210 Pa. Code r. 904
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF COUNTY
Party A's full name, Plaintiff:
v.
Party B's full name, Defendant:
Docket or File No.
Offense Tracking Number
NOTICE OF APPEAL
Notice is hereby given that, defendant above named, hereby appeals to the (Supreme) (Superior) (Commonwealth) Court of Pennsylvania from the order entered in this matter on the ___ day____ of 20 __. This order has been entered in the docket as evidenced by the attached copy of the docket entry.
(S)_________________
_______________________
(Address and telephone number)
Comment:
The Offense Tracking Number (OTN) is required only in an appeal in a criminal proceeding. It enables the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts to collect and forward to the Pennsylvania State Police information pertaining to the disposition of all criminal cases as provided by the Criminal History Record Information Act, 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 9101et seq.
The notice of appeal must include a statement that the order appealed from has been entered on the docket. Because generally a separate notice of appeal must be filed on each docket on which an appealable order is entered so as to appeal from that order, see Pa.R.A.P. 902(a), the appellant is required to attach to the notice of appeal a copy of the docket entry showing the entry of the order appealed from on that docket. The appellant does not need to certify that the order has been reduced to judgment. This omission does not eliminate the requirement of reducing an order to judgment before there is a final appealable order where required by applicable practice or case law.
Subdivision (b)(2) provides the authority for an appellate court to initialize captions in custody appeals. See also Pa.R.Civ.P. 1915.10.
With respect to subdivision (e), in Commonwealth v. Dugger, 486 A.2d 382, 386 (Pa. 1985), the Supreme Court held that the Commonwealth's certification that an order will terminate or substantially handicap the prosecution is not subject to review as a prerequisite to the Superior Court's review of the merits of the appeal. The principle in Dugger has been incorporated in and superseded by Pa.R.A.P. 311(d). Commonwealth v. Dixon, 907 A.2d 468, 471 n.8 (Pa. 2006). Thus, the need for a detailed analysis of the effect of the order, formerly necessarily a part of the Commonwealth's appellate brief, has been eliminated.
A party filing a cross-appeal should identify it as a cross-appeal in the notice of appeal to assure that the prothonotary will process the cross-appeal with the initial appeal. See also Pa.R.A.P. 2113, 2136, and 2185 regarding briefs in cross-appeals and Pa.R.A.P. 2322 regarding oral argument in multiple appeals.
See Pa.R.A.P. 342 for the orders that may be appealed as of right in orphans' court matters.
A party appealing completely consolidated civil cases using one notice of appeal must attach a copy of the consolidation order to the notice of appeal to assure the applicability of Pa.R.A.P. 902.
Historical Commentary
The following commentary is historical in nature and represents statements of the Committee at the time of rulemaking:
Explanatory Comment-2002
See Comment following Pa.R.A.P., Rule 511.
210 Pa. Code r. 904