In Gussom v. Teagle, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court revisited “the Lamp rule”, which generally prohibits a plaintiff from filing a writ of summons or complaint, failing to serve it, but repeatedly seeking the summons/complaint to be reissued in order “to stall in its tracks the legal machinery he has just set in motion.” Here, the Supreme Court held that “a trial court has the discretion to dismiss a complaint when a plaintiff fails to offer proof that she diligently attempted to serve process on a defendant in a timely manner and there is no evidence to indicate that the defendant had actual notice of the commencement of the action in the relevant time frame, regardless of whether the plaintiff acted or failed to act intentionally”.
