Opinion
12 MAP 2021
11-17-2021
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, PENNSYLVANIA GAME COMMISSION, Appellee v. THOMAS E. PROCTOR HEIRS TRUST and the Margaret O.F. Proctor Trust, Appellants
ORDER
PER CURIAM.
AND NOW, this 17th day of November, 2021, the single-judge orders of the Commonwealth Court dated January 26, 2021, and February 17, 2021, are VACATED, and the matter is remanded for further proceedings.
In this complex, quiet-title action premised on the consequences of tax sales conducted in 1908 and 1924, an en banc panel of the Commonwealth Court unanimously declined to award summary relief, finding that there were at least two core, material issues of fact that required fact-finding. In laying the foundation for this ruling, the en banc panel specifically explained: "It is undisputed that the Premises was unseated[, or undeveloped and wild,] at the time of the 1908 and 1924 Tax Sales." PGC v. Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, 493 M.D. 2017, slip op. at 4 n.5, 2020 WL 256984 (Pa. Cmwlth. Jan. 16, 2020) (en banc) (emphasis added). The en banc court then considered the principles delineated in the seminal decision addressing the effects of a tax sale upon title to unseated property in the relevant era, namely, Herder Spring Hunting Club v. Keller, 636 Pa. 344, 143 A.3d 358 (2016). Ultimately, the court determined that Herder Spring's holding that a tax sale had the effect of washing title and reuniting previously severed surface and subsurface estates might or might not control the outcome of the present case, depending on the resolution of the material factual controversies.1
Subsequently, the case was assigned to a single judge, who issued a scheduling order requiring the parties to submit "a joint pretrial filing narrowing the issues for trial." Order dated Apr. 3, 2020, in Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, No. 493 M.D. 2017, at 1. In response, the litigants tendered a joint submission disclosing that discovery was complete, identifying witnesses to be presented and documents to be submitted into evidence, and stipulating to the undisputed facts. In the material part of the stipulation, the parties cited verbatim to the en banc court's previous memorandum as follows: "It is undisputed that the Premises was unseated at the time of the 1908 and 1924 Tax Sales." Joint Pretrial Filing in Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, 493 M.D. 2017, at 19 (citing Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, 493 M.D. 2017, slip op. at 4 n.5 (Jan. 16, 2020 en banc memorandum)).
Based on this stipulation to a fact that already had been accepted as true by the en banc panel, the single judge determined that there were no longer any material factual disputes and that she could therefore proceed to render judgment without a trial.2 Ultimately, the single judge concluded that the subject premises were "necessarily sold as a whole at the 1908 and 1924 tax sales, including both surface and subsurface interests, thereby washing the title" and divesting Appellants of their interest in the subsurface minerals. Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, 493 M.D. 2017, slip op. at 17-18 (Jan. 26, 2021 single-judge memorandum).
The single judge also denied Appellants' ensuing application for relief which she characterized as one seeking post-trial relief. See Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, 493 M.D. 2017, slip op. at 1 (Feb. 17, 2021) (single-judge memorandum). In this regard, she referred to the proceeding before her as entailing "stipulated facts in lieu of a bench trial." Id.
Appellants, however, never agreed to forego a trial via stipulation; rather, they were prepared to present evidence about the specific matters that the en banc Commonwealth Court had found to be material issues of disputed fact. The fact that the parties stipulated to a matter that already had been accepted as true — since it was undisputed — changed nothing.
To the degree that the single judge has implied that the en banc opinion concerned seated, and not unseated, property, such position is not borne out by that opinion. In this regard, Herder Spring's analysis of the effect of tax sales on title to real property is the centerpiece of the en banc opinion, see Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust, 493 M.D. 2017, slip op. at 6-10 (Jan. 16, 2020 en banc memorandum) (detailing the factual and procedural background and analysis of Herder Spring), and the en banc court clearly apprehended that Herder Spring applies to "cases involving quiet title actions for formerly unseated land sold at a tax sale prior to 1947." Id. at 10 (quoting Herder Spring, 143 A.3d at 378 (emphasis added)). Along these lines, the en banc court specifically interrelated Herder Spring's treatment of the effect of a tax sale of unseated property with its determination that material factual controversies existed. See id. at 13 (explaining that, "[u]nder Herder Spring, the issue is whether [Appellants' predecessors in title] reported the severance of rights to the County Commissioners" and concluding that, "while a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the [Appellants'] predecessors-in-title reported the severance of the Surface and Subsurface rights, a reasonable trier of fact could also conclude they did not" (emphasis removed)).3
We credit Appellants' position that the single-judge orders impermissibly operated to overturn the ruling of a higher tribunal, namely, the en banc court, and deviated from the law of the case. See Pa.R.A.P. 3723 (reflecting the hierarchy of the intermediate courts); Commonwealth v. Starr, 541 Pa. 564, 664 A.2d 1326, 1331 (1995) (explaining that the law of the case doctrine "refers to a family of rules which embody the concept that a court involved in the later phases of a litigated matter should not [generally] reopen questions decided by another judge of that same court or by a higher court in the earlier phases of the matter"). Our decision, in this regard, is premised on the fact that the single judge failed to identify any material change in the circumstances or viable approach to reconsideration, but rather, provided an unsustainable reason in support of her decision to effectively reconsider.
This Court has not reviewed the merits of the proceedings on summary relief motions and expresses no opinion thereon. Nor do we direct the appropriate course of the further proceedings, since material changed circumstances could perhaps occur, or there might be an appropriate procedural avenue for the en banc court to reconsider its dispositive ruling with due, fair, and express consideration of its previous rationale.4
Presently, we merely credit Appellants' position that the basis for the single-judge rulings was clearly erroneous, and therefore, such rulings cannot stand.