To practically no fanfare, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently issued the latest set of amendments to the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure. See In re Order Amending Rules 102, 2020 Pa. Lexis 174 (Pa. Jan. 7, 2020). While many of these changes are technical and nonsubstantive, others are more significant. This article is intended to familiarize appellate practitioners with those amendments that might make a difference in advance of their Aug. 1 effective date.

The most significant change is the creation of a new appellate avenue, a "petition for specialized review," accompanied by an entirely new Chapter 16 of the appellate rules. This form of "specialized review" is limited to "certain discrete issues," primarily "ancillary and preliminary to appellate review." Chapter 16 is also "intended to provide the method for initiating any otherwise-authorized form of appellate review" not provided for by existing rules, in particular appeals from government actions. This new procedure is available for different levels of appellate review. Certain petitions must be filed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, see Pa. R.A.P. 1611(a), 1613(a), while all other specialized review occurs in the intermediate appellate courts, with Supreme Court review governed by the existing provisions of Chapter 11.

The usual 30-day appellate window applies to petitions for specialized review, with filing complete on mailing if the usual postal forms are completed. There is no separate notice for this specialized form of appeal. Rather, the petition itself must contain, as specified by Pa. R.A.P. 1603: the petitioner's identity, the jurisdictional basis, the order at issue, a statement of the case with "necessary" facts for "understanding" the issues, the question presented, a statement of reasons stating why relief is proper, copies of any opinions supporting the order being appealed, and a Rule 127 certificate of compliance. A 9,000-word limit applies to a petition for specialized review, and as with other appellate petitions, separate briefs are not permitted. Also like existing petition practice, a response (sharing most of the requirements applicable to the petition) may be filed within 30 days of service—but a response is not mandatory.

The bulk of the orders to be reviewed through the new petition process are criminal in nature. New rule 1610 authorized use of specialized review for bail orders. Rule 1611 addresses certain orders arising in (mostly) criminal investigations: displacing a district attorney by some other type of prosecutor, relating to creation, termination and operation of investigative grand juries, including contempt sanctions, and subpoenas from investigative legislative committees. Practitioners should remember that Rule 1611 is purely procedural. It does not affect existing requirements for appealability of interlocutory orders, and unless allowed by the trial court, "the interlocutory nature of the order will be a sufficient reason for denying the petition."

Rule 1612 extends specialized review to orders that juvenile delinquents be institutionalized. Rule 1613 does the same for orders affecting indicting grand juries, but restricts the right to petition for review to "the attorney for the commonwealth." Since both bail and juvenile institutionalization orders have been shifted to Chapter 16, Rules 1762(b)(2) and 1770, which formerly governed these actions, have been deleted. Deletion in favor of Pa. R.A.P. 1611 was also the fate of Rule 3331, which formerly governed review of "special prosecutors or investigations."

In addition to a new appellate review process, the Supreme Court's Jan. 7, amendments make clear that denial of pretrial dismissal "on double jeopardy grounds" is an immediately appealable collateral order unless the trial court "finds that the motion to dismiss is frivolous." Another change to Rule 1311 is to elevate the appealability of denial of permission to appeal to the text of the rule itself, as opposed to the prior reference in an official note. Rule 1323 is modified to clarify that, after denial of permission to appeal, further appellate review is available only via "a timely petition for allowance of appeal."

The caption of a petition for review involving a "disinterested government unit" will now look a little different. An amendment to Pa. R.A.P. 1513(a) specifies that the disinterested unit "shall be identified in parentheses after the respondents in the caption." The rule's "official note" shows exactly how the revised caption should look.

Rule 1701, concerning "effect of appeal," has been revised to take into account the new category of petitions for specialized review: "The filing of a petition for specialized review under Chapter 16 shall not affect the power or authority of the trial court or other government unit to proceed further in the matter, but the provisions of this chapter relating to supersedeas of the order of the trial court or other government unit shall apply."

The official note to Rule 1701 also completely rewrites the commentary on the troublesome question of how pending reconsideration applications effect the appeal process. The new note specifies that final orders require action on reconsideration applications "within 30 days," although sufficient action need be only an "express" statement from the body issuing the initial order that reconsideration will occur, rather than full resolution of the application within the 30-day window. "Because the clock is running on the appeal period" as well as on the reconsideration itself, "filing the notice of appeal at the same time as or shortly after the motion for reconsideration will protect against waiver of the appeal."

Various other amendments were made to numerous rules. The vast majority of them, however, were either cross-references to the new petition for specialized review, changes to how other rules were cited, or purely stylistic (e.g., trial rather than lower court). The more formal, and less chatty, style of the commentary to the rules is particularly welcome. All in all the appellate rules committee deserves kudos for a job well done in completing this latest revision and modernization of the entire body of the rules.

James M. Beck, a member of the Reed Smith life sciences health industry group, focuses his practice on complex personal injury and products liability litigation. He has experience in developing legal defenses, master briefs and dispositive motions in numerous mass torts, and has prepared amicus briefs on behalf of a variety of national organizations. Contact him at [email protected].