OPINION BY Judge LEAVITT. Edward Taylor petitions for review of an adjudication of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (Board) that recommitted him as a convicted parole violator and recalculated his maximum sentence date. The Board based its determination on Taylor's criminal conviction in the State of Georgia. In this appeal we consider whether the Board erred in concluding that a Georgia state court is, in fact, a "court of record" for purposes of the Prisons and Parole Code,...
OPINION BY Judge LEAVITT. Janet Royal appeals an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (trial court) entering summary judgment in favor of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Finding no error in the trial court's determination that SEPTA was immune from liability for injuries Royal sustained as she exited a SEPTA bus, we affirm. On December 27, 2006, Royal boarded a SEPTA bus at 55th and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia. Realizing she had boarded...
OPINION BY President Judge LEADBETTER. The Carbon County Board of Assessment Appeals and Jim Thorpe Area School District appeal from the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Carbon County, which sustained the real estate tax assessment appeal of Christopher S. Smith. On appeal, we must determine whether Smith met his burden of demonstrating that the assessment of his condominium violated the Uniformity Clause of our Constitution 1 and, if so, whether common pleas erred in reducing the...
OPINION BY Senior Judge FRIEDMAN. Pitt Chemical and Sanitary Supply Company, Inc. (Employer) petitions for review of the April 30, 2010, order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (UCBR) affirming a referee's decision to award benefits to Rudolph M. Seneca (Claimant) under Pennsylvania's Unemployment Compensation Law (Law). 1 The relevant facts, as found by the UCBR, are as follows: 1. The claimant was last employed as an outside sales person by Pitt Chemical and Sanitary...
OPINION BY Judge COHN JUBELIRER. Giuseppe Basile (Basile) appeals from the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County (trial court), which affirmed the decision of the Zoning Hearing Board of the Borough of Moosic (ZHB) denying a building permit to erect a roof over a 20-foot by 40-foot outdoor concrete patio attached to Basile's restaurant. Basile is the owner of Grande Pizza Restaurant (Building), which is located at 4200 Birney Avenue in the Borough of Moosic (Borough). On...
OPINION BY Senior Judge KELLEY. John Scott (Objector) appeals from the June 30, 2009 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (trial court) affirming the decision of the Zoning Board of Adjustment of the City of Philadelphia (Board) granting Moyer Logistics, Inc. (Moyer) zoning variances for the residential development of property located at 412-24 Moyer Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1 We vacate and remand. Moyer is the developer of property located at 412-24 Moyer...
OPINION BY Senior Judge FLAHERTY. Liberty Bail Bonds (Liberty) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County (trial court) which denied, without prejudice, Liberty's application to act as a surety in Montgomery County, as Liberty's Montgomery County Surety agent, Robert Allan Stockett (Stockett), fails to comply with Montgomery County Local Rule of Criminal Procedure (Local Rule) 531(A)(10)(a), as he does not maintain an office in Montgomery County. We reverse and...
OPINION BY Judge LEAVITT. Joseph F. Stoner, M.D., petitions for review of an adjudication of the State Board of Medicine (Board) revoking his license to practice medicine for unprofessional conduct. The Board held that Dr. Stoner's examinations of two female patients constituted sexual misconduct for the stated reason that these examinations deviated from accepted standards of medical care and were medically unnecessary. Because the record lacked expert testimony to support the Board's premise...
OPINION BY Senior Judge FRIEDMAN. Lawrence S. Herman, D.C., Nachas, Inc., Jason H. Herman, Mitchell Chiropractic Center and Thomas C. Mitchell, D.C., (together, Herman) appeal from the December 31, 2009, order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County (trial court), which sustained preliminary objections filed by Capital Blue Cross, a nonprofit Pennsylvania Corporation (Capital), and Highmark, Inc., d/b/a Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and Pennsylvania Blue Shield, a nonprofit Pennsylvania...
OPINION BY Judge BROBSON. Petitioner Fidelity & Guarantee Insurance Company (Insurer) petitions for review of an order of a hearing officer (Hearing Officer) of the Bureau of Workers' Compensation Fee Review Hearing Office (Bureau), which determined that Community Medical Center's (Provider) Application for Fee Review was timely filed within ninety (90) days of the original billing date pursuant to Section 306(f.1)(5) of the Workers' Compensation Act (Act) 1 and 34 Pa.Code 127.252(a) (...
OPINION BY Judge COHN JUBELIRER. Melvin Day (Claimant) petitions for review of the order of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (Board), which affirmed the decision and order of the Workers' Compensation Judge (WCJ). In her decision and order, the WCJ granted the Petition to Suspend Compensation Benefits (Suspension Petition) filed by the City of Pittsburgh (Employer) on the grounds that Claimant had retired and failed to show either that he was forced to retire from the entire workforce...
OPINION BY Judge BROBSON. Petitioner Rosemarie A. Beddis (Claimant) appeals from an order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (Board), affirming a Referee's determination that Claimant was not eligible for unemployment compensation benefits under Section 402(b) of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law) 1 because she voluntarily severed her employment with Saint Grobain Abrasives (Employer) "without cause of a necessitous and compelling nature." Concluding that the Board's...
OPINION BY Judge COHN JUBELIRER. City of Pittsburgh and UPMC Benefit Management Services, Inc. (together, Employer) petition for review of the order of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (Board), which affirmed the decision and order of the Workers' Compensation Judge (WCJ). In his decision and order, the WCJ denied Employer's Petition to Suspend Compensation Benefits (Suspension Petition) on the grounds that Employer failed to show that work was available within the work restrictions of...
OPINION BY Senior Judge FLAHERTY. Cathy Holler (Appellant) appeals from the December 4, 2008 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Beaver County (trial court) which denied Appellant's petition entitled "Emergency Verified Motion to Enforce this Court's Order of November 30, 2007 to Vacate an Improperly Scheduled Judicial Sale for December 8, 2008." Also before our court is the Beaver County Tax Claim Bureau's (Tax Bureau) motion to quash the appeal as moot or as an interlocutory order. We deny...
OPINION BY Senior Judge FRIEDMAN. Firetree, LTD., (Firetree) petitions for review of the April 22, 2010, order of the Department of Corrections (Department), which dismissed Firetree's bid protest as untimely. We affirm. The Department issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for Community Contract Facility Services, i.e., for community-based facilities to house offenders being released into communities in three regions throughout the Commonwealth. Firetree responded to the RFP, proposing...
OPINION BY Senior Judge FRIEDMAN. John J. and Ann K. Luciani appeal from the October 8, 2009, order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County (trial court) vacating the tax upset sale of property located at 54 South Richland Avenue in York, Pennsylvania (Property). We affirm. Donalynn Properties, Inc. (DPI) purchased the Property on July 17, 2003. DPI is a Maryland corporation solely owned by Maryland resident D. Scott Matthews. In 2006, DPI failed to pay its real estate taxes on the...
OPINION BY Judge McCULLOUGH. Ferguson Electric Co., Inc. (Ferguson) appeals from the September 23, 2009, order of the Board of Claims (Board), which sustained the preliminary objections filed by the Department of General Services (DGS) and dismissed Ferguson's claim for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm. On January 14, 1994, DGS and Ferguson entered into a contract for the performance of electrical work in the construction of the state correctional institution at Houtzdale, Pennsylvania. The...
OPINION BY Judge McGINLEY. Governor Edward Rendell and Dennis Wolff, Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and a consortium of dairy cooperatives representing a majority of the dairy farmers in Pennsylvania, including Dairylea, Inc., Dairy Farmers of America, Inc., Dairy Marketing Services, LLC, Land-O'-Lakes, Inc., Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association, Inc. and Upstate Niagara Cooperative, Inc. (collectively referred to hereinafter as "...
OPINION BY Judge McCULLOUGH. Trib Total Media, Inc. (TTM) appeals from the August 6, 2009, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County (trial court), which granted Highlands School District's (District) motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed TTM's complaint with prejudice. The question before us is one of first impression: whether the Highlands School Board (Board) violated the Sunshine Act, 65 Pa. C.S. 701-716, by inviting local business owners to participate in an...
OPINION BY Judge PELLEGRINI. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (Reynolds) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas for Philadelphia County (trial court) finding it violated the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement and was in contempt of court for violation of the Consent Decree because it used cartoons in the promotion and advertising of its tobacco products. Because the trial court erred in determining Reynolds was liable for a third-party's use of cartoons in an independently produced...
