Brooks v. McMenamin
| Decision Date | 21 January 1986 |
| Citation | 503 A.2d 446,349 Pa.Super. 436 |
| Parties | Charles E. BROOKS v. Charles McMENAMIN and Audrey McMenamin, His Wife, and Camelot of the Poconos, Inc., Appellants. 00033 Phila. 1985 |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Meyer Simon, Glenside, for appellants.
Mark S. Love, Stroudsburg, for appellee.
Before MONTEMURO, POPOVICH and WATKINS, JJ.
This is an appeal from the Order entered November 30, 1984, in the Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County denying appellants' petitions to amend their answer to the complaint and for an extension of time to respond to the motion for summary judgment and granting appellee's partial summary judgment.
This case arises out of an agreement between the parties by which appellee was to purchase one-third of the stock of the corporate appellant and become an employee. Appellee subsequently filed a Complaint against appellants containing seven counts, seeking inter alia, to rescind the stock purchase agreement (Count I). The trial court later granted appellee's motion for partial summary judgment regarding Count I with the order directing appellants to return to appellee the money he had paid for the stock plus interest.
Appellants present the following questions on appeal 1:
1. Did the trial court abuse its discretion by refusing to grant appellants' petitions to amend their answer to the complaint and for an extension of time to answer the motion for partial summary judgment?
2. Did the trial court err in granting the motion for partial summary judgment on the basis that appellant violated the Pennsylvania Securities Act in conjunction with the stock purchase agreement?
After appellee filed a motion for partial summary judgment appellants simultaneously filed petitions (1) for an extension of time to respond to the motion and (2) for leave to amend their answer to the complaint to include new matter asserting the defenses of the Statute of Limitations and laches.
Appellants contend that the trial court abused its discretion in denying the petitions because it did not discuss any potential prejudice sustained by appellee if they had been granted.
In Berman v. Herrick, 424 Pa. 490, 227 A.2d 840 (1967), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated that:
Although the allowance of an amendment to a pleading is a matter of judicial discretion, such amendments are liberally permitted except where surprise or prejudice to the other party will result, or where the amendment is against a positive rule of law.
This principle of liberally permitting amendments was reiterated by this Court in Gallo v. Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A., 335 Pa.Superior Ct. 311, 484 A.2d 148 (1984):
The decision to permit an amendment to pleadings is committed to the sound discretion of the trial judge. That discretion however is not unfettered. Our courts have established as parameter a policy that amendments to pleadings will be liberally allowed to secure a determination of cases on their merits. Tanner v. Allstate Ins. Co., 321 Pa.Superior Ct. 132, 467 A.2d 1164 (1983).
The trial court in the case sub judice denied the petition to amend because of appellant's failure to explain their "unreasonable delay" of six (6) months since the filing of the answer.
Although the time of the...
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...court's statement that material evidence has been lost is insufficient to deny appellant's amendment."); Brooks v. McMenamin, 349 Pa.Super. 436, 438, 503 A.2d 446, 447 (1986) (reversed trial court's denial of amendment request where six-month delay occurred and no evidence of prejudice pres......
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