Court Opinion

ID: 9748557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:05:35.343149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:36.843886
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR,
dissenting.
The Department’s central position is that its constitutionally-based fiduciary duty to maintain and preserve State parks mandates that it have a role in determining what constitutes reasonable use of the surface of Oil Creek State Park by Appellee. I agree.
I recognize Appellee’s important and protected property interests. Nevertheless, I respectfully differ with its, the Commonwealth Court’s, and the majority’s reasoning to the degree it subsumes the proposition that the Department is unable to require adherence to conditions necessary to ensure reasonable ingress by mineral interests holders on parklands and restrain unreasonable activity on their part.
*569As DCNR develops, the Constitution requires that the Commonwealth government conserve and maintain Pennsylvania’s natural resources for the benefit of all the people, Pa. Const. art.I § 27, and the Conservation and Natural Resources Act accords this duty, in substantial part, to the Department via the requirement that it “supervise, maintain, improve, regulate, police and preserve all parks belonging to the Commonwealth.” 71 P.S. § 1340.303(a). Commonwealth agencies such as DCNR are vested with implied powers necessary to effectuate their statutory mandates. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Beam, 567 Pa. 492, 498-500, 788 A.2d 357, 361-62 (2002) (recognizing the implied authority of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to seek an injunction against the operation of an unlicensed airport). In Beam, this Court observed that “it is evident from the Aviation Code that the Legislature intended to confer upon the Department an ability to secure compliance with ... statutory requirements” having substantial public safety and welfare implications. Id. at 497-98, 788 A.2d at 361. It is equally apparent, here, that the General Assembly intended that DCNR, as the custodian and trustee of public property including “some of our State’s most precious and rare natural areas,” 71 P.S. § 1340.101(a)(2), have the ability to negotiate agreements with subsurface owners,1 and restrain unreasonable incursions onto the surface of Commonwealth lands.2
Moreover, I agree with the Department that the possession of a well permit by the subsurface owner is not dispositive. As the Department persuasively argues, the inquiry before the Department of Environmental Protection may overlap, but is not entirely coterminous, with DCNR’s own assessment of the *570impact of an overall drilling operation (including the creation of avenues of ingress and egress) on the natural resources comprising a State park.
I also differ with Appellee’s argument that the above understanding results in DCNR having unilateral authority usurping the power of the courts to be the final arbiter of disputes involving subsurface rights at parklands. As the present proceedings exemplify, a subsurface owner may seek redress in a judicial forum. Although I recognize that this involves delay and inconvenience, the alternative is to deprive the Department of a substantial means to discharge its obligation to guard and protect vital Commonwealth resources. The seminal decision in Chartiers Block Coal Co. v. Mellon, 152 Pa. 286, 25 A. 597 (1893), recognizes the reality that these types of land-rights disputes present complex matters involving the ordering of competing and compelling interests and are subject to litigation. See Chartiers, 152 Pa. at 298, 25 A. at 599. Although Chartiers shows an appreciation of the difficult balancing which must occur to protect the various rights in tension and the importance of achieving a solution that permits all owners to enjoy the beneficial use of their property to the fullest extent possible, the Chartiers Court simply did not undertake to specify who must be the plaintiff and who must be the defendant in litigation over those interests.
On a cautionary note, while mineral rights holders must act with due regard to the public interest in accessing public lands, the Department must also act with due regard to the private interests. To the degree that DCNR misjudges the reasonableness of a subsurface owner’s conduct and unduly restrains it, it is acting in derogation of substantial private rights and interests which are also protected by the Constitution, and which the courts are open and available to vindicate.
In light of the above, I believe the outcome of this proceeding as it has been framed should depend on the reasonableness of the conditions DCNR required of Appellee (or, stated differently, the reasonableness of Appellee’s ingress and operations in the parklands in the absence of such conditions), rather than upon any universal proposition that the Depart*571ment has no authority to require conditions or restrain unreasonable activity in any way other than resorting to the courts. Indeed, the gravamen of Count I of Appellee’s petition for review was the assertion that its past and proposed conduct was and will be, in fact, reasonable without the Department’s conditions. See Petition for Review ¶ 13 (“Because Belden & Blake has, among other rights, an implied easement to enter the subject parcels and exercise its rights in a reasonable fashion, and because Belden & Blake has acted reasonably and in excess of what the law requires of an easement holder, DCNR cannot hinder Belden & Blake’s oil and gas operations ...” (emphasis added)). While the Commonwealth Court awarded summary judgment on this count, its opinion contains no developed, fact-bound reasonableness assessment. As the Department emphasizes, the court also does not appear to have undertaken any balancing of the parties’ respective rights and interests. Thus, it seems apparent, to me at least, that Appellee was not entitled to the full measure of requested declaratory relief based on the reasoning developed by the court.
The Commonwealth Court did make brief mention of each condition proposed by DCNR in its analysis, but its conclusions were based on the proposition, stated with a fair degree of abstraction, that the Department had no authority to impose each of them. Therefore, from the opinion, it is not possible to determine with confidence whether the court’s conclusions were based on the nature of the specific conditions in view of the particular facts and circumstances presented, or the more global proposition that the Department has no authority to limit access according to any conditions.3 In *572these circumstances, and in light of my conclusion that a blanket rule is inappropriate, I would remand for further development of the Commonwealth Court’s reasoning and a fuller explanation of the nature of the declaratory relief awarded. To the degree the Commonwealth Court’s conclusion, consistent with Appellee’s request for declaratory relief, is that Appellee’s conduct and plans are reasonable, I believe some factual development may be necessary. I would admonish, however, in light of Appellee’s undisputed right of access, that the initial burden of proof appropriately rests with the Department to demonstrate the reasonableness of conditions it seeks to impose. Cf. Amoco, 235 F.Supp.2d at 1171.
Justice TODD joins this dissenting opinion.

. Other courts have recognized that surface and subsurface owners generally address the terms on which mineral rights holders’ easements will be effectuated via agreements. See, e.g., Amoco Production Co. v. Thunderhead Investments, Inc., 235 F.Supp.2d 1163, 1167 (D.Colo.2002); United States v. Minard Run Oil Co., Civ. No. 80-129 Erie, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9570, at *14 (W.D.Pa. Dec. 16, 1980) (explaining that "the parties should attempt to reach a reasonable accommodation so that each may reasonably enjoy his respective property rights.”).

. Some recognition is also due to the magnitude of DCNR’s task in protecting public property comprised of the 117 State parks it manages.

. For example, if access to a particular drilling location were to be through a particularly rare and environmentally sensitive area, in which the requirements for reasonable ingress could be violated readily with a high probability of substantial damage, we are not prepared to say here that the Department would not be within its prerogative to require the posting of some reasonable form of security. I also would not foreclose the requirement of security in the event DCNR could demonstrate that a particular operator was financially unstable. Indeed, in its opposition to Appellee's summary judgment effort, the Department indicated that discovery was needed on this subject to the *572degree to which Appellee maintained that the bond condition was unreasonable. See R.R. at 335a.
As to stumpage fees, the trees of Oil Creek State Park certainly belong to the public at large, and it is not unreasonable for the Department to offer terms by which their necessary disposition will be administered. Again, the ultimate reasonableness of the offered terms appears to present a factual matter, particularly in light of the sought-after judicial declaration that Appellee's existing and proposed course of conduct was and is reasonable.