A simmering controversy over the seemingly arcane issue of multiple appeal numbers on notices of appeal in related appeals boiled over recently, spawning three Superior Court en banc decisions, and a concurrent appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The net result, at least for now, is the that the appellate trap for the unwary created in Commonwealth v. Creese, 216 A.3d 1142 (Pa. Super. 2019), essentially no longer exists. The former Creese rule—that inclusion of more than one appellate docket number on any notice of appeal, even where separate notices are filed, is a fatal defect requiring that the appeal be quashed—is overruled. However, everything is subject to a pending appeal in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

This saga begins with Commonwealth v. Walker, 185 A.3d 969 (Pa. 2018). In Walker, several defendants, were charged in separately docketed actions. All the defendants won a motion to suppress evidence applicable to all their cases, and the commonwealth appealed. But the commonwealth filed only one notice of appeal that “listed the four docket numbers.” The Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure did not directly cover this situation, however, an “official note” added to Pa. R.A.P. 341 in 2013 stated, “where … one or more orders resolves issues arising on more than one docket or relating to more than one judgment, separate notices of appeals must be filed.”

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