Pennsylvania appellate practitioners should know about a number of things that have occurred since my last article. Two are rules changes. The third is a most unusual footnote in an en banc Pennsylvania Superior Court decision.
Unpublished Superior Court Opinions To Become Citable
Not quite 18 months ago, I devoted an entire article to Pennsylvania Superior Court’s IOP Section 65.37, which declares that court’s memorandum opinions totally uncitable. I offered my opinion that IOP Section 65.37 could implicate the Pennsylvania Constitution’s open courts clause. In December 2016, however, the Appellate Court Procedural Rules Committee proposed an amendment to Pa. R.A.P. 126 that would supersede IOP Section 65.37. This newly proposed rule would make all unpublished appellate decisions in Pennsylvania—from both the Superior and Commonwealth courts—”citable” for whatever “persuasive value that the court chooses to attribute to it.”
