, it is clear that it was within the competence of our court under the Act of 1937, supra, to suspend any Act of Assembly which proscribed the commencement of an action by writ of foreign attachment for a tort committed outside the Commonwealth.