Court Opinion

ID: 9639168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:06:47.866613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:13.495532
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in so much of the Majority Opinion as deals with the issue of whether pension payments are subject to attachment in satisfaction of a judgment entered for arrear-ages in payments due under a support agreement. I join in the ruling of the court which vacates the order entered on June 4, 1981 at GD 81-11344 and affirms the order entered December 22, 1982 at FD 81-10538.
I am constrained to dissent from that portion of the Majority Opinion which would find improper the entertainment, by the Civil Division of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, of an assumpsit action arising out of a support agreement. The majority relies on the panel majority opinion in Balter v. Balter, 284 Pa.Super. 350, 425 A.2d 1138 (1981) for the proposition that divisional assignments among [within] the court of common pleas could not relate to “anything other than subject matter jurisdiction.” Id,., 284 Pa.Superior Ct. at 356, fn. 3, 425 A.2d at 1141, fn. 3.
I find the carefully reasoned dissent by my esteemed colleague, Judge Cavanaugh, in Balter to be most persuasive on this issue. His analysis of the case law, and his rejection of the notion that a jurisdictional issue is raised *318merely by consideration of the division within a common pleas court in which an action is commenced is, in my view, unassailable. See Balter v. Balter, supra, 284 Pa.Superior Ct. at 360-64, 425 A.2d at 1143-45 (Dissenting Opinion, Cavanaugh, J.)
Although the majority on this appeal, and the two-judge majority in Balter, rely heavily on Section 17 of the Schedule to Article V of the Pennsylvania Constitution, it would seem that Section 17 has lost a good bit of its vitality by virtue of the enactment of the Act of July 9, 1976, P.L. 586, No. 142, the Judiciary Act of 1976, generally effective June 27, 1978, which provides in Section 26(b) thereof:
(b) Subsections (o), (p) and (q) of section 16, and sections 17 and 25, Schedule to Article V of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, adopted April 23, 1968, are hereby superseded. and suspended absolutely effective upon the date upon which the provision is or was suspended absolutely by general rule.
In enacting the Judicial Code [Section 2 of Act No. 142, supra], our legislature expressly dealt with the status of court divisions as follows:
§ 952. Status of court divisions The divisions of a court of common pleas are administrative units composed of those judges of the court responsible for the transaction of specified classes of the business of the court. In a court of common pleas having two or more divisions each division of the court is vested with the full jurisdiction of the whole court but the business of the court may be allocated among the divisions of the court by or pursuant to general rules. 1976, July 9, P.L., 586, No. 142, § 2, effective June 27, 1978, 42 Pa.C.S. § 952.
(emphasis added).
In a case decided by this court thirteen months after the decision in Balter, our distinguished colleague, Judge Lipez, speaking for a unanimous three-judge panel, recognized that, by virtue of Section 952 of the Judicial Code, any division would have jurisdiction of the assumpsit action, *319regardless of whether it was the division to which that type of case had been administratively assigned. Guerin v. Guerin, 296 Pa.Super. 400, 404 fn. 3, 442 A.2d 1112, 1113-14 fn. 3 (1982). This point was first recognized by Judge Cavanaugh in his Balter dissent.
Judge Cavanaugh has done a careful job of collecting the cases pertinent to this issue, in Balter, including the decision of our sister court in Sto-Rox Focus on Renewal Neighborhood Corporation v. King, 40 Pa.Commw. 640, 398 A.2d 241 (1979) (Opinion by Mencer, J.). No purpose would be served by repeating his excellent analysis here.
As observed by Judge Cavanaugh in Balter, I also conclude that the holding of our supreme court in Binder v. Miller, 456 Pa. 11, 317 A.2d 304 (1974) has lost none of its precedential value, and remains the law which we must follow. The question as to which division of a court of common pleas is the proper forum for commencing an action in assumpsit involving a support agreement is not one of jurisdiction, but of internal common pleas court administration. Posner v. Sheridan, 451 Pa. 51, 299 A.2d 309 (1973). Accord, Commonwealth ex rel Stein v. Stein, 487 Pa. 1, 406 A.2d 1381 (1979); Binder v. Miller, supra.
I’m prepared to await a decision from our supreme court which holds otherwise. Hence this dissent.