Opinion
December 11, 1962.
March 19, 1963.
Appeals — Final or interlocutory order — Order making absolute rule for appeal nunc pro tunc from award of arbitrators — Act of June 16, 1836, P.L. 715, as amended.
An order making absolute a rule by defendant to show cause why he should not be granted the right to take an appeal nunc pro tunc from an award entered in favor of the plaintiff by a board or panel of attorneys acting as arbitrators, in accordance with the procedures adopted pursuant to § 8.1 of the Act of June 16, 1836, P.L. 715, as amended, is interlocutory, and, therefore, not appealable in such stage of the proceeding.
Before RHODES, P.J., ERVIN, WRIGHT, WOODSIDE, WATKINS, MONTGOMERY, and FLOOD, JJ.
Appeal, No. 377, Oct. T., 1962, from order of County Court of Philadelphia, Sept. T., 1961, No. 1299-D, in case of Raymond Steth v. Douglas Henderson. Appeal quashed.
Proceeding upon petition of defendant and rule to show cause why an appeal nunc pro tunc should not be allowed from award of arbitrators.
Order entered making rule absolute, opinion by BOYLE, J. Plaintiff appealed.
John Dorfman, with him Dorfman, Pechner, Sacks Dorfman, for appellant.
Leslie Pinckney Hill, with him Richard C. Jay, for appellee.
Argued December 11, 1962.
In this case the defendant allowed more than twenty days to go by without taking an appeal to the court below from an award entered in favor of the plaintiff by a board or panel of attorneys acting as arbitrators in accordance with procedures for compulsory arbitration adopted pursuant to § 8.1 of the Act of June 16, 1836, P.L. 715, as amended, 5 Pa.C.S.A. § 30. Thereafter, on petition of the defendant's counsel averring merely that he was "in constant engagement" on the last day for taking an appeal the court below made absolute a rule by the defendant to show cause why he should not be granted the right to take an appeal nunc pro tunc. The order making the defendant's rule absolute was entered one day before we filed our opinion in Klugman v. Gimbel Brothers, Inc., 198 Pa. Super. 268, 182 A.2d 223 (1962), in which we held that an appeal nunc pro tunc may not be allowed in a compulsory arbitration proceeding in the absence of fraud or its equivalent.
However, the order appealed from does not put the plaintiff out of court or constitute a conclusive adjudication of the proceeding, and the statute does not authorize an appeal from an interlocutory order. Therefore, the order of the court below is not appealable at this stage of the proceeding and the appeal must be quashed. Damon Foster v. Berger, 191 Pa. Super. 165, 155 A.2d 388 (1959).
Appeal quashed.