Court Opinion

ID: 9706665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:48:59.464732+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:24.330916
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, Judge,
dissenting:
I cannot join the Majority in what I perceive to be an unnecessary remand to afford the trial court the opportunity to calculate delay damages under the new Pa.B.Giv.P. 238, which became effective November 7, 1988.
In the “Explanatory Comment” following the new Rule 238, the purpose of subdivision (f), which provides that the revised Rule applies to all pending actions in which the issue of damages for delay has been determined, is explained; to-wit:
The purpose of this [subdivision (f) ] is to indicate that the rule applies to pending as well as future actions but not to pending actions in which the damages for delay have been determined under the provisions and procedures of the Craig [v. McGee Memorial Rehabilitation Center, 512 Pa. 60, 515 A.2d 1350 (1986),] case. Once damages for delay have been determined under Craig, those pro*422ceedings are final and are not to be reopened under this rule.
(Emphasis added)
The Majority offers that a remand is necessary “[sjince the delay damages assessed in this case are ... not in precise accordance with the new Rule 238____” To the contrary, however, the Comment to new Rule 238 directs that its provisions are not to be applied “to pending actions in which damages for delay have been determined under the provisions and procedures of the Craig case.” No mention is made that compliance has to be with the provisions of new Rule 238 to avoid a “pending” case from being “reopened” and scrutinized under the new Rule’s requirements.
Prior to the promulgation of the November 7, 1988 Rule 238, this en banc Court had “determined” the delay damages question in the case at bar, and we did so “under the provisions and procedures of the Craig case”, as did the trial court. Therefore, because the delay damages issue had been resolved, consistent with the Comment to Rule 238, this case should not be subject to being reopened in the name of new Rule 238.
If the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaking through the Civil Procedural Rules Committee via the Comment to Rule 238, intended all delay damages cases to comply with the dictates of new Rule 238, it could have done so easily by directing that all pending actions involving delay damages be controlled by the new Rule 238. It chose not to do so, and this leads this writer to conclude that the Supreme Court did so to exclude from the ambit of new Rule 238 those cases, albeit pending, wherein the damages for delay have been assessed under the Craig ruling. Such cases (“proceeding”) are final and are not susceptible to being reopened under the guise of new Rule 238.
Accordingly, for the reasons stated herein, I respectfully dissent to the Majority’s remand of this case, a procedure which will unnecessarily protract the resolution of an issue which has consumed, already, too much of the judiciary’s time and energy.