Court Opinion

ID: 9694362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:38:49.98802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:00.155102
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Spaeth, J.:
I agree with Judge Jacobs that this court has jurisdiction. I also agree with his interpretation of the subordination agreements. I cannot, however, agree that appellee should be permitted to take advantage of the statute that would discharge the subordinated mortgage. To permit this, by allowing the decision of the court below to stand, is to permit appellee to obtain for $2,400 a property purchased seven years earlier for $22,500. Since appellee will have achieved this coup as a result of the position he maintained before the Commonwealth Court, when the fairness of the tax sale was litigated, I would hold him estopped to deny that the mortgage lien remains in effect.
In declining to hold appellee estopped, Judge Jacobs makes two points. The first point is that “[t]he matter of the mortgage lien’s loss of priority . . . was not actually litigated [before the Commonwealth Court] . . . nor was a determination on it made a basis of [that court’s] decision”. The second point is that “[n] either the records on this appeal nor any of the opinions in the various suits under consideration show that the appellee was even aware in the . . . suit [before the Commonwealth Court] of the subordination agreements, let alone concealed a belief as to their effects . . . .”
With respect to Judge Jacobs’ first point: The fact that the mortgage lien’s loss of priority was not litigated as a distinct issue before the Commonwealth Court is a reason why appellee should be estopped in this case, not a reason why he should not be. The mort*135gagees were not parties before the Commonwealth Court and were therefore not in a position to bring to that court’s attention the issue of whether the mortgage lien had lost its priority by virtue of the subordination agreements. It was not to appellee’s interest (or so he thought) to raise the issue, and he did not. Thus, while it is true that the Commonwealth Court’s decision does not rest upon “a determination” of the mortgage Men’s priority, that is only because appellee by his silence avoided a determination.
Sometime a litigant’s silence will have no effect. Here, however, appellee’s silence induced the Commonwealth Court to base its decision upon the assumption, rather than upon a formal determination, that the mortgage lien had not lost its priority.
There can be no doubt about this. The court said that the only basis for its decision that appellee’s payment of $2,400 was not grossly inadequate was because “the purchase is subject to a mortgage in the amount of $15,000.00.” Tax Claim Bureau v. Wheatcroft, 2 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 408, 414 (1971). In making this statement the court must have relied on the last paragraph of appellee’s brief, which read as follows: “The appellants’ [i.e., Mr. and Mrs. Auritt] inadequate case for proving the fair market value of the subject premises and hence a would-be inadequacy of consideration also includes evidence as to mortgage and judgment liens against the premises. The evidence is summarized here so that the Court will know that the “equity” of the appellants in the premises was not as great as the allegations of the petition would indicate. At pages 7 and 9 of the depositions of May 16, 1969 (Rec. pp. ) [sic] the appellant states that the property was subject to a mortgage lien of $15,000 and judgment liens of $10,000 and $4,000. Thus the equity in the premises is far less than the alleged but unproven market value.” (Emphasis added.)
*136I recognize the argument that this paragraph is ambiguous. However, I find no ambiguity. To say that an assertion (“the consideration was inadequate”) is not true because of a fact (“the property was subject to a mortgage lien”) is either a representation that the fact is true, or else it is nonsense.
With respect to Judge Jacobs' second point: I do not see how it can be maintained that “the records on this appeal” do not show that “appellee was . . . aware . . . of the subordination agreements . . . .” On pages 26a and 31a of the record it appears that both subordination agreements were recorded in Montgomery County in the mortgage book, one on November 12, 1967, and the other on November 20, 1967. The tax sale was on September 9, 1968. When appellee bought the property at the tax sale he must have known not only of the recorded mortgage but of the recorded subordination agreements. Since he knew of the subordination agreements, he must have had a theory of what they meant, either that they did upset the mortgage’s prior lien, or that they did not. Yet when arguing the issue of adequacy of consideration to the Commonwealth Court, he stated that “the property was subject to a mortgage lien”, and made no mention of the subordination agreements. If I were a Commonwealth Court judge, I should have no hesitancy in concluding that appellee had “concealed a belief as to [the subordination agreements’] effects . . . .”
It may be granted that this case does not fit into the usual mold. Usually it is pertinent to ask whether a party has “changed his position” in “reliance upon” the other party’s alleged misrepresentation. This case defies this standard analysis because here it is the Commonwealth Court that has relied upon a misrepresentation; and it is the court’s decision that has changed the parties’ positions. This distinctiveness, however, does not preclude the application of the doctrine of *137estoppel. “ Ail estoppel may be said to arise when a person executes a deed, or is concerned in or does some act, either of record or in pais, which will preclude him from averring anything to the contrary'. 10 R.C.L. p. 675; see, too, Fedas v. Ins. Co., 300 Pa. 555, 560; Atkins v. Payne, 190 Pa. 5, 200 Pa. 557; Ebert v. Johns, 206 Pa. 395; Sargent v. Johns, 206 Pa. 386; Com. v. Moltz, 10 Pa. 527, 530; Keefer v. Keefer, 9 Pa. Superior Ct. 53; 21 C. J. 1060." General Contract Purchase Corp. v. Bitomski, 102 Pa. Superior Ct. 266, 273, 156 A. 727, 729 (1931). Since appellee stated to the Commonwealth Court that “the property was subject to a mortgage lien77, and since the court acted on that proposition to his benefit, he should be precluded now from “averring anything to the contrary77, when by averring to the contrary he seeks to divest a lien for which value was apparently given, and thereby to obtain for $2,400 a property purchased for $22,500.
A qualification should be noted. I do not suggest that appellant-assignee should necessarily prevail. Whether the assignee in fact stands in the shoes of the mortgagees does not appear. It does not because there has been no trial on the merits, the court below having granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment.
The motion granting summary judgment in the mortgage foreclosure action should be reversed and the matter remanded for trial; the judgment in the ejectment action should be reversed so that the court below may consider whether it wishes again to stay eviction pending final decision in the foreclosure action.
Cercone, J., joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.