Previously published in The Legal Intelligencer on Thursday, May 19, 2011.
The importance of meeting court deadlines goes without saying (though, given the number of judicial decisions involving untimely filings, maybe it cannot be said enough). In any event, lawyers well know the serious consequences, in both civil and criminal cases, of not filing complaints, motions or appeals from adverse decisions within the time periods set forth in statutes and court rules. Two recent Pennsylvania Superior Court decisions emphasize the importance of not only filing on time, but in the right place.
First, in Commonwealth v. Crawford, the trial court dismissed a prisoner's petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act on May 13, 2009. Twenty-eight days later (two days before the time for filing an appeal would expire), the prisoner, whose counsel had withdrawn following entry of final judgment, mailed a pro se notice of appeal to the trial judge's chambers. He failed, however, to send the notice of appeal to the clerk's office for the trial court. While the trial court found that the prisoner had taken sufficient steps to effectuate his appeal, the Superior Court disagreed, holding that the applicable rule required that the notice of appeal be sent to the clerk of courts. Thus, it quashed the appeal.
On the same day it issued its decision in Crawford, the Superior Court issued a decision in a dispute involving defaulted commercial loans, Home Savings & Loan Co. v. Irongate Ventures. In Home Savings, the lender filed two separate actions against defaulted borrowers and their guarantors: a complaint in confession of judgment and an action seeking foreclosure and sale of the property securing the loan.
Judgment eventually was entered for Home Savings in the foreclosure action and the property was sold to Home Savings. Under the Deficiency Judgment Act, where property is sold to a judgment creditor for an amount less than the judgment, the creditor may seek from the debtor the difference between the fair market value of the property (rather than its actual sale price following foreclosure) and the total amount of the judgment, but only if the creditor files a petition to fix the fair market value of the property within six months of the sale.
Home Savings filed such a petition, within six months of the sale, but in the confession action. After six months had passed following the sale, the debtors and guarantors sought to have the judgments against them marked satisfied. The trial court granted the debtors' and guarantors'
petitions, and the Superior Court affirmed. The appeals court held that the plain language of the statute required the petition to fix fair market value to be filed in the action in which the property was sold.
While Home Savings filed its petition within the required six-month time period, it did so in the confession action and not in the foreclosure action in which the property was sold. Thus, it forfeited its right to seek any deficiency in its judgment and the judgment was properly marked satisfied.
The obvious lesson from Crawford and Home Savings is that filing a complaint, motion or appeal in a timely manner is only one required step; doing so in the proper place is an equally important step. And failing to file in the right place can turn a timely filing into an untimely one in no time at all.
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