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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

ELLEN KLEIN, BARBARA JONES, 

ELIZABETH STANKOVICS AND DAWN 

ROWLANDS, INDIVIDUALY, AND ALL 

OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED 

Appellants

v.

QUIXOTE VENTURES, LLP AND 

LIFETIME MANUFACTURE HOMES, 

LLP

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 2258 EDA 2018

Appeal from the Order Entered July 16, 2018

In the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County Civil Division at 

No(s): C-48-CV-2012-12358

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., NICHOLS, J., and PELLEGRINI*, J.

MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.: FILED APRIL 17, 2019

Ellen Klein, Barbara Jones, Elizabeth Stankovics and Dawn Rowlands 

(collectively, the Tenants) appeal from an order of summary judgment entered 

in the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas (the trial court) on July 

16, 2018, in favor of Quixote Ventures, LLP (Quixote). We hold that because 

the Tenants’ original complaint was untimely filed, the order on review must 

stand. We affirm.

I.

On May 17, 2012, the Tenants filed a class action complaint against

Quixote (a manufactured home park landlord), Lifetime Manufacture Homes, 
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LLP (Lifetime) (a manufactured home dealer), Forks Chestnut Hill Corporation 

(a general partner of Lifetime), and Albert Jinks (Jinks) (a limited partner in 

Quixote and Lifetime). The Tenants’ homes were all situated in a community 

called Jacob’s Farm that was owned and operated by Quixote. The Tenants 

sought to be named as class representatives of all residents of Jacob’s Farm

who bought homes from Lifetime, but the class was never certified.

In their action, the Tenants asserted, inter alia, that Quixote and 

Lifetime violated the Mobile Home Park Rights Act (MHPRA). See 68 P.S. § 

398.1 (2009).1 Specifically, the Tenants claimed that those two parties 

violated the MHPRA by (a) requiring them to purchase porches, decks, garages 

and other upgrades from Lifetime, and (b) failing to timely disclose lumber 

surcharge fees which increased the total price of their homes.

2

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1

In subsequent amended complaints, the Tenants also alleged that Quixote 

violated the Public Utility Code (PUC) and the Unfair Trade Practices and 

Consumer Protection Law (UTPCPL). However, the Tenants’ appellate brief 

only discusses two alleged MHRPA violations, so any additional claims are not 

at issue in this appeal. See Appellants’ Brief, at 5; Krebs v. United Refining 

Co. of Pa., 893 A.2d 776, 797 (Pa. Super. 2006) (“We will not ordinarily 

consider any issue if it has not been set forth in or suggested by an appellate 

brief’s statement of the questions involved[.]”). Regardless, those additional 

claims are time-barred, as discussed below.

2 The statute has since been renamed in 2010 to the “Manufactured Home 

Community Rights Act” (MHCRA). See Milby v. Pote, 189 A.3d 1065, 1076 

(Pa. Super. 2018) (explaining that unlike “mobile homes,” manufactured 

homes “tend to be more of a long-term housing option.”).
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These alleged violations of the MHPRA arose from terms in the Tenants’ 

home purchase contracts with Lifetime and their leases with Quixote to 

reserve the lots on which their homes would be placed. In April 2005, at 

closing, the last of the four-named Tenants completed her purchase with 

Lifetime and signed her lease with Quixote. The other three Tenants had 

completed their purchases and signed their leases earlier.

Prior to their respective closings, each Tenant was given an advance 

copy of the lease with Quixote, as well as a disclosure form stating that the 

agreed purchase price could be subject to an increase if the builder assessed 

lumber surcharge fees. They were also provided with a one-page “Questions 

and Answers” sheet which stated that “[a]ll decks and garage construction 

must be by Lifetime[.]” See Tenants’ Sixth Amended Complaint, 12/31/13, 

at Exhibit C.

It is undisputed that all four Tenants possessed the above documents

several months prior to their closing dates. Further, all of the closing costs 

and purchase prices, including the lumber surcharges, were due at closing. 

While they dispute the legality of certain costs and lease terms, the Tenants 

do not maintain that any such costs or terms were ever withheld from them

prior to finalizing their home purchases and signing their leases.

In 2008, the Tenants held a community meeting with other residents of 

Jacob’s Farm to discuss various topics such as potential legal claims regarding 

lumber surcharges and construction restrictions in their leases. It is not clear
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from the record what occurred at that meeting to prompt the present action

nor is it evident why the Tenants waited until May 2012 to file suit.

In February 2013, Lifetime filed a preliminary objection in the nature of 

a demurrer to the Tenants’ then-operative complaint. Lifetime averred that

the Tenants had failed to state a cause of action against it because the MHPRA 

did not govern the conduct of the dealers of mobile or manufactured homes 

such as Lifetime.3 Agreeing, the trial court dismissed all claims against 

Lifetime. See Trial Court Order, 6/26/13.4 The claims against Jinks were 

dismissed for similar reasons on May 9, 2014. See Trial Court Order, 5/9/14, 

at 11-13.

After years of further litigation which there is no need to recount, 

Quixote (Jacobs’ Farm’s owner and operator) moved for summary judgment. 

The trial court granted the motion, stating in its order that due to the prior 

dismissal of all claims against Lifetime and Jinks, its ruling was based only on 

“the conduct of the distinct entity identified as Quixote[.]” Trial Court Order, 

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3 The claims against Forks Chestnut Hill Corp. (a general partner of Lifetime) 

were voluntarily dismissed by the Tenants and are not at issue here.

4 “Preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer test the legal sufficiency 

of the complaint.” Feingold v. Hendrzak, 15 A.3d 937, 941 (Pa. Super. 

2011) (citation omitted). Such an objection which seeks the dismissal of a 

cause of action should be sustained only when it is “clear and free from doubt 

that the pleader will be unable to prove facts legally sufficient to establish the 

right to relief.” Id. In ruling on the objection, the trial court must consider

as true “all material facts set forth in the challenged pleadings, . . . as well as 

all inferences reasonably deducible therefrom.” Id.
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7/16/18, at 3. Rejecting the Tenants’ argument that all of the defendants 

should be treated as a single entity, the trial court granted Quixote’s motion 

because none of the Tenants’ claims were predicated on Quixote’s conduct.

Further, as a separate basis for granting summary judgment, the trial 

court determined that the statute of limitations had run prior to the filing of 

the Tenants’ original complaint. The trial court emphasized that the Tenants 

“had all of the documentation which they used as bases for their claims within 

their possession no later than the date of settlement on their home 

purchases.” Id. at 8. The last of the Tenants’ respective settlements was in

April 2005, and the Tenants’ original complaint was filed well beyond the end 

of the applicable six-year limitations period. The trial court ruled as a matter 

of law that from the time of their respective purchase settlements, the Tenants

knew or should have known of their claims through the reasonable exercise of 

due diligence.

The Tenants appealed from the order granting summary judgment in 

favor of Quixote and now raise the following issues in their brief:

A. Whether the trial court erred or otherwise abused its discretion 

in granting summary judgment because there are genuine issues 

of material fact regarding whether the [Tenants] were required to 

purchase certain upgrades, such as decks and garages, from 

[Lifetime] and whether the Appellee(s) violated the Mobile Home 

Parks Rights Act [MHPRA] by requiring this.

B. Whether the trial court erred or otherwise abused its discretion 

in granting summary judgment because there are genuine issues 

of material fact that the appellees imposed improper lumber surcharges and failed to timely disclose same [in violation of the 

MHPRA].
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C. Whether the trial court erred or otherwise abused its discretion 

regarding the Court’s June 26, 2013 decision to dismiss [Lifetime]

and the trial court’s July 16, 2018 decision stating that it was 

constrained by same.

D. Whether the trial court erred or otherwise abused its discretion 

in granting summary judgment because there are genuine issues 

of material fact that the statutes of limitations was not violated 

and/or this decision should have been left to the jury to decide.

Appellants’ Brief, at 5. 5

II.

The dispositive issue here is whether the Tenants’ action is time–barred. 

The parties agree that the causes of action now at issue are subject to a sixyear limitations period,

6 but they dispute when that period began to run. 

While the Tenants’ home purchase settlements and leases were finalized more 

than six years before they brought suit, they contend that their time did not 

begin to run until they “discovered” the purportedly illegal terms at their 

community meeting in November 2008. Because they filed their action in May 

2012, within six years of when they discovered the purported illegality, the 

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5 “In reviewing an order granting a motion for summary judgment . . . this 

Court must examine the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving 

party, resolving all doubts as to the existence of a genuine issue of material 

fact against the moving party.” Ash v. Cont’l Ins. Co., 861 A.2d 979, 980 

(Pa. Super. 2004). Affirmance is proper unless the trial court has committed 

an error or law or an abuse of discretion. Id.

6 For claims asserted under the MHPRA, a plaintiff has six years to assert a 

cause of action from the time it begins to accrue. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 5527(b)

(catch-all provision providing that where, as in the 2009 version of the MHPRA, 

the statute of limitations is not set forth, the de facto period is six years).
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Tenants assert that their action was timely filed. According to the Tenants,

summary judgment on this issue was improper because the record evidence 

posed a question of fact for the jury as to whether their claims were reasonably 

discoverable.

It is well established in Pennsylvania law that a cause of action begins 

to accrue for the purposes of the limitations period “as soon as the right to 

institute and maintain a suit arises.” Fine v. Checcio, 870 A.2d 850, 857 

(Pa. 2005); 42 Pa.C.S. § 5502(a) (“The time within which a matter must be 

commenced under this chapter shall be computed. . . from the time the cause 

of action accrued.”). This period beings running even if the plaintiff lacked 

knowledge or misunderstood the factual or legal basis of the claim. See Fine, 

870 A.2d at 857. However, the “discovery rule” tolls the limitations period if 

a plaintiff did not know or could not have known of a potential cause of action 

through the exercise of reasonable diligence. See Ingenito v. AC & S, Inc.,

633 A.2d 1172, 1174-75 (Pa. Super. 1993).

Under the standard of reasonable diligence, “a plaintiff is required to 

establish that he exhibited those qualities of attention, knowledge, intelligence 

and judgment which society requires of its members for the protection of their 

own interests and the interests of others.” Nicalaou v. Martin, 195 A.3d 

880, 893-94 (Pa. 2018) (quoting Fine, 870 A.2d at 858). “[T]he party 

asserting application of the discovery rule bears the burden of proof.”

Gleason v. Borough of Moosic, 15 A.3d 479, 485 (Pa. 2011).
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Because “the determination concerning the plaintiff’s awareness of the 

injury and its cause is fact intensive, it is generally a question for a jury to 

decide.” See Wilson v. El-Daief, 964 A.2d 354, 361-362 (Pa. 2009). 

Nevertheless, the applicability of the discovery rule may be resolved “at the 

summary judgment stage where reasonable minds could not differ on the 

subject.” Id.; see also Cochran v. GAF Corp., 542 Pa. 210, 216, 666 A.2d 

245, 248 (Pa. 1995) (“[W]e have not hesitated to find as a matter of law that 

a party has not used reasonable diligence in ascertaining the cause of an injury 

thus barring the party from asserting their claim under the discovery rule.”). 

“The standard of reasonable diligence is an objective one.” Ford v. Oliver, 

176 A.3d 891, 904-05 (Pa. Super. 2017) (quoting Mariner Chestnut 

Partners L.P. v. Lenfest, 152 A.3d 265, 279 (Pa. Super. 2016)).

Viewing the present facts in the light favorable to the Tenants, their

causes of action were reasonably discoverable in 2005. The Tenants do not 

dispute that the precise terms of the subject lumber surcharges and building 

restrictions were disclosed in advance of their closings. Nothing in the record 

suggests that the Tenants were in any way hindered from immediately 

assessing the legality of those surcharges and building restrictions. In fact, 

one of the four Tenants admitted that she first disputed them in 2005, soon 

after the relevant purchase and lease conditions went into effect. See Brief 

in Support of Quixote’s Motion for Summary Judgment, 2/28/18, at Exhibit B, 

pp. 90-96 (Deposition of Ellen Klein, 12/4/17).
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Accordingly, there is no basis for a jury to conclude that the limitations 

period was tolled by operation of the discovery rule, and the Tenants’ claims 

are time-barred. See Ford, 16 A.3d at 905 (holding that plaintiffs’ causes of 

action accrued at the time they signed a property deed because “[t]heir failure 

to find out what they had signed was unreasonable as a matter of law, and 

this question did not require factual assessment by a jury.”); see also 

Mahonski v. Engel, 145 A.3d 175, 183 (Pa. Super. 2016) (“Appellants’

dissatisfaction with the terms that they agreed to in the relevant documents 

does not allow them to avoid the time bar set forth in the applicable statute 

of limitations.”).

Having resolved this appeal on those procedural grounds, it is 

unnecessary for us to address the merits of any of the other issues presented 

in the Tenants’ brief.

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 4/17/19