The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s order, which denied the defendant’s petition to strike or open a confession of the judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff. The defendants were tenants in the plaintiffs’ property and failed to make rent payments during the Covid-19 pandemic. After the plaintiffs filed a complaint in confession of judgment, the defendants responded with a petition to open or strike that judgment, arguing that they should be excused from paying rent based on the Commonwealth’s Covid-19 closure order. The Court accepted that the pandemic was unforeseeable but disagreed that the building’s closure was unforeseeable. The Court likened the situation to a fire damaging the structure and found that such a scenario would not have entitled the defendants to relief.
