Court Opinion

ID: 9881085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-29 17:09:36.464338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:59:02.401872
License: Public Domain

J-S09018-23

                                   2023 PA Super 188

  STOP BLIGHT INC.                             :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                       Appellant               :
                                               :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  MARCIA M. DINARDO                            :   No. 251 WDA 2022

               Appeal from the Order Entered January 12, 2022
      In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Civil Division at
                           No(s): GD-21-000003

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., BOWES, J., and SULLIVAN, J.

OPINION BY BOWES, J.:                          FILED: September 29, 2023

       Stop Blight Inc. (“SBI”) appeals from the January 12, 2022 order

sustaining the preliminary objections of United States Financial Enterprises,

LLC (“Intervenor”) and dismissing SBI’s conservatorship action, which had

been filed pursuant to the Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship

Act (“the Act”) regarding a property owned by Marcia M. Dinardo, located at

177 45th Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (“the property”).1 We affirm.

       SBI commenced the underlying action on January 1, 2021, by filing a

petition to appoint SBI as conservator over the property. The Act sets forth

specific conditions that must be met before a court may appoint a conservator.

See 68 P.S. § 1105(d). In that regard, SBI averred in its petition, among

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1 We note that SBI purported to appeal from the order denying its motion for

reconsideration. After SBI responded to this Court’s rule to show cause order
as to why the appeal should not be quashed or dismissed because an appeal
does not lie from an order denying reconsideration, the Prothonotary updated
the case caption to reflect the proper order appealed from.
J-S09018-23

other things, that the property was not subject to a pending mortgage

foreclosure action. Intervenor filed preliminary objections asking the court to

dismiss the petition based upon Intervenor’s pending mortgage foreclosure

against the property.         SBI filed preliminary objections and a response.

Following oral argument,2 the trial court agreed with Intervenor regarding the

status of the foreclosure action, sustained Intervenor’s preliminary objections,

and dismissed SBI’s petition with prejudice. The trial court thereafter denied

SBI’s motion to reconsider.

       This timely appeal followed. Both SBI and the trial court complied with

Pa.R.A.P. 1925.3 SBI raises the following issues for our consideration:
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2 We note that the certified record lacks any transcript from those proceedings.

3 On February 14, 2022, the trial court ordered SBI to file a concise statement

pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b), to be due within twenty-one days. On
February 25, 2022, Ms. Dinardo filed a suggestion of bankruptcy. On March
14, 2022, SBI filed a late Rule 1925(b) statement. In its opinion, the trial
court reasoned that SBI’s claims had been waived because SBI failed to timely
file its statement. See Trial Court Opinion, 3/17/22, at unnumbered 1-2
(stating, incorrectly, that as of March 15, 2022, no concise statement had
been filed). Alternatively, the court discussed the reasons its order should be
affirmed.

In response to our rule to show cause order, SBI explained that it did not
receive the Rule 1925(b) order. SBI further maintained that, regardless, its
statement was timely as a result of the automatic stay imposed following Ms.
Dinardo’s initiation of bankruptcy proceedings. This Court discharged the
show cause order and referred the matter to this panel.

We reject the trial court’s waiver contention because the underlying order did
not strictly comply with Rule 1925(b), and therefore, we deem it
unenforceable.     See Commonwealth v. Jones, 193 A.3d 957, 961
(Pa.Super. 2018) (refusing to find waiver as a result to the Commonwealth’s
(Footnote Continued Next Page)

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       A. Whether the trial court incorrectly determined that the
          Intervenor’s foreclosure case was “pending,” as defined by
          § 1105(d)(3) of the . . . Act, despite the fact that the Intervenor
          had already obtained a judgment in their foreclosure case?

       B. Whether the trial court incorrectly determined that the
          Intervenor’s foreclosure case was “pending,” as defined by
          § 1105(d)(3) of the . . . Act, despite the fact that the Intervenor
          had already obtained a judgment in their foreclosure case and
          there was no active writ of execution, nor a pending sheriff
          sale?

SBI’s brief at 4 (cleaned up).

       Although raised in the context of an order that granted preliminary

objections,4 SBI’s issues, at their core, require us to interpret the language of

§ 1105(d)(3). Since “the construction of the language of the Act is a question

of law,” our standard of review is de novo. Scioli Turco, Inc. v. Prioleau,

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non-compliance with Rule 1925(b) “because the trial court’s Rule 1925(b)
order itself [wa]s deficient”).

Moreover, “[t]he automatic stay [set forth in 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(1) upon the
filing of a bankruptcy petition] precludes any non-bankruptcy court, including
state and federal courts, from continuing judicial proceedings pending against
the debtor.” Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania v. Myers, 872 A.2d 827, 833
(Ps.Super. 2005) (citation omitted). In determining whether an appeal
“comes within the purview of the automatic stay provision of § 362 . . . the
key determination is whether a proceeding was originally brought against the
debtor.” Id. (cleaned up). As the conservatorship action was originally
brought against Ms. Dinardo, her bankruptcy filings automatically stayed the
instant appeal. Accordingly, even if the statement had been subject to the
court’s ordered timeframe, it would be deemed timely.

4 “[O]ur standard of review of an order . . . granting preliminary objections is

to determine whether the trial court committed an error of law. When
considering the appropriateness of a ruling on preliminary objections, the
appellate court must apply the same standard as the trial court.” Richmond
v. McHale, 35 A.3d 779, 783 (Pa.Super. 2012) (cleaned up).

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207 A.3d 346, 350 (Pa.Super. 2019) (cleaned up). We undertake this task

pursuant to the following legal framework. First, the Statutory Construction

Act provides as follows:

      (a) The object of all interpretation and construction of statutes is
      to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly.
      Every statute shall be construed, if possible, to give effect to all
      its provisions.

      (b) When the words of a statute are clear and free from all
      ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the
      pretext of pursuing its spirit.

      (c) When the words of the statute are not explicit, the intention of
      the General Assembly may be ascertained by considering, among
      other matters:

            (1) The occasion and necessity for the statute.

            (2) The circumstances under which it was enacted.

            (3) The mischief to be remedied.

            (4) The object to be attained.

            (5) The former law, if any, including other statutes upon the
            same or similar subjects.

            (6) The consequences of a particular interpretation.

            (7) The contemporaneous legislative history.

            (8) Legislative and administrative interpretations of such
            statute.

1 Pa.C.S. § 1921. This Court has explained that

      [o]nly if we determine that the statutory text is ambiguous may
      we look to considerations beyond the text such as the mischief to
      be remedied by the statute or what gave rise to its enactment. In
      determining whether language is clear and unambiguous, we must

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      assess it in the context of the overall statutory scheme, construing
      all sections with reference to each other, not simply examining
      language in isolation. A term is ambiguous if, when it is read in
      context, it has more than one reasonable interpretation.

Scioli, supra at 350-51 (cleaned up).

      SBI asks this Court to interpret the meaning of “pending foreclosure

action” within the Act. In that regard, we first set forth the pertinent portion

of the Act:

      (a) General rule.--The court shall act upon a petition submitted
      by holding a hearing within 60 days of receipt of the petition and
      by rendering a decision no later than 30 days after completion of
      the hearing.

      (b) Intervention.--A party in interest may intervene in the
      proceeding and be heard with respect to the petition, the
      requested relief or any other matter which may come before the
      court in connection with the proceeding.

      (c) Hearing.--At the hearing, any party in interest shall be
      permitted to present evidence to support or contest the petition,
      including, but not limited to, the schedule of encumbrances.

      (d) Conditions for conservatorship.--If a petition is filed under
      section 4, the court may appoint a conservator if all of the
      following apply as of the date of filing:

                   ....

              (3) The property is not subject to a pending foreclosure
              action by an individual or nongovernmental entity.

                   ....

68 P.S. § 1105 (footnote omitted).

      The Act does not define the phrase “pending foreclosure action.” See

68 P.S. § 1103. Nonetheless, our legislature has provided specific guidance

for construing the words and phrases contained within a statute:

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      (a) Words and phrases shall be construed according to rules of
      grammar and according to their common and approved usage;
      but technical words and phrases and such others as have acquired
      a peculiar and appropriate meaning or are defined in this part,
      shall be construed according to such peculiar and appropriate
      meaning or definition.

      (b) General words shall be construed to take their meanings and
      be restricted by preceding particular words.

1 Pa.C.S. § 1903. “Courts also must not interpret a statute in a manner that

leads to an absurd result.” Scioli, supra at 351 (cleaned up).

      Here, the trial court concluded that the mortgage foreclosure action

remained pending at the time SBI sought to be appointed conservator. In

support of this finding, the trial court offered the following history, which is

undisputed.   Ms. Dinardo executed a mortgage on the property in 2009.

Thereafter, she defaulted on the mortgage and, on June 22, 2015, Intervenor

initiated the pertinent mortgage foreclosure action. A judgment was entered

in favor of Intervenor on January 24, 2018. Intervenor scheduled a sheriff’s

sale of the property for June 1, 2020, but the sale was stayed as a result of

Ms. Dinardo filing for bankruptcy in February 2020. The bankruptcy action

was dismissed on December 14, 2020, and Intervenor filed a writ of execution

on July 19, 2021, re-listing the property for sheriff’s sale. See Trial Court

Opinion, 3/17/22, at unnumbered 2.           In the interim, SBI filed the

conservatorship action.

      SBI argues that for a mortgage foreclosure action to be pending, it must

still be in progress. See SBI’s brief at 14-15. Relying on the legislature’s

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amendment changing the language in § 1105(d)(3) from “existing” to

“pending,”5 SBI contends that a foreclosure action is pending within the

context of the Act when it “either has not yet reached a judgment, or . . . has

an active writ of execution.”         Id. at 18.   Based on this interpretation of

“pending,” SBI maintains that the subject foreclosure action transitioned from

“pending” to “completed” on January 24, 2018, when Intervenor obtained a

final judgment. Id. at 15. While the July 2021 writ of execution may have

returned the mortgage foreclosure action to pending status, SBI filed its

petition for appointment of a conservator several months prior. Thus, SBI

argues that the trial court erred in deeming the foreclosure action pending

where, at the time SBI filed its petition, Intervenor had obtained a final

judgment in the mortgage foreclosure action and there were no active writs.

See id. at 16-19.

       The trial court disagreed. The court acknowledged that the simple filing

of a mortgage action does not permit the action to be “pending” indefinitely

and that a mortgagor “cannot be allowed to sit on their rights forever[.]” Trial

Court Opinion, 3/17/22, at unnumbered 3. However, it found that was not

the situation in this case:

       The foreclosure action experienced a number of continuances and
       ultimately a stay after [Ms.] Dinardo filed for bankruptcy. [SBI’s]
       argument, taken to its natural end, that the only instance where
       a foreclosure case is “pending” is if there is a valid writ of
       execution is simply inapposite to how foreclosure cases proceed
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5 The prior version provided as follows: “The building is not subject to an
existing foreclosure action.” 68 P.S. § 1105 (effective 2/24/09 to 12/22/14).

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       in real time. [Intervenor’s] mere seven-month delay after the
       termination of [Ms.] Dinardo’s bankruptcy in filing for a new writ
       is entirely reasonable and does not render this case inactive.

Id. at unnumbered 3-4 (cleaned up). Since the court determined that SBI

would be unable to show that there was not a pending foreclosure action, it

held that § 1105(d)(3) could not be satisfied. Id. at unnumbered 4.

       We begin our de novo review of the trial court’s ruling with the plan

meaning of the words at issue. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “pending” as:

“Remaining undecided; awaiting decision[.]”6 Pending, Black’s Law Dictionary

(11th Ed. 2019). This Court has also defined “pending” as an action that is

“begun, but not yet completed; during; before the conclusion of; prior to the

completion of; unsettled; undetermined; in process of settlement or

adjustment. Thus, an action or suit is ‘pending’ from its inception until the

rendition of final judgment.”7 Fin. Freedom, SFC v. Cooper, 21 A.3d 1229,
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6 This accords with the Merriam-Webster definition.
                                                 See Pending, Merriam-
Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pending (adjective:
“not yet decided[;] being in continuance”).

7 Similarly, the Abridged Sixth Edition of Black’s Law Dictionary defines
“pending” as follows:

       Begun, but not yet completed; during; before the conclusion of;
       prior to the completion of; unsettled; undetermined; in process of
       settlement or adjustment. Awaiting an occurrence or conclusion
       of action, period of continuance or indeterminacy. Thus, an action
       or suit is “pending” from its inception until the rendition of final
       judgment.

            An action is “pending” after it is commenced by either filing
       a complaint with the court or by the service of a summons.

Pending, Black’s Law Dictionary (Abridged 6th Ed. 1998).

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1231 (Pa.Super. 2011), quoting Black’s Law Dictionary (5th Ed.).           As for

“foreclosure,” Black’s Law Dictionary provides the following definition: “A legal

proceeding to terminate a mortgagor’s interest in property, instituted by the

lender (the mortgagee) either to gain title or to force a sale in order to satisfy

the unpaid debt secured by the property.” Foreclosure, Black’s Law Dictionary

(11th Ed. 2019).

      In the context of mortgage foreclosures, this Court has observed that

“the purpose of a judgment in mortgage foreclosure is solely to effect a judicial

sale of the mortgaged property.”       New York Guardian Mortg. Corp. v.

Dietzel,   524     A.2d   951,   953   (Pa.Super.   1987)    (citation   omitted).

Concomitantly, “[t]he purpose of a sheriff’s sale in mortgage foreclosure

proceedings is to realize out of the land, the debt, interest, and costs which

are due, or have accrued to, the judgment creditor.”        Nationstar Mortg.,

LLC v. Lark, 73 A.3d 1265, 1267 (Pa.Super. 2013) (cleaned up). Thus, both

the judgment in foreclosure and the sheriff’s sale to realize that judgment

comprise the mortgage foreclosure action. Stated simply, until a sheriff’s sale

is concluded, the judgment remains unsatisfied and the action remains

pending. Thus, we reject SBI’s argument that a mortgage foreclosure action

ends once a plaintiff obtains a judgment. See SBI’s brief at 13.

      SBI alternatively defines “a ‘pending’ foreclosure” as “one that has an

active writ of execution.” Id. at 18. SBI argues that “[l]ike homeowners who

have abandoned their properties and allowed them to become blighted,

mortgage companies have a responsibility to move their cases forward to

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Sheriff Sale and not allow the properties they foreclose on to sit vacant and

untouched for years.” Id. To be clear, we do not condone dilatory behavior

by mortgage companies that would cause properties to become blighted due

to inaction in executing their mortgage foreclosure judgments. However, we

do not find that to be the case in the matter sub judice.

      Here, Intervenor attempted to effectuate the sheriff’s sale between

2018 and 2020. To wit, it filed a praecipe for a writ of execution approximately

one week after the default judgment. Thereafter, Intervenor filed multiple

praecipes to reissue the writ of execution between 2018 and 2020.           The

sheriff’s sale was scheduled for March 2, 2020, and postponed twice to June

2020. However, Intervenor was prevented from holding the sheriff’s sale as

a result of Ms. Dinardo’s bankruptcy filing. Seven months after dismissal of

her bankruptcy action, Intervenor again filed a petition for writ of execution.

See SBI’s Preliminary Objections and Response to Intervenor’s Preliminary

Objections, 1/8/22, Exhibit 1 (court records docket for the mortgage

foreclosure action). SBI filed the underlying conservatorship petition in the

interim between the dismissal of the bankruptcy action and Intervenor’s

renewed petition for a writ of execution.

      It is undisputed that Intervenor waited seven months before seeking to

renew the petition for a writ of execution following the dismissal of the

bankruptcy action that had forestalled the previously-scheduled sheriff’s sale.

Yet, SBI has not pointed us to any authority mandating how quickly a petition

for a writ of execution must be renewed following a bankruptcy action being

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dismissed,8 nor have we found any precedent outlining the time frame within

which a mortgage foreclosure judgment must be executed by a sheriff’s sale

before it is considered quiescent.         Nonetheless, upon review of the record

before us, we conclude that the delays occurring herein were not so egregious

or unreasonable as to render the mortgage foreclosure action fatally inactive.

       Based on the foregoing facts and the definition of “pending” as

understood in the Act, we conclude that the mortgage foreclosure action

remained pending at the time SBI filed its conservatorship action. SBI’s filing

during a gap in the docket between the bankruptcy dismissal and renewed

efforts to effectuate the sheriff’s sale did not alter the pending status of the

mortgage foreclosure action.          Intervenor had been actively pursuing the

sheriff’s sale since 2018, and at the time of the conservatorship filing, it was

not yet complete. Clearly, the resolution of this property’s foreclosure has not

been swift or straightforward, and Intervenor has not always acted with the

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8 SBI’s reliance on the “Findings of Fact and Order of Court” issued on a
separate docket by the Honorable Donald R. Walko, Jr., on February 14, 2020,
regarding the appointment of a different conservator for the property is
misplaced. See SBI’s brief at 16-18; Petitioner’s Supplement to its Response
to Intervenor’s Preliminary Objections, 1/11/22 (Exhibit 1, Erreichen, Inc.
v. Dinardo, Docket No. GD 19-005962 (Ct.Com.Pl. Feb. 14, 2020). In that
case, the petition for the appointment of a conservator was filed approximately
one week after Intervenor filed a praecipe to reissue the writ of execution in
April 2019. As the foreclosure action was patently active at the time the
conservatorship petition in that case was filed, Judge Walko dismissed the
petition. This decision simply has no bearing on the instant matter as it is
both non-binding and distinguishable from the facts herein. Even if it were
binding, we do not read Judge Walko’s decision as creating a rule that
mortgage foreclosure actions are pending only when there is an active writ of
execution.

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utmost expediency. However, the interruptions postponing the execution of

the judicial sale of the property have not solely been at the hands of

Intervenor. Indeed, during the pendency of this appeal, Ms. Dinardo again

filed for bankruptcy, thereby staying the matter.

      Upon review of the certified record, we discern no error in the trial

court’s conclusion that Intervenor has not impermissibly stalled the

proceedings. Our de novo review affirms that the undisputed facts as a matter

of law indicate that the action remained pending despite the delays. Thus, we

agree with the trial court’s conclusion that SBI could not prove, at the time it

filed the petition for appointment of a conservator, that a mortgage

foreclosure action was not pending on the property. Accordingly, we affirm

the order sustaining Intervenor’s preliminary objections and dismissing the

conservatorship action.

      Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 9/29/2023

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