Court Opinion

ID: 9764061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:08:55.531046+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:52.969019
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Judge Doyle:
I concur in the result reached by the majority and write separately only to explain that I concur because the appellant asserted in her Petition for the Appointment of a Board of Viewers that the condemnor, the City of Philadelphia, “demolished the buildings adjoining 4412 Parrish Street” and that as the result of that demolition her property was rendered uninhabitable and its use “as a rental property or for any purpose” was destroyed because of major structural damage such as the separation of the front wall from both side walls. Of course, for the purpose of a demurrer all well pled factual allegations in the petition must be taken as true. Zemprelli v. Thornburgh, 73 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 101, 457 A.2d 1326 (1983).
Deets v. Mountaintop Area Joint Sanitary Authority, 84 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 300, 479 A.2d 49 (1984), is still good law, and in Deets, which involved the negligence of *232the Authority’s independent contractor when it laid a sewer line outside the Authority’s right-of-way, we held:
[W]here the deprivation of the use and enjoyment of property is the result of the negligent actions of an independent contractor acting without the authority or direction of an entity clothed with the power of eminent domain, we have held the property owner’s sole remedy is an action in trespass against the offending contractors. ... It is only where a landowner’s damages are the result of the actions of an entity clothed with the power of eminent domain that the landowner may seek compensation under the Code. Where the actual intrusion is the result of the actions of independent contractors, the landowner must prove that the contractor’s actions were either authorized or directed by the entity clothed with eminent domain power to proceed under the Code. Where the contractor deviates from a previously granted right-of-way, the landowner must prove the contractor’s deviation was either authorized or directed by the entity with eminent domain power. Here, the appellants failed to meet that burden.
Id. at 304, 479 A.2d at 51-52 (citations omitted).
If the condemnor or its contractor—if the contractor acted with the explicit authority of the condemnor—was directly responsible for the damage to thé appellant’s property, then the criteria which our Supreme Court set forth in Conroy-Prugh Glass Co. v. Commonwealth, 456 Pa. 384, 321 A.2d 598 (1974), should be applied by the trial court. Otherwise, the appellant’s remedy lies against those whose negligent conduct caused appellant’s loss.