Court issues a substantive appellate ruling IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Academy House Condominium : Association, : Appellant : : No. 250 C.D. 2025 v. : : Submitted: June 16, 2026 Brian S.
Court issues a substantive appellate ruling [J-62-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA EASTERN DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
As there was no other basis upon which the Superior Court could have determined that the trial court abused its… [J-10-2026] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
We vacate the Commonwealth Court’s order and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.20… [J-46-2026] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA WESTERN DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
Court issues a substantive appellate ruling [J-81A-2025 and J-81B-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
Court issues a substantive appellate ruling [J-64-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA EASTERN DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
The Superior Court erred in concluding otherwise, and we reverse that portion of its decision. [J-85-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
Court issues a substantive appellate ruling [J-20-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA WESTERN DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
Conclusion For the reasons provided, we hold that neither an insurer’s duty to defend nor its duty to indemnify… [J-65-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA EASTERN DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ. SAMSUNG FIRE AND MARINE : No. 61 EAP 2024 INSURANCE CO., LTD (U.S.
Court issues a substantive appellate ruling [J-88-2025] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE DISTRICT TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.
The Commonwealth Court affirmed the quashing of a land use appeal challenging a Fayette County wind power facility development plan, holding that the MPC’s 30-day appeal period ran from the date of the written approval decision — not from the objector’s internet discovery that construction had begun — and that the due process exception to the time limit must be affirmatively pleaded in the appeal.
The Commonwealth Court reversed a trial court order vacating an arbitration award and reinstated the award in favor of a teachers’ union, holding that where a CBA incorporates FMLA and the applicable FMLA rule is not subject to well-established case law or clear precedent, judicial review is limited to the deferential essence test — and the arbitrator’s conclusion that a school district could not unilaterally designate an employee’s absence as FMLA leave was rationally derived from the CBA.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, sitting en banc, affirmed a workers’ compensation award in a 4-3 decision, holding that a pharmacy tech struck by a vehicle while crossing the street during a mandatory 15-minute break was in the course of employment—because the break’s brevity diminished the autonomy it conferred and left her time only for an act of ministration. The majority recast Pennsylvania’s personal comfort doctrine as a continuum of factors rather than a binary formal/informal distinction, a reading three dissenters characterized as abandoning over a century of settled precedent.
The Commonwealth Court reversed the Office of Open Records and held that Pennsylvania Lottery ticket VIRN numbers (Validation Information Record Numbers) are trade secrets exempt from Right-to-Know Law disclosure under Section 708(b)(11), even though individual numbers are revealed to winning ticket holders at the time of claiming a prize. The court reasoned that compiling thousands of claimed VIRN numbers produces a recognizable pattern from which Scientific Games’ proprietary validation algorithm could be reconstructed — making the aggregated dataset a trade secret that ‘reveals’ the algorithm even if isolated numbers do not.
The Commonwealth Court affirmed denial of workers’ compensation benefits to a pro se claimant, holding that substantial evidence supported the WCJ’s credibility determinations and that rejecting a claimant’s medical evidence is not capricious disregard — and rejecting the employer’s motion to quash under the post-2014 version of Pa.R.A.P. 1513.
The Commonwealth Court reversed a Bureau of Hearings and Appeals order that had required a specific judicial finding of ‘child abuse’ before a guilty plea could support a founded ChildLine report, holding that factual identity between the plea and the report — not a separate court-issued label — is the operative standard under the CPSL.
The Commonwealth Court reversed a trial court order striking a de facto condemnation claim from a condemnee’s petition for appointment of viewers. PennDOT’s plot plan showed the condemnee’s home excluded from a County Line Road right-of-way expansion, but a subsequent survey revealed the taking included part of the house’s porch. The court held that a misleading plot plan tolls the Eminent Domain Code’s 30-day filing deadline and permits the condemnee to pursue both de jure and de facto taking claims in a single viewer proceeding.
The Commonwealth Court, sitting en banc, affirmed zoning variances for a 190-foot Verizon cell tower in Upper Macungie Township but adopted a new post-Loper Bright framework: carriers must first attempt to satisfy the MPC’s property-specific hardship requirements, then—if unmet—seek TCA-based relief under the two-part APT Pittsburgh coverage-gap-and-least-intrusive-means test, rejecting the Third Circuit’s FCC-derived “materially inhibit” standard. President Judge Cohn Jubelirer concurred in the result but vigorously disputed the majority’s analytical approach.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the dismissal of a Right-to-Know Law appeal from an OAG denial, holding that the Office of Open Records has no jurisdiction over such appeals because Section 503(d)(1) of the RTKL expressly requires the Attorney General to designate its own appeals officer, a jurisdictional carve-out analogous to the one applicable to judicial agencies.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a $14,000 civil penalty and three-year suspension of lead abatement licenses for Howland Company and its owner, holding that the Bureau of Occupational and Industrial Safety need not introduce written risk assessment reports or prove actual lead presence to establish violations of the Lead Certification Act, and that 14 violations across five job sites over 16 months—despite prior Bureau warnings—supported the suspension term.