Tuesday, July 10, 2007

courts- appeals - MDJ judgments - date of judgment

Lloyd, Inc. v. Microbytes, Inc. - Superior Court - July 9, 2007

http://www.aopc.org/OpPosting/Superior/out/a10028_07.pdf

The time to appeal an MDJ judgment was held to begin to run on the "date of judgement" entered on the Notice of Judgment/Transcript Civil Case, on which the MDJ signed the judgment, rather than the next day, on which the Notice was processed.

A judgment is "entered" under MDJ Rule 1002 when the judgment form is signed by the MDJ, not when it is printed out and the process of providing notice of the judgment is initiated. A judgment is encountered simultaneously with the recordation of the judgment on the pre-printed judgment/transcript form. The rules could have allowed the appeal period to begin on the date the notice is printed. They do not, so "we must assume that the appeal period was meant to begin with the signing of the judgment form by the magisterial district judge."

mortgage foreclosure - Act 91 notice - local consumer counseling agency - jurisdiction

Washington Mutual v. Carr - CP Adams County - July 5, 2006
49 Adams L.J. 17 (CP Adams 2006)

In what the court said was a matter of first impression in the state, it held that Act 91 requires a mortgage holder to give the name and address of a "local" consumer credit counseling agency (CCCA), 35 P.S. 1680.403c(b)(1), which the Pa. Housing Finance Agency has indicated mean as being "for the county" in which the property in located. In the instant case, the mortgagee listing 47 CCCAs but none in the county where the property was located and only five in the neighboring counties comprising south central Pennsylvania.

Citing case law to the effect that Act 91 is meant to protect vulnerable consumers unschooled in the complex world of mortgage foreclosure from the loss of their homes due to ignorance of their rights in a sometimes sharp practice of lenders," the court found the "Bank's cavalier shotgun approach to proving appropriate notice to a mortgagor is insufficient to satisfy the jurisdictional prerequisites provided for in Act 91." The court found that the defect could not be cured by amendment and dismissed the complaint, finding that strict and not just substantial compliance with Act 91 was required, since proper notice under Act 91 is a jurisdictional matter. PHA v. Barbour, 592 A.2d 47, 48 (Pa. Super. 1991). "[L]ack of compliance, even if minimal or inadvertent, denies the Court jurisdiction."