Court Opinion

ID: 9696101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:36:34.262514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:18.516434
License: Public Domain

CIRILLO, President Judge Emeritus,
concurring:
¶ 1 I join in the majority’s ultimate decision to reverse and vacate the default judgment entered against Appellant. I write separately, however, to state that I believe a defendant’s failure to appear at a pre-trial settlement conference does, in fact, invoke the dictates of Rule 218. For, when this same dilatory defendant fails to appear at the impending scheduled trial, judgment should be entered ágainst him or her.'
¶ 2 I make this statement only to disagree with the majority’s proclamation that in First Union Mortg. Corp. v. Frempong, 744 A.2d 327 (Pa.Super.1999), the judgment against the defendant was entered “not for his failure to appear at the conference ..., but for his failure to appear at trial.” In Frempong, I clearly indicated that the defendant’s failure to appear for a mandatory settlement conference, despite being given notice of such obligation, “triggered the provisions of Rule of Civil Procedure 218.” Id. at 335. Settlement conferences are by their very nature conciliatory, and, as the majority notes in its decision, “counsel is under the same duty to appear at conciliatory or pretrial conferences as he or she is to appear for trial.” Accordingly, if Rule 218 governs attendance at pre-trial conferences as well as at trial, then it must also govern settlement (conciliatory) conferences. See Frempong, supra; Anderson v. Financial Responsibility Assigned Claims Plan, 432 Pa.Super. 54, 637 A.2d 659 (1994), citing Lee v. Cel-Pek Industries, Inc., 251 Pa.Super. 568, 380 A.2d 1243 (1977).
¶ 3 Accordingly, I concur.