Miller v. Commonwealth, Unemployment Compensation Board of Review
Miller v. Commonwealth, Unemployment Compensation Board of Review
Opinion of the Court
OPINION OF THE COURT
Raymond J. Miller appeals by allowance an order of Commonwealth Court which quashed his petition for review of a decision of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (Board). The court held that Miller’s petition was untimely because it was not filed within thirty (30) days of the entry of the Board’s order. Commonwealth Court based its holding on its determination that Miller’s petition for review was not filed in the Prothonotary’s Office until three days after the final day for filing, and the petition was not accompanied by a date-stamped United States Postal Service Form 3817 evidencing the date of mailing.
While appellant’s petition for review failed to comply with the requirement of the applicable appellate rule,
I
Appellant, a crane operator, last worked on January 15, 1982, when his employer, Mesta Machine Company, laid him off due to the closing of the plant where he was employed. Prior to his layoff, appellant had secured part-time work with a security company during a strike at Mesta. Because his prior application for part-time work was still marked “part-time” when he applied for unemployment compensation after being laid off, the Bureau of Unemployment Compensation held that appellant was not “able and available” for work and denied his claim.
Miller appealed to a referee, who affirmed the Bureau’s decision. He then filed an appeal with the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review. The Board affirmed the referee’s decision on August 18, 1982. Thus the last day of the 30-day period for filing a petition for review from the Board’s order was September 17, 1982, a Friday. Pa.R.A.P. 1512(a)(1).
Appellant’s petition for review was mailed by appellant counsel’s secretary on Wednesday, September 15, 1982 from the United States Post Office in Clairton, Pennsylvania.
However, in order to be docketed at that time it appears the petition must have been at the main Harrisburg Post Office on or before Friday, September 17th. All mailings to Commonwealth Court first go to the main post office in Harrisburg. They are then transferred to the court’s post office box at a second post office in Harrisburg where they are picked up by a court employee. Because the second post office is closed Saturdays and Sundays, appellant’s petition could not have been transferred on the 18th or 19th of September, and in order to be present at the second post office on Monday morning when the court picked up its mail, it must have been transferred before 9:20 A.M. Monday the, 20th when the court employee signed for appellant’s petition, or it had to have been transferred there before the weekend.
Petitioner’s attorney, in a letter to the Prothonotary of Commonwealth Court, offered an affidavit of mailing and the receipt for certified mail prepared by his secretary as evidence that the petition was mailed on the 15th. He also notified the Prothonotary of Commonwealth Court of his investigation of the route the petition took through the mails and its presence in Harrisburg on the 17th. The Prothonotary stated in a reply letter that in the absence of either a Form 3817 or a date-stamped Form 3800 (Receipt for Certified Mail), he was without authority to amend the dockets of the court to show a filing before September 20. Commonwealth Court granted appellee’s motion to quash
II
At the outset, we note that the “just, speedy and inexpensive determination”
Those same rules, however, are to be “liberally construed.” Pa.R.A.P. 105(a); Pa.R.C.P. 126. We have long refused to give overly technical, restrictive readings to procedural rules, particularly when remedial statutes such as the Unemployment Compensation Act are involved. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review v. Jolliffe, 474 Pa. 584, 379 A.2d 109 (1977); Lattanzio v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 461 Pa. 392, 336 A.2d 595 (1975). Dismissals are particularly disfavored. “The extreme action of dismissal should be imposed by an appellate court sparingly, and clearly would be inappropriate when there has been substantial compliance with the rules and when the moving party has suffered no prejudice.” Stout v. Universal Underwriters Insurance Co., 491 Pa. 601, 604, 421 A.2d 1047, 1049 (1980) (Rules of Appellate Procedure); See also In Re Tax Claim Bureau, German Township, Mt. Sterling 54½ Acres, Miscellaneous Buildings, 496 Pa. 46, 436 A.2d 144 (1981) (Rules of Civil Procedure).
We do not condone untimeliness. In cases such as this, however, where the record shows clearly and without dispute that a petition for review was timely mailed prior to the 30-day jurisdictional deadline, where counsel for the appellant apprises the court of the record in that respect and timeliness can be determined from an examination of
We need not have drafted our rules to equate the date of mailing with the date of filing. Nevertheless, our rules do allow filing by mail, and our courts cannot consistently judge a petition as timely by the date of its mailing and at the same time reject that petition when the record is sufficient to show a timely mailing.
Order of Commonwealth Court reversed and case remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
. Pa.R.A.P. 1514(a).
. It is not clear from the record whether the petition was docketed at 9:20 A.M. or 9:52 A.M. on September 20. A time-date stamp for the earlier time had been crossed out and replaced by the later time stamp. For the purpose of this opinion, we will assume the later time is accurate, the first stamp having been erroneously used.
. Pa.R.A.P. 105(a); Pa.R.C.P. 126.
. Pa.R.A.P. 1514(a) provides in relevant part:
If the petition for review is transmitted to the prothonotary by means of first class mail, the petition shall be deemed received by the prothonotary for the purposes of Rule 121(a) (filing) on the date deposited in the United States mail, as shown on a U.S. Postal Service Form 3817 certificate of mailing enclosed with the petition (see 39 C.F.R. § 165.1 et seq.). The certificate of mailing shall show the docket number of the matter in the government unit. Upon actual receipt of the petition for review the prothonotary shall immediately stamp it with the date of actual receipt. That date, or the date of earlier deposit in the United States mail as prescribed in this subdivision, shall constitute the date when review was sought, which date shall be shown on the docket.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Raymond J. MILLER v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD OF REVIEW
- Cited By
- 57 cases
- Status
- Published