Williams v. Wade’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently October 2023
10 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Relies on 421 Pa. Super. 496 - U.K. LaSalle, Inc. v. Lawless · 431 Pa. Super. 606 - Helms v. Boyle · 442 Pa. Super. 365 - Schimp v. Allaman · 167 Pa. Super. 399 - Samango v. Hobbs · 127 Pa. Super. 332 - Eastman Kodak Co. v. Osenider
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A petition to strike a default judgment and a petition to open a default judgment are generally not interchangeable. A petition to strike does not involve the discretion of the court. Instead, it operates as a demurrer to the record. A demurrer admits all well-pleaded facts for the purpose of testing conclusions of law drawn from those facts. Because a petition to strike operates as a demurrer, a court may only look at the facts of record at the time the judgment was entered to decide if the record supports the judgment. A petition to strike can only be granted if a fatal defect appears on the record. In contrast, a petition to open a judgment is an appeal to the equitable powers of the court. It is committed to the sound discretion of the hearing court and will not be disturbed absent a manifest abuse of that discretion. Ordinarily, if a petition to open a judgment is to be successful, it must meet the following test: (1) the petition to open must be promptly filed; (2) the failure to appear or file a timely answer must be excused; and (3) the party seeking to open the judgment must show a meritorious defense .... In making this determination, a court can consider facts not before it at the time the judgment was entered. Thus, if a party seeks to challenge the truth of factual averments in the record at the time judgment was entered, then the party should pursue a petition to open the judgment, not a petition to strike the judgment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.