Opinion
No. 356 C.D. 2014
01-07-2015
School District of Philadelphia v. Agnes Frempong and Steve Frempong, Appellants
OPINION NOT REPORTED
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Agnes Frempong and Steve Frempong (Wife and Husband and collectively, Landowners) appeal pro se the order of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas (trial court) granting the School District of Philadelphia's (School District) motion to quash their statutory appeal. We affirm.
Landowners own a parcel of property at 5528 Crowson Street in the City of Philadelphia (City). On an unspecified date, Landowners filed a petition with the City's Board of Revision of Taxes (Board) seeking a nunc pro tunc appeal of the property's valuation for the years 1985 through 1996. The Board held a public hearing on Landowners' petition on March 12, 2013, and denied the nunc pro tunc petition the following day. Landowners appealed the Board's decision to the trial court.
On April 12, 2013, the trial court issued a Case Management Order stating, in relevant part:
Appellant is required to obtain a copy of the hearing transcript or certified record if applicable from the agency once a scheduling order is issued. Appellant must order a transcript of the proceedings before the [Board] by serving the stenographer with a copy of the Notice of Appeal and paying the stenographer for the cost of producing the notes. The stenographer must then transcribe the notes of testimony, file the original notes with the [Board] and deliver a copy of the notes to appellant within (30) days. Failure to order the transcript will result in the dismissal of the appeal absent good cause shown....(Supplemental Reproduced Record (SRR) at 99) (emphasis in original).
On July 11, 2013, the trial court issued a Scheduling Order directing Landowners to file any expert reports or pre-trial memoranda by September 3, 2013. On September 4, 2013, Landowners filed a motion for extraordinary relief alleging, inter alia, that Husband, who has previously appeared as an expert regarding the valuation of property, was not able to prepare the report "due to [an] unexpected flu attack...," and that they needed an additional 30 days to file the report. (SRR at 21). The trial court granted Landowners' motion for extraordinary relief extending the deadline to October 7, 2013, and extending the date of the hearing on the merits to December. (Id. at 24).
On November 26, 2013, the School District filed a motion to quash Landowners' appeal alleging, inter alia, that the appeal was scheduled for trial on December 17, 2013, but that Landowners failed to file a pretrial memorandum by the extended deadline. As a result, the School District contended that it and the trial court were unable to review the merits of the appeal. In addition, the School District alleged that Husband was not an aggrieved party because he has no ownership or other interest in the property and there were no liabilities owed on the property for the 1985 to 1996 tax years that Landowners seek to appeal.
On December 9, 2013, Landowners filed a brief in support of their appeal alleging, in relevant part, that the City failed to serve any notice of the property assessments and the filing of tax liens on the property and that they became aware of them after the City had initiated proceedings to foreclose on the property. Landowners asserted that they filed a timely petition to appeal the property tax assessments nunc pro tunc with the Board, but they could not attend the Board's public hearing due to illness and had filed a timely application for a continuance. Landowners also alleged that while the Board did not deny the continuance request, it denied their petition to appeal the assessments nunc pro tunc and advised them to appeal that decision to the trial court.
Landowners also asserted that "[u]nder the threat of foreclosure [they] unwillingly entered into an agreement to pay the alleged liens while filing the instant appeal...," and that the purpose of the appeal was "to determine the propriety of the City's alleged tax liens and whether or not [the Board] should be reversed." (SRR at 48). Specifically, Landowners argued that the City's failure to serve them with the notice of assessments and the subsequent filing of the tax liens in the trial court violated their due process rights and invalidated the liens; the Board's failure to provide them with the opportunity to be heard and denying their petition for appeal nunc pro tunc violated their due process rights; and the Board erred and abused its discretion in denying their petition for appeal nunc pro tunc.
On December 17, 2013, Landowners also filed a response to the School District's motion to quash their appeal to the trial court with new matter denying its material allegations and alleging, inter alia, that they were not served with the motion to quash as alleged in its certificate of service and had only obtained a copy the previous day. As a result, Landowners alleged that the lack of service violated the Rules of Civil Procedure and due process thereby depriving the trial court jurisdiction to consider the motion, asking the trial court to strike the School District's motion to quash "for fatal irregularities apparent on the face of the record." (SRR at 63).
On January 3, 2014, the School District filed a reply to Landowners' new matter, arguing that any technical defect in service of the motion to quash was amendable and was cured by its affirmative service and Landowners' opportunity to respond by filing their response with new matter. On January 23, 2014, the trial court issued the instant order granting the School District's motion upon consideration of the motion and Landowners' "response thereto." (SRR at 98). Landowners then filed this appeal.
On appeal, Landowners first claim that the trial court was without jurisdiction to grant the School District's motion to quash their appeal because they were not served with the motion as alleged in its certificate of service. However, jurisdiction over Landowners' appeal was perfected in the trial court when they filed the notice of appeal from the Board's decision. Additionally, the fact that the School District initially failed to provide proper service of the motion to quash did not affect the trial court's ability to consider and grant the motion because Landowners conceded that they received the motion on December 16, 2013, (SRR at 62), and that they filed a response and new matter with the trial court on December 17, 2013, (id. at 56-77), addressing the merits of the motion prior to the trial court's order granting the motion on January 23, 2014.
This Court's review of the trial court's order granting the motion to quash is limited to determining whether the trial court committed an error of law, an abuse of discretion, or a violation of constitutional rights. Alma v. Monroe County Board of Assessment Appeals, 83 A.3d 1121, 1123 n.3 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2014). An abuse of discretion "'is not merely an error of judgment, but rather occurs when the law is overridden or misapplied in reaching a conclusion or the judgment is exercised manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will, as shown by the evidence of record.'" Commonwealth v. Rucci, 670 A.2d 1129, 1141 (Pa. 1996), cert. denied sub nom. Rucci v. Pennsylvania, 520 U.S. 1121 (1997) (citation omitted).
Landowners also raise a number of constitutional and legal issues that were either not raised in the trial court or that relate to the merits of the underlying appeal in that court from the Board's decision. In either event, we will not address those issues in this appeal of the trial court's order granting the School District's motion to quash that appeal.
Likewise, Landowners' due process rights were not violated in this regard. See, e.g., Weaver v. Franklin County, 918 A.2d 194, 203 (Pa. Cmwlth.), appeal denied, 931 A.2d 660 (Pa. 2007) ("Fundamentally, due process affords an individual notice and an opportunity to be heard.... Where Plaintiff filed a brief in opposition to Defendant's preliminary objections, and could have sought oral argument but failed to do so, he received all the process he was due.") (citation omitted).
Finally, contrary to Landowners' assertions, the trial court did not err or abuse its discretion in granting the motion to quash because Landowners failed to comply with either the Case Management Order directing them to obtain a hearing transcript or certified record from the Board or the Scheduling Order directing them to file a report or pretrial memorandum by the court's deadlines. As the Supreme Court has explained, "it is axiomatic that a court has inherent power to enforce its own orders of court and that this court will not interfere with enforcement absent an abuse of discretion." Commonwealth v. Shaffer, 712 A.2d 749, 751 (Pa. 1998) (citations omitted). This enforcement authority includes dismissal for failure to comply with deadlines because requiring a court to overlook its own deadlines "would be to countenance the dilatory actions of litigants who blatantly disregard court orders." Konya v. District Attorney of Northampton County, 669 A.2d 890, 892 (Pa. 1995). Additionally, there is no per se rule that a court order may be disregarded so long as no prejudice is suffered because to adopt such a rule "would be hindering the orderly disposition of cases before the courts of the Commonwealth and injecting into well-grounded procedure an element of uncertainty [where] there should be none." Id. See also King v. City of Philadelphia, (Pa. Cmwlth. No. 124 C.D. 2014, filed October 24, 2014), slip op. at 3 ("Here, the trial court exercised its sound discretion and quashed [the appellant]'s appeal for failing to comply with its scheduling order." '"[L]ocal courts are entitled to impose sanctions for noncompliance with procedural rules and such determinations will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion."') (citations omitted).
See Phil. Civ. R. 320(C) ("The Supervising Judge shall publish a standing case management order for each agency whose determinations are appealed on a regular basis.... The Prothonotary shall provide appellant(s) with an agency-specific (or generic) standing order whenever a notice of appeal is filed. Every appeal (and matter ancillary thereto) shall be governed by the aforementioned standing order and any supplemental order, which may be issued by the Supervising Judge."). --------
Accordingly, the trial court's order is affirmed. ORDER PER CURIAM
AND NOW, this 7th day of January, 2015, the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County dated January 21, 2014, at April Term, 2013 No. 1944, is affirmed.