In Re: Petition of A.M.M. v. The PA State Police , 194 A.3d 1114 ( 2018 )

J-A13029-18
2018 Pa. Super. 236
IN RE: PETITION OF A.M.M. : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
Appellant :
:
:
v. :
:
:
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE : No. 1275 WDA 2017
AND ALLEGHENY COUNTY :
DEPARTMENT OF BEHAVIORAL :
HEALTH :
Appeal from the Order September 11, 2017
In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Orphans' Court at
No(s): CC 253 OF 2017
BEFORE: OLSON, J., DUBOW, J., and MUSMANNO, J.
OPINION BY DUBOW, J.: FILED AUGUST 28, 2018
A.M.M. appeals from the Order entered in the Allegheny County
Orphans’ Court dismissing her Petition for Expungement filed pursuant to 18
Pa.C.S. § 6111.1(g)(2) challenging the sufficiency of the evidence underlying
her March 2000 involuntary commitment for mental health treatment
pursuant to the Mental Health Procedures Act (“MHPA”), 50 P.S. § 7302.1 After
careful review, we conclude that because A.M.M. waited seventeen years to
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1 Appellant filed her notice of appeal on September 6, 2017, from the court’s
oral pronouncement of dismissal made on August 23, 2017. The court entered
its Order, however, on September 11, 2017. Although the Notice of Appeal
was filed prior to the entry of the Order from which appeal is taken, pursuant
to Pa.R.A.P. 905(a)(5), a notice of appeal filed after the announcement of a
determination but before the entry of an appealable order shall be treated as
filed after such entry. We have changed the caption the reflect the Order’s
docket entry date.
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challenge her involuntary commitment, the doctrine of laches applies to bar
her expungement action. Accordingly, we affirm.
On March 26, 2000, Appellant was involuntary committed to a hospital
under Section 302 of the MHPA. Seventeen years later, after she attempted
to purchase a firearm, she filed a Petition for Expungement pursuant to 18
Pa.C.S. 6111.1(g)(2).2 See “Petition for an Order to Declare Null and Void
and To Vacate and Expunge and Destroy the Records of Involuntary
Emergency Examination and Treatment Pursuant to Section 7302 of the
[MHPA,]” filed 6/2/17. Appellant based her Petition on a contention that the
involuntary commitment was “invalid and illegal due to failure to comp[l]y
with the requirements of the [MHPA].” Id. at 1. She annexed to her Petition
a letter from the records manager at Heritage Valley Health System in
Sewickley, Pennsylvania, addressed “to Whom it May Concern,” indicating that
medical records of adults are destroyed after ten years. See Letter, marked
Exhibit A. Appellant also annexed two identical copies of a Notification of
Mental Health Commitment (“Act 77 Notifications”) indicating that Dr. Valley
of the Suburban General Hospital certified Appellant’s involuntary
commitment. See Act 77 Notifications, annexed as Exhibit A to Petition to
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2Appellant also sought relief from the prohibition against possessing firearms
pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(c)(4). However, she abandoned that request
by not presenting any argument on that portion of the relief requested at the
hearing before the trial court, and has presented no issues pertaining to the
denial of Section 6105 relief in this appeal.
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Expunge. Appellant also annexed, also as part of Exhibit A, a copy of a “302
Dump Report” dated March 26, 2000, indicating that her involuntary
commitment was the result of having taken “a handful of doxepin.” 3 See 302
Dump Report.4
The orphan’s court held an expungement hearing on August 22, 2017,
at which the court did not consider the merits and the only issue argued by
the attorneys was whether a six-year statute of limitations, the discovery rule,
and/or laches applied to the action. The Pennsylvania State Police (“PSP”)
argued that the Petition should be dismissed “on its face” because the six-
year statute of limitations provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 5527(b) barred the
expungement action5 and the discovery rule did not apply. N.T., 8/22/17, at
4, 6, 9. Alternatively, PSP averred that laches barred the expungement action
because A.M.M. had waited seventeen years to challenge the sufficiency of the
evidence supporting her involuntary commitment. See id. at 7 (counsel
stating “[h]ospitals have retention requirements. They probably have purged
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3Doxepin is used to treat, inter alia, anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMHT0000618/.
4The 302 Dump Report refers to Appellant as “client” and Officer Donald
Mason as “petitioner,” who acted pursuant to a warrant. See 302 Dump
Report.
5 42 Pa.C.S. § 5527(b) provides that “[a]ny civil action or proceeding which is
neither subject to another limitation specified in this subchapter nor excluded
from the application of a period of limitation by section 5531 (relating to no
limitation) must be commenced within six years.”
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the records that were there or whatever their process is[.]”). A.M.M.’s
counsel responded that the discovery rule applied; therefore, if a six-year
statute of limitations applied, it did not begin to run until 2017 when A.M.M.
learned that she could not obtain a firearms license because of the
commitment.
After hearing counsels’ arguments, the court dismissed the Petition.
Appellant appealed. Both Appellant and the orphan’s court complied
with Pa.R.A.P 1925.
Appellant raises the following issues for our review:
1. Is evidence that a commitment occurred essential to opposing
an expungement action?
2. Is the 302 application form a necessity to a 302 commitment?
3. Does due process require that 302 application form to be
entered into evidence?
4. Is the doctrine of laches not applicable without an evidentiary
hearing?
5. Is the doctrine of laches applicable to void commitments?
Appellant’s Brief at 2-3 (unnecessary capitalization and commentary omitted).
We review the trial court’s denial of a motion for expunction for an abuse
of its discretion Commonwealth v. Smerconish, 112 A.3d 1260, 1263 (Pa.
Super. 2015) (citations omitted).
Appellant relied on 18 Pa.C.S. §6111.1(g)(2) to challenge the sufficiency
of the evidence supporting her seventeen-year-old Section 302 commitment.
Section 6111.1(g)(2) provides:
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(2) A person who is involuntarily committed pursuant to section
302 of the Mental Health Procedures Act may petition the court to
review the sufficiency of the evidence upon which the commitment
was based. If the court determines that the evidence upon which
the involuntary commitment was based was insufficient, the court
shall order that the record of the commitment submitted to the
Pennsylvania State Police be expunged. A petition filed under this
subsection shall toll the 60-day period set forth under section
6105(a)(2).6
18 Pa.C.S. § 6111.1(g)(2)
Our Supreme Court has held that a Section 6111.1(g)(2) expungement
petition does not garner a trial de novo; rather, the only evidence the court
need consider is that which supported the commitment (i.e., the physician’s
records) and requires deference to the physician’s findings of fact. In re
Vencil, 152 A.3d 235, 242 (Pa. 2017). However, where the passage of time
makes it impossible to ascertain the details of the underlying facts and
procedures, the doctrine of laches may bar the requested relief.
Laches is an equitable remedy that “bars relief when the complaining
party is guilty of want of due diligence in failing to promptly institute the action
to the prejudice of another.” Sprague v. Casey, 550 A.2d 184, 187 (Pa.
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6 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(c)(4) provides that a person who has been involuntarily
committed to a mental institution for inpatient care and treatment under
Section 302 of MHPA may not possess a firearm. Section 6105(a)(2)
mandates that such a person has 60 days in which to sell or otherwise
relinquish or dispose of their firearms. 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(a)(2). As noted
above, a Section 6111.1(g)(2) challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence
tolls that 60-day relinquishment period. Our legislature has not, however,
provided a statute of limitations period in the MHPA for challenging the
sufficiency of the evidence supporting the Section 302 commitment.
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1988) (citation omitted). It is well-settled that the doctrine of laches applies
“by reason of the original transactions having become so obscured by time as
to render the ascertainment of the exact facts impossible.” Fulton v. Fulton,
106 A.3d 127, 134 (Pa. Super. 2014). See also § 79:79. Laches,
generally, 14 Standard Pennsylvania Practice 2d § 79:79 (“It is clearly
in the public interest that, at some ascertainable time, a party must be
required to discover the full extent of his or her claim and to assert it in the
courts so as to prevent the threat of litigation from hampering indefinitely the
business of government or private parties.”).
“[I]n order to prevail on an assertion of laches, respondents must
establish: a) a delay arising from petitioner's failure to exercise due diligence;
and b) prejudice to the respondents resulting from the delay.” Sprague,
supra, at 188 (citations omitted). “[T]he sort of prejudice required to raise
the defense of laches is some changed condition of the parties which occurs
during the period of, and in reliance on, the delay.” Id. The question of
laches is factual and is determined by examining the circumstances of each
case. Id. at 188 (citing Leedom v. Thomas, 373 A.2d 1329 (Pa. 1977)).
Thus,
The correct inquiry in determining whether [one’s] conduct
resulted in a want of due diligence is to focus not upon what the
plaintiff knows, but what he might have known, by the use of the
means of information within his reach, with the vigilance the law
requires of him[.] What the law requires of petitioner is to
discover those facts which were discoverable through the exercise
of reasonable diligence.
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Sprague, supra at 188 (citations and internally quotation marks omitted).
Appellant does not dispute that she was transported to Suburban
General Hospital on March 26, 2000, by a police officer, and the documents
she attached to her Petition show that to be the case. The documents also
show that Dr. Valley at the hospital certified Appellant’s involuntary
commitment. Appellant nonetheless asserts that because the PSP did not
produce a copy of the 302 application to oppose her expungement petition,
the “PSP cannot possibly prove that an alleged 302 commitment was lawful
and valid, that it complied with each and every one of the procedural
mandates and due process protections of the MHPA[.]” Appellant’s Brief at
26. Appellant is essentially challenging the sufficiency of the evidence
supporting her involuntary commitment.
While the MHPA provides no statute of limitations for bringing a
challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the commitment, it is
reasonable to conclude that the passage of seventeen years has “rendered the
ascertainment of the exact facts impossible.” Fulton, supra at 134. Indeed,
the letter Appellant submitted to the court from the Heritage Valley Health
System in Sewickley indicating the destruction of records after ten years
supports the conclusion that Appellant’s delay in seeking review has resulted
in prejudice, not only to the medical agency who would have submitted the
Section 302 application, but also to Appellant herself.
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We conclude that Appellant is “guilty of want of due diligence in failing
to promptly institute the action” seeking to expunge her record of
commitment. Sprague, supra, at 187. Accordingly, the trial court properly
dismissed Appellant’s Petition for Expungement based on laches.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 8/28/2018
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