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433 Pa. 219

Bellotti v. Spaeder

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided January 15, 1969

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1969-01-15

Relies on Echon v. Pennsylyania Railroad · Ross v. Metropolitan Life Insurance · McGee v. SINGLEY

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1969-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently February 2008 · most notably 332 Pa. Super. 48 - Bartanus v. Lis (1984), 344 Pa. Super. 367 - Standard Pipeline Coating Co. v. Solomon & Teslovich, Inc. (1985)

40 state decisions

20019691970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1 Opinion by

Mk. Justice Eagen,

¶2 This action was brought to recover damages for personal injuries suffered in an automobile accident. The original defendant moved for judgment on the pleadings on the ground that the action was barred by the statute of limitations. From the denial of this motion, the present appeal was filed. It must be quashed.

¶3 An order denying a defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings is interlocutory and is not appealable. McGee v. Singley, 382 Pa. 18, 114 A. 2d 141 (1955), and Vendetti v. Schuster, 1 418 Pa. 68, 208 A. 2d 864 (1965). But it is asserted that a question of jurisdiction is involved, and hence, an appeal lies under the Act of March 5, 1925, P. L. 23, 12 P.S. §672. This is not correct.

¶4 The Act of 1925, supra, allows an appeal “where-ever in any proceeding in law or in equity the question of jurisdiction over the defendant or the cause of action for which suit is brought is raised in the court of first instance . . . .” In the instant case, there can be no question of the court’s competence to hear the controversy or of its jurisdiction over the person of the defendant after valid service of process. The defense raised does not go to the judicial power of the court as to the cause or its jurisdiction over the person of the defendant, but rather to the mode in which the case is brought before the court.

¶5*221 In personal injury actions, the defense of the statute of limitations does not divest the court of power to hear the action and may be waived by consent or conduct of the parties. It is merely a procedural bar to recovery. Echon v. Penna. R.R. Co., 365 Pa. 529, 76 A. 2d 175 (1950), and Goldstein v. Stadler, 417 Pa. 589, 208 A. 2d 850 (1965). 2

¶6 Appeal quashed.

Mr. Justice Musmanno did not participate in the decision of this case.
1

¶7 An Interlocutory order is not appealable unless specifically made so by statute. An order denying a plaintiffs motion for judgment on the pleadings' in assumpsit actions is made appealable by tbe Act of April 18, 1874, P. E. 64, 12 P.S. §1097. See Ross v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 403 Pa. 135, 169 A. 2d 74 (1961). Tbe Act of 1874 is inapplicable bere. Vendetti v. Schuster, supra.

2

¶8 The general statute of limitations barring recovery in personal injury actions after the lapse of time is not a condition placed by the law on a substantive right such as in the Workmen’s Compensation Act and the Mechanics’ Lien Law. Cf. Goldstein v. Stadler, 417 Pa. 589, 208 A. 2d 850 n. 1 (1965).

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