Court Opinion

ID: 9746322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:12:10.889124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:12.163128
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in part and dissent in part. I agree with the majority that appellee was entitled to notice prior to demolition of the premises he purchased at the tax sale. I believe, however, that this right to notice is based on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment rather than equitable conversion. Under Pennsylvania law, equitable title cannot transfer while the original owner still has a right of redemption. The analysis of equitable conversion is unnecessary to the result and may change or confuse the doctrine of equitable conversion as it exists in this Commonwealth. Furthermore, I must dissent from the majority’s reaffirmance of Rule 238 of our Rules of Civil Procedure. Pa.R.C.P. 238. Such a rule providing for pre-judgment interest for delay is substantive in nature and outside the scope of the rulemaking authority conferred on this Court by the Pennsylvania Constitution.
I
Under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a state is required to give reasonable notice before taking an action which will affect an interest in life, liberty, or property. Mennonite Board of Missions v. Adams, 462 U.S. 791, 103 S.Ct. 2706, 77 L.Ed.2d 180 (1983); Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950). The United States Supreme Court describes this notice as that which is “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314, 70 S.Ct. at 657. In First Pennsylvania Bank v. Lancaster *259County Tax Claim Bureau, 504 Pa. 179, 470 A.2d 938 (1983), this Court, relying on Mennonite Board and Mullane, held that the notice provision of the Real Estate Tax Sale Law, Act of July 7, 1947, P.L. 1368, No. 542, as amended, 72 P.S. §§ 5860.101-5860.803, was unconstitutional because it required that notice of the proposed sale be mailed only to the record owner of the property. We reasoned that this section failed to provide adequate notice to other parties with an interest in the property, and, therefore, violated the due process clause. See also Tracy v. County of Chester, Tax Claim Bureau, 507 Pa. 288, 489 A.2d 1334 (1985).
By interpreting the term “owner” in Section 25094 of the Second Class City Code as meaning only the owner of record, I believe that this statute violates the due process clause, since other parties with an interest in the property would not receive adequate notice before it was either condemned or demolished. Indeed, because appellee would become the owner of record barring redemption, his interest was substantial.
It would not have been burdensome for appellant to have mailed notice to appellee in this case. The treasurer’s office had sent a list of properties sold at the treasurer’s sale to the Bureau of Building Inspection. Thus, the Bureau was aware that the property it intended to demolish had been sold at a tax sale. Through a reasonable effort, appellant could have obtained the name and address of the purchaser, appellee, and mailed him notice of the proposed demolition. Under these circumstances, that notice was required by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
While I believe that due process requires notice to appellee, I do not believe that he acquired equitable title in the property until the opportunity for redemption had passed. Under well established Pennsylvania property law, equitable conversion does not occur until the owner’s title has been divested. A treasurer’s sale does not pass title to the purchasers until the redemption period has passed.
*260The majority’s reliance on Gault’s Appeal, 33 Pa. 94 (1859), is misplaced. The precise holding in Gault is only that a taxpayer’s right of redemption attaches to the interest a third party acquires from the purchaser at a tax sale. There is confusing language in Gault, on some of which the majority relies. That language relates only to the statute applied in that case. Moreover, there is other language in Gault which seems supportive of the view that a purchaser under a statute that provides a right of redemption does not obtain equitable title. The Court stated:
for the benefit of his creditors, we hold that a sheriff’s vendee, before deed, acquires an inceptive interest, which their judgments will bind, if the sale be followed up and perfected: 4 Casey 170. A purchaser of unseated land, at treasurer’s sale, acquires no rights, whatever may be his liability to creditors, until he obtains his deed.
Id., 33 Pa. at 99. Less than ten years later, any confusion was resolved when we held in a case of tax sale of unseated land:
The uniform understanding and belief of the profession and people of this Commonwealth, for over half a century, has been, that a purchaser of unseated lands for taxes, when he receives his deed, takes but an inchoate or inceptive title, which requires the lapse of two years from the date of sale to ripen into an absolute title. This it will do if the land be not redeemed in the mean time. The only certain interest the buyer has up to that time, by virtue of his purchase, is in the money paid, and 25 per cent, on that amount on redemption.
He is not invested with any title to the land whatever, because the owner’s title is not divested: 10 Watts 412; 6 W. & S. 509; 3 Casey 154; 9 Id. 98.
Shalemiller v. McCarty, 55 Pa. 186, 188 (1867).1 See also Olshefskie v. Budock, 41 Pa. D & C 373 (1941).
*261For these reasons, I believe the majority’s analysis may confuse our law of equitable conversion. Since this reasoning is unnecessary to the result and because stare decisis appears with particular strength in the law of real property, I cannot join the majority. Nevertheless, I believe the majority’s result and its rationale on the due process issue are correct and I, therefore, concur in its affirmance of the judgment for appellee for the damages he suffered by demolition, without notice, of property in which he had a substantial interest.
II
I must, however, dissent again from the award of delay damages under now suspended Pa.R.C.P. 238. That rule was substantive in nature — not procedural. E.g., Craig v. Magee Memorial Rehabilitation Center, 512 Pa. 60, 515 A.2d 1350 (1986) (Hutchinson, J. concurring). As proposed, it was outside the scope of our rulemaking power under Article V, § 10(c) of the Pennsylvania Constitution. That Section states: “The Supreme Court shall have the power to prescribe general rules governing the practice, procedure and the conduct of all courts____” Pa. Const. Art. 5, § 10(c). Rule 238 did not deal with “practice,” “procedure,” or “the conduct of the courts.” It provided substantive benefits to one party and penalized the other.
A general rule on delay damages is legislative in nature and should be left to the Legislature. The judiciary remains free to give substantive relief for unwarranted dilatory tactics on a case specific basis. By so dealing with the problem under the common law method of case by case analysis, the inequities that have developed as a result of this rule can be avoided. See, e.g., Craig v. Magee Memorial Rehabilitation Center, supra, (McDermott, J. for the majority); Laudenberger v. Port Authority of Allegheny, 496 Pa. 52, 436 A.2d 147 (1981) (Roberts, J., dissenting).
*262I, therefore, concur with the majority’s affirmance of the damage award, but dissent from its approval of pre-judgment delay damages pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. 238.

. It should be noted that Chief Justice Woodward, the author of the majority opinion in Gault’s Appeal, joined Justice Thompson’s majority opinion in Shalemiller. Justice Thompson also joined the majority opinion in Gault's Appeal. Based on the language in Shalemiller, it would appear that both Justices thought that the two opinions were *261consistent. I recognize the distinction between Shalemiller, which involved a tax sale of unseated lands, and this case, in which the property was seated. However, I think that distinction is immaterial to the analysis.