Yan, W. v. Colon, A. of Yan ( 2020 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
MIDDLE DISTRICT
WEI YAN AND HAIDI ZHANG : No. 441 MAL 2020
:
:
v. : Petition for Allowance of Appeal from
: the Unpublished Order of the
: Superior Court at No. 30 EDA 2020
ALEXANDER COLON AND JULIA COLON : entered on June 15, 2020,
: dismissing the Order of the
: Montgomery County Court of
PETITION OF: WEI YAN : Common Pleas at No. No. 2013-
: 03465 entered on November 13,
: 2019
ORDER
PER CURIAM DECIDED: December 29, 2020
AND NOW, this 29th day of December, 2020, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal
is GRANTED LIMITED TO the following issue:
Whether the Superior Court of Pennsylvania has erroneously
entered the order with comment on June 15, 2020, dismissing
[Petitioner’s] appeal at No. 30 EDA 2020?
Allocatur is DENIED as to all remaining issues.
In sua sponte dismissing Petitioner’s appeal, the Superior Court held that it had
“previously dismissed an appeal from this decision based on Appellant’s failure to file
post-trial motions.’” Yan v. Colon, Appeal of Wei Yan, 30 EDA 2020 (Pa. Super. June 15,
2020) (per curiam order). Presumably, the intermediate appellate court was referencing
the prior appeal that had been pursued by Petitioner’s wife. See Yan v. Colon, Appeal of
Haidi Zhang, 1124 EDA 2019 (Pa.Super. June 7, 2019) (per curiam order) (sua sponte
dismissing the appeal for the failure to preserve any issues for appeal via post-trial
motions).
Petitioner was not a party to that prior appeal. The Court of Common Pleas of
Montgomery County had bifurcated Petitioner’s complaint from the complaint filed by
Petitioner’s wife on the basis that Petitioner was unable to appear before the Court
because he was out of the country. The common pleas court allowed the complaint filed
by Petitioner’s wife to proceed to trial, and it was the resulting judgment on the wife’s
complaint that was the subject of the prior appeal at 1124 EDA 2019.
The common pleas court dismissed Petitioner’s complaint without prejudice to
seek its reinstatement when he was able to return to the United States. Petitioner sought
such reinstatement from the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, which
denied the request by order dated November 12, 2019. That order was the subject of
Petitioner’s appeal before the Superior Court docketed at 30 EDA 2020. Because
Petitioner’s appeal involves at least one different party and poses a distinct legal inquiry
to which the post-trial practice of Rule 227.1 is seemingly inapplicable, the Superior Court
erred in holding that Petitioner’s appeal was foreclosed by the resolution of his wife’s
appeal. Compare Commonwealth v. Starr, 664 A.2d 1326, 1331 (Pa. 1995) (explaining
that, as part of the law-of-the-case doctrine, “upon a second appeal, an appellate court
may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the same appellate
court”); Commonwealth v. Tilghman, 673 A.2d 898, 903 n.8 (Pa. 1996) (“It is hornbook
law that issues decided by an appellate court on a prior appeal between the same parties
become the law of the case and will not be reconsidered on a subsequent appeal on
another phase of the same case.”) (quotations omitted).
The Order of the Superior Court is VACATED, and the matter is REMANDED to
the Superior Court for consideration of the merits of Petitioner’s appeal.
[441 MAL 2020] - 2
The Application for Leave to Amend his Petition for Allowance of Appeal is
DENIED.
Jurisdiction Relinquished.
[441 MAL 2020] - 3