Pennsylvania appellate practitioners recite like a mantra the necessity of filing post-trial motions prior to an appeal—and not without reason. Pa R. Civ. P. 227.1 requires that post-trial motions be filed within 10 days of the final decision to preserve issues for appeal. If an issue has not been raised in a post-trial motion, it is waived for appeal purposes, e.g., Lane Enterprises v. L.B. Foster, 710 A.2d 54, 54 (Pa. 1998). “Where the trial court has no post-trial motion to consider … the parties have not presented the trial court with issues to deal with in an opinion and waiver occurs,” as in Behar v. Frazier, 724 A.2d 943, 945 (Pa. Super. 1999).

Rule 227.1, however, “does not define the word ‘trial’ nor does it address what proceedings—if any—short of a full-blown jury or bench trial should be deemed to constitute a trial for purposes of the post-trial motion requirement and consequent peril of waiver,” as in Newman Development Group v. Genuardi’s Family Markets, 52 A.3d 1233, 1247 (Pa. 2012). Thus, almost as soon as Rule 227.1 went into effect in 1983, exceptions began being carved into its general rule.