Court Opinion

ID: 9699643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:43:38.229411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:55.046601
License: Public Domain

*1168DISSENTING OPINION BY
BOWES, J.:
¶ 1 In my view, Appellant raises the meritorious position that the Structured Settlement Protection Act, 40 P.S. §§ 4001-06 (the “Act”), envisions the conduct of a hearing. Specifically, on three occasions, in section 4004, the article “the” precedes the word “hearing.” Thus, immediately after designating the court of jurisdiction for a petition under the Act, that section states that “[n]ot less than 20 days prior to the scheduled hearing on any petition for authorization of a transfer of structured settlement payment rights under section 3, the payee shall file with the court and serve on the transferee a notice of the proposed transfer....” Similarly, at two subsequent junctures, the same article appears prior to the term hearing. By using “the” rather than “a” hearing, the legislature unequivocally has demonstrated that it contemplated that a hearing will be held on a petition filed under the Act. As noted by the majority, this interpretation of section 4004’s language is in accord with that reached by the vast majority of trial judges in this Commonwealth. The majority’s construction of the term “the” has reduced that term to pure surplusage, in violation of the mandates of 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(a) (“Every statute shall be construed, if possible, to give effect to all its provisions.”).
¶ 2 Moreover, I agree with Appellant that the statute, as applied to her individual case, has deprived her of due process rights. Appellant owns the right to receive a stream of income. The right to sell property is a basic component of ownership that is well-established in the common law of this country. See Perin v. Carey, 65 U.S. 465, 494-95, 24 How. 465, 16 L.Ed. 701 (1860).
A seizure of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interest in that property. See Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 61-65, 113 S.Ct. 538, 543, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992). A seizure of property sufficient to implicate Fourth Amendment rights occurs where the seizure is unreasonable. Id. In determining whether a government seizure violates the Fourth Amendment, the seizure must be scrutinized for its overall reasonableness. Id.
Snead v. Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 929 A.2d 1169, 1181 (Pa.Super.2007) (quoting Wagner v. Waitlevertch, 774 A.2d 1247, 1254 (Pa.Super.2001)).
¶ 3 To determine what process is constitutionally due, the United States Supreme Court has utilized the balancing of three factors:
“First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 903, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976).
Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924, 931-32, 117 S.Ct. 1807, 138 L.Ed.2d 120 (1997). Also pertinent to the determination of what process is due are the length and finality of the deprivation. Id. Thus, in Gilbert, the Court analyzed whether a hearing was required before the government could cease a stream of income to which the recipient had a statutory right. In concluding a pre-cessation hearing was not required, the Court specifically considered the fact that the recipient received a post-cessation hearing. In that case, a state employee was suspended without pay as soon as felony drug charges were filed against him. At issue was whether the employee was constitutionally entitled to a *1169hearing before the pay was suspended. In concluding that no hearing was compelled, the Supreme Court accorded great weight to the fact that the employee received a hearing on whether his pay should have been suspended soon after the pay was stopped.
¶ 4 Herein, Appellant presented a petition setting forth sufficiently compelling circumstances that a hearing, as required by the Act, should have been held. Specifically, Appellant was thirty-nine years old and a married mother of two children. As a teenager, she had been injured in an automobile accident and had settled her claim against the tortfeasor in 1987 in an agreement that provided for periodic payments as follows: 1) 60 monthly payments of $1,900.00 from July 1, 1987, to June 1, 1992; 2) 60 monthly payments of $2,150.00 from July 1, 1992, to June 1, 1997; 3) 60 monthly payments of $2,400.00 from July 1, 1997, to June 1, 2002; 4) 60 monthly payments of $2,650.00 from July 1, 2002, to June 1, 2007; and 5) 240 monthly payments of $2,900.00 from July 1, 2007, to June 1, 2027, and for the rest of Petitioner’s lifetime thereafter. The agreement also provided for the following lump sum payments of: 1) $10,000.00 on June 1, 1992; 2) $20,000.00 on June 1, 1997; 3) $40,000.00 on June 1, 2002; 4) $80,000.00 on June 1, 2007; 5) $120,000.00 on June 1, 2012; and 6) $150,000.00 on June 1, 2017. The obligation to make the periodic payments was assigned to and funded by the acquisition of an annuity.
¶ 5 On March 30, 2006, Appellant executed a structured settlement payment right purchase and assignment agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”). The Purchase Agreement provided for the assignment to Structured Asset Funding, LLC (“SAF”), of Appellant’s right and interest in receiving 180 monthly payments each in the amount of $1,450.00, beginning with the payment on March 1, 2008, through February 1, 2023, plus one lump sum payment in the amount of $75,000.00 due on June 1, 2012, and one lump sum payment in the amount of $100,000.00 due on June 1, 2017. In exchange, she was to receive the net sum of $143,000.00, for an effective annual discount rate for the transaction of 13.97%.
¶ 6 Thus, after deduction for the payments to be transferred to the SAF, Appellant would continue to receive the remaining portions of the periodic payments consisting of partial monthly payments in the amount of $1,450.00, beginning with the payment on March 1, 2008, through February 1, 2023, the entire monthly payment in the amount of $2,900.00 beginning with the payment on March 1, 2023, through June 1, 2027, and for the rest of her lifetime thereafter, and partial lump sum payments of $45,000.00 due on June 1, 2012, and $50,000.00 due on June 1, 2017.
¶ 7 On April 20, 2006, Appellant filed a petition to transfer structured settlement payment rights in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, citing the Act as enabling authority. Therein, Mrs. Jacobs alleged that all of the statutory requirements of the Act had been complied with, that the transfer was in her best interests, and that there was no adverse tax impact on the interested parties. She therefore requested the court to approve the proposed transfer.
¶ 8 In her petition, Mrs. Jacobs alleged that her husband was injured and unable to work. She had applied for consolidation and home equity loans and had been denied, and she intended to satisfy with the money from SAF outstanding bills, loans, medical and orthodontia expenses, and other debts including property taxes totaling in excess of $54,000.00. She also needed to make home repairs.
*1170¶ 9 Appellant noted that prior to the Act’s enactment, she assigned her payments through March 2008, as well as the lump sum payment of $80,000.00 due on June 1, 2007 to a different purchaser.
¶ 10 Appellant has been deprived of her right to alienate her property, which is a significant property interest. This deprivation may well be erroneous but as an appellate court, we have been denied an adequate record upon which to review the trial court’s decision. Given the present circumstances, there is every indication that Appellant will never have the opportunity for such a hearing in Allegheny County. It is not unduly burdensome for the court system to devote three or four hours of its resources to allow Appellant the opportunity to be heard, and the governmental interest in this ease is virtually non-existent since it is the function of the court system to be available to litigants.
¶ 11 The United States Supreme Court has
consistently has held that some form of hearing is required before an individual is finally deprived of a property interest. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557-558, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975-2976, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). See, e.g. Phillips v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 283 U.S. 589, 596-597, 51 S.Ct. 608, 611-612, 75 L.Ed. 1289 (1931). See also Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 124-125, 9 S.Ct. 231, 234, 32 L.Ed. 623 (1889). The “right to be heard before being condemned to suffer grievous loss of any kind, even though it may not involve the stigma and hardships of a criminal conviction, is a principle basic to our society.” Joint Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 168, 71 S.Ct. 624, 646, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). The fundamental requirement of due process is the opportunity to be heard “at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552, 85 S.Ct. 1187, 1191, 14 L.Ed.2d 62 (1965). See Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394, 34 S.Ct. 779, 783, 58 L.Ed. 1363 (1914).
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 333, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976).
¶ 12 A hearing serves the laudable purpose of permitting a petitioner to voice his or her need to sell a structured settlement to the jurist in person. A petitioner should have the opportunity to present his or her reasons for seeking the sale directly to the judge in order to establish the circumstances that compelled him or her to seek the sale in the first instance. Thus confronted by the petitioner, a jurist may be more informed by the real financial needs presented by the petitioner’s situation and can more appropriately gauge the petitioner’s sophistication and susceptibility to financial predators. A hearing is a superior avenue of deciding this question over a review of a cold record, especially since the judge’s decision may impact dramatically on a person’s life. Accordingly, I dissent to the majority’s decision in this case.