Court Opinion

ID: 9905540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-29 17:11:18.356533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:40.691647
License: Public Domain

J-A19012-23

                                   2023 PA Super 242

  ESTATE OF JOAN MCFADDEN,                     :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
  DECEASED                                     :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  JOHN MCFADDEN                                :
                                               :   No. 263 EDA 2023
                       Appellant               :

             Appeal from the Order Entered December 28, 2022
   In the Court of Common Pleas of Carbon County Civil Division at No(s):
                                 19-2652

BEFORE:      BOWES, J., STABILE, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

OPINION BY BOWES, J.:                               FILED NOVEMBER 27, 2023

       John McFadden (“Appellant”) appeals from the order that denied his

petition to strike or open the $559,254.27 New Jersey judgment entered

against him and in favor of the Estate of Joan McFadden (“the Estate”) by

praecipe in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. We reverse and remand for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

       The trial court set forth the following procedural history.

       On September 24, 2019, [the Estate] filed a praecipe for the entry
       of judgment against Appellant. . . . Accompanying this praecipe
       were numerous documents from the State of New Jersey, along
       with an “Affidavit by Foreign Fiduciary Pursuant to Section 4101
       of the Probate, Estates and Fiduciaries Code, and 42 Pa.C.S.
       § 4306.” That same day, judgment in the amount of $559,254.27
       was entered by the Carbon County Prothonotary’s Office in favor
       of the Estate and against the Appellant.

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
J-A19012-23

     On March 15, 2022, a writ of execution was filed by the Estate.
     Before execution occurred, Appellant filed the instant petition to
     strike and/or open this foreign judgment [based in part upon the
     argument that the docket entries were not properly
     authenticated].

     On September 29, 2022, a hearing was held[, during which the
     court heard testimony from Herbert J. Stayton, Junior, Esquire,
     the attorney responsible for handling the litigation aspects of the
     Estate’s case in New Jersey. He testified with regard to how he
     requested certified copies of the docket entries from New Jersey
     for use in filing by another attorney in Carbon County,
     Pennsylvania. After the hearing,] both parties lodged a brief or
     memorandum of law in support of their respective positions. On
     December 28, 2022, th[e trial] court issued an order denying the
     Appellant’s petition in toto.

Trial Court Opinion, 2/28/23, at 1-2 (cleaned up).

     This timely appeal followed. Both Appellant and the trial court complied

with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.     Appellant presents the following issues for our

consideration:

     1.    Whether the trial court erred in failing to strike the entry of
     the foreign judgment when the document which purports to be
     the docket entries incidental to the foreign judgment was not
     properly authenticated as required by 42 Pa.C.S. § 4306(b).

     2.    Whether the trial court erred in failing to strike the entry of
     the foreign judgment when the document which purports to be
     the docket entries incidental to the foreign judgment was not
     properly authenticated in accordance with 42 Pa.C.S. § 5328(a).

     3.    Whether the trial court made a factual and legal error in
     finding that the document which purports to be the docket entries
     incidental to the foreign judgment contained the “seal of the
     Honorable Mary Ann C. O’Brien, Surrogate, Surrogate and Deputy
     Clerk of the Superior Court, Chancery Division, Probate Part,
     Burlington County.”

     4.    Whether the trial court erred in not finding that the notice
     of the filing of the foreign judgment which was sent to the

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J-A19012-23

      judgment debtor by the Carbon County Prothonotary does not
      include the name and post office address of the judgment creditor
      and the attorney for the judgment creditor as required by 42
      Pa.C.S. § 4306(c)(2), and failing to strike the foreign judgment
      because of that deficiency.

      5.    Whether the trial court erred in finding that the Appellee did
      not need to comply with 20 Pa.C.S. § 4101 et seq. prior to or
      simultaneously with filing the foreign judgment in the Carbon
      County Prothonotary’s Office, and failing to strike the foreign
      judgment because of that deficiency.

Appellant’s brief at 4-5 (cleaned up).

      We begin with the legal principles guiding our review. Since a petition

to strike a default judgment presents us with questions of law regarding the

operation of the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure, “our standard of review

is de novo and our scope of review is plenary.” Grady v. Nelson, 286 A.3d

259, 264 (Pa.Super. 2022) (cleaned up). Moreover,

      [a] petition to strike a judgment is a common law proceeding
      which operates as a demurrer to the record. A petition to strike a
      judgment may be granted only for a fatal defect or irregularity
      appearing on the face of the record. A petition to strike is not a
      chance to review the merits of the allegations of a complaint.
      Rather, a petition to strike is aimed at defects that affect the
      validity of the judgment and that entitle the petitioner, as a matter
      of law, to relief. A fatal defect on the face of the record denies
      the prothonotary the authority to enter judgment. When a
      prothonotary enters judgment without authority, that judgment is
      void ab initio. When deciding if there are fatal defects on the face
      of the record for the purposes of a petition to strike a . . .
      judgment, a court may only look at what was in the record when
      the judgment was entered.

Id. (cleaned up).

      Appellant first argues that the New Jersey judgment was not properly

authenticated pursuant to the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act

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J-A19012-23

(“UEFJA”), 42 Pa.C.S. § 4306, because it lacked a seal and a certificate “that

Surrogate and Deputy Clerk O’Brien had legal custody of the docket entries.”

Appellant’s brief at 15-16.     The UEFJA-implicated Pennsylvania statutes

provide as follows:

      A copy of any foreign judgment including the docket entries
      incidental thereto authenticated in accordance with act of
      Congress or this title may be filed in the office of the clerk
      of any court of common pleas of this Commonwealth. The
      clerk shall treat the foreign judgment in the same manner as a
      judgment of any court of common pleas of this Commonwealth.
      A judgment so filed shall be a lien as of the date of filing and shall
      have the same effect and be subject to the same procedures,
      defenses and proceedings for reopening, vacating, or staying as a
      judgment of any court of common pleas of this Commonwealth
      and may be enforced or satisfied in like manner.

42 Pa.C.S. § 4306(b) (emphasis added). Section 5328, the corresponding

Pennsylvania law, provides:

      An official record kept within the United States, or any state,
      district, commonwealth, territory, insular possession thereof, or
      the Panama Canal Zone, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands,
      or an entry therein, when admissible for any purpose, may be
      evidenced by an official publication thereof or by a copy
      attested by the officer having the legal custody of the
      record, or by his deputy, and accompanied by a certificate
      that the officer has the custody. The certificate may be
      made by a judge of a court of record having jurisdiction in
      the governmental unit in which the record is kept,
      authenticated by the seal of the court, or by any public
      officer having a seal of office and having official duties in
      the governmental unit in which the record is kept,
      authenticated by the seal of his office.

42 Pa.C.S. § 5328(a) (emphasis added). Our Supreme Court has explained

the relationship of these statutes thusly:      “[A]uthentication under UEFJA

requires that a ‘certificate’ accompany the foreign judgment. Pennsylvania

                                      -4-
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law mandates a certificate from a judge or other officer in the originating

jurisdiction as to custody of the record.” Domus, Inc. v. Signature Bldg.

Sys. of PA, LLC, 252 A.3d 628, 631 (Pa. 2021).

       As noted, the Estate filed the foreign judgment in Carbon County on

September 24, 2019. Upon review, that filing included, inter alia, incidental

docket entries, which were attested to by the Deputy Surrogate as a complete

and true copy. However, while the docket entries contained an attestation to

the veracity of the copy, they lacked a certificate affirming the clerk’s custody

of the docket.      Moreover, despite indicating in the text above the clerk’s

signature that an official seal of the clerk’s office was affixed, no official seal

of either the clerk’s office or the court appears in relation to the docket entries.

Thus, the docket entries lacked a certification that complied with §§ 4306(b)

and 5328(a). Cf. Medina & Medina, Inc. v. Gurrentz Int'l Corp., 450 A.2d

108, 110 (Pa.Super. 1982) (finding requirements of § 5328(a) had been met

where the document stated the authenticity of the docket entries, was signed

by the clerk, bore the seal of the court, and “adequately disclose[d] that the

clerk ha[d] possession of the original from which the copy was made”). As

this deficiency was apparent on the face of the record, we conclude that the

trial court erred in denying Appellant’s petition to strike.1

____________________________________________

1 We note that the trial court relied in part on testimony offered at the petition-

to-strike hearing from Attorney Stayton, who procured the docket entries in
New Jersey and claimed that what he received was the common, accepted
(Footnote Continued Next Page)

                                           -5-
J-A19012-23

       Based on the foregoing, we reverse the order denying Appellant’s

petition to strike and remand for the court to enter an order granting

Appellant’s petition to strike due to the deficient certification of the docket

entries.   Since we reverse on this basis, we need not reach Appellant’s

remaining issues.

       Order reversed.         Case remanded with instructions.      Jurisdiction

relinquished.

Date: 11/27/2023

____________________________________________

practice for the past forty years in New Jersey. See Order of Court, 12/29/22,
at 1 n.2 (I). We remind the court that such after-the-fact testimony is outside
the purview of its review of a petition to strike. See Grady v. Nelson, 286
A.3d 259, 264 (Pa.Super. 2022) (“When deciding if there are fatal defects on
the face of the record for the purposes of a petition to strike a . . . judgment,
a court may only look at what was in the record when the judgment was
entered.” (cleaned up)).

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