Court Opinion

ID: 9746321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:12:10.884964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:12.160971
License: Public Domain

*256LARSEN, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with Justice Hutchinson that there is no need to redefine the law of property in Pennsylvania to' declare a purchaser of property an “equitable owner” who is entitled to notice as an “owner” under tíie second class city code. 53 P.S. § 25094. It suffices to state that appellee, as purchaser of property at a tax sale awaiting expiration of the redemption period, had a substantial, legally protected property interest in the demolished property sufficient to entitle him, under the due process clause, to notice reasonably calculated to apprise him of the pending demolition. Mennonite Board of Missions v. Adams, 462, U.S. 791, 103 S.Ct. 2706, 77 L.Ed.2d 180 (1983); First Pennsylvania Bank v. Lancaster County Tax Claim Bureau, 504 Pa. 179, 470 A.2d 938 (1983); Tracy v. County of Chester Tax Claim Bureau, 507 Pa. 288, 489 A.2d 1334 (1985).
I further agree with Justice Hutchinson and the majority that the notice of demolition given in this case was not, under the circumstances, reasonably calculated to apprise interested parties of the pendancy of the action. When one branch or bureau of the city sells tax delinquent property to a purchaser, and another branch or bureau of the city demolishes that property some fourteen months after the sale without actual notice to that purchaser, it cannot be said that the city has taken reasonable steps calculated to apprise that purchaser, whose identity is readily ascertainable, of the demolition. The left hand should know what the right hand does.
The demolition without actual notice to appellee is particularly onerous in the instant case because, as Judge Craig observes in his opinion for the Commonwealth Court, appellee was the record owner of the demolished property as of October 27, 1978. On that date, some three weeks prior to initiation of the demolition, the city treasurer issued a deed for the property to appellee and recorded it in the Treasurer’s Deed Book, following expiration of the redemption period. A simple check of the recorded deeds on the eve of *257demolition would have shown appellee to be the record owner.
Chief Justice Nix believes that the Court’s decision today “has gratuitously engrafted a further impediment” upon a legitimate government function. However, I cannot subscribe to the theory that the rather minimal additional steps required today (by the due process clause) “places an unreasonable requirement upon municipal government in the discharge of vital service,” for it is equally vital that government take care not to unnecessarily and unfairly infringe upon one’s constitutional right to own and enjoy property, particularly where the infringement means total destruction of that property.
On the issue of pre-judgment delay damages under Pa.R. Civ.Pro. Rule 238, I find it unnecessary to rule on the constitutionality of Section 333 (the preamble) of the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, (Act of October 5, 1980, P.L. 693, No. 142), preamble to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 8541-64, Subchapter C. (The majority declares section 333 an unconstitutional infringement upon this Court’s rule making powers.) Instead, I would adopt Judge Craig’s reasoning that delay damages do not constitute interest on the award but are, rather, an actual component of the plaintiff’s entitlement designed to make plaintiff whole. As we stated in Laudenberger v. Port Authority of Allegheny County, 496 Pa. 52, 66, 436 A.2d 147, 154-55 (1981), appeal dismissed sub nom. Bucheit v. Laudenberger, 456 U.S. 940, 102 S.Ct. 2002, 72 L.Ed.2d 462 (1982):
Although the award for delay of time may be “in the nature of interest,” in reality, it is merely an extension of the compensatory damages necessary to make a plaintiff whole. Damages have been defined as “the sum of money which the law awards or imposes as pecuniary compensation, recompense, or satisfaction for an injury done or a wrong sustained as a consequence either of a breach of a contractual obligation or a tortious act.” 22 Am.Jur.2d, Damages § 1.
*258Accordingly, I agree with the Commonwealth Court’s interpretation that the cited preamble, section 333, which prohibits the award of interest, does not preclude the award of delay damages under Rule 238.
For the foregoing reasons, I join the majority’s affirmance of the order of the Commonwealth Court.