N. Side v. O'Neill Maint.

316 A.3d 1046

NORTH SIDE LLC, Appellant

v.O’NEILL MAINTENANCE

Schenley Capital Partners, LLC

v.O’Neill Maintenance

v.Top Choice Real Estate

North Side LLC

v.O’Neill Maintenance

Schenley Capital Partners, LLC, Appellant

v.O’Neill Maintenance

v.Top Choice Real Estate

No. 269 WDA 2023

No. 348 WDA 2023

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted December 18, 2023

Filed: May 31, 2024

Appeal from the Order Entered January 23, 2023, In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Civil Division, at No(s): GD-21-003444, GD-22-008535, Alan David Hertzberg, J.

Wayne B. Cobb II, Monaca, for appellant.

Benjamin Klein, Pittsburgh, for Schenley Capital Partners, LL., appellee.

David J. Montgomery, Pittsburgh, for Top Choice Real Estate, appellee.

BEFORE: DUBOW, J., MURRAY, J., and SULLIVAN, J.

OPINION BY DUBOW, J.:

Appellant North Side LLC and Appellant Schenley Capital Partners, LLC separately appeal from the January 23, 2023 order entered by the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, which granted conditional relief to Appellee Top Choice Real Estate pursuant to Pennsylvania’s Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship Act, 68 P.S. 1101-1120 ("Act"). Upon careful review, we consolidate these appeals, affirm the order in part, vacate it in part, and remand for further proceedings.

This litigation involves 505-507 East Ohio Street in Pittsburgh ("the Property"). On April 6, 2021, North Side petitioned to declare the Property abandoned and blighted under the Act and to be appointed conservator for the property. On July 7, 2022, Schenley Capital filed a separate petition asking the court to declare it conservator for the property.

At the time Appellants filed their separate petitions, O’Neill Maintenance held title to the Property. On August 26, 2022, O’Neill Maintenance entered into an agreement to sell the Property to Top Choice. Subsequently, the trial court consolidated the proceedings on the two petitions and allowed Top Choice to intervene.

On January 19, 2023, the court held an evidentiary hearing to address the various claims, including whether North Side had standing under the Act to file a conservatorship petition. Specifically, Schenley Capital and Top Choice questioned whether North Side met the Act’s geographic proximity requirement that it be "within 2,000 feet" of the Property and introduced Google Maps evidence in support of their claim.¹ On the same day as the hearing, Schenley Capital filed a motion to dismiss North Side for failure to satisfy the 2,000-foot requirement, which Top Choice subsequently joined.

On January 23, 2023, the trial court entered an order holding as follows: (1) denying the motion to dismiss North Side; (2) concluding that the Property had met the conditions for conservatorship under the Act because it was abandoned and blighted; (3) granting Top Choice conditional relief under the Act to abate the "violations[,] nuisance[,] or emergency conditions within 18 months[;]" (4) ordering Top Choice to "post a bond in the amount of $161,700 as a condition of retaining possession of the Property;" (5) finding that petitioners incurred $2,193.55 in preparing the petitions and that the conservator’s or developer’s fee was $67,000, for a total of $69,193.55; (6) ordering that, upon transfer of the property to Top Choice, $69,193.55 of the seller’s proceeds be held in escrow; (7) holding that if the stated amount was paid into escrow, then Top Choice could take the Property "free of any lien or claim under the [the Act]" or the current proceedings; and (8) stating that if North Side and Schenley Capital could agree on how to divide the amount in escrow, the parties should submit a consent order or inform the court "in 20 days if an agreement has not been reached[.]" Order, 1/23/23, 1-3.

On the same day, North Side responded to the dismissal motions, claiming that it was located within 2,000 feet of the Property.² North Side additionally sought to disqualify Schenley Capital’s counsel and strike its petition.

On February 7, 2023, the trial court denied North Side’s petition to disqualify Schenley Capital’s counsel. On February 14, 2023, the court scheduled a hearing for April 11, 2023, to determine the division of the $69,193.55 in escrow. However, the trial court postponed that hearing after North Side filed its notice of appeal to this. Court bn February 21, 2023, and Schenley Capital filed its notice of appeal on March 6, 2023.³ Appellants and the court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Schenley Capital raises the following issues on appeal at 348 WDA 2023:

[1.] Whether the trial court erred by finding that North Side LLC, a private business entity, was a "Party in Inter- est" under [the Act] despite objective evidence—including multiple Google Maps entered into the record at the January 19, 2023 evidentiary hearing— as well as an admission under oath by North Side LLC’s representative that North Side LLC is located more than 2,000 feet from the property at issue in the instant conservatorship action.

[2.] Whether the trial court erred by denying Schenley Capital Partners, LLC’s Motion to Dismiss filed on January 19, 2023, which requested that the trial court dismiss North Side LLC for a failure to demonstrate that it was a "Party in Interest" and establish standing under [the Act] to bring its conservatorship action[?]

Schenley Capital’s Appellant Br. at 11-12.

North Side raises the following issues on appeal at 269 WDA 2023:

1. Whether [the c]ourt erred in overruling an objection raised by [North Side] concerning the legal authority of the purported owner’s representative to sell the [s]ubject [m]atter [p]roperty on behalf of O’Neill Maintenance to a third- party buyer[?]

2. Whether the [c]ourt erred and abused its discretion by refusing to disqualify the [c]ounsel for Schenley Capital Partners based on admissions and evidence submitted to the [c]ourt by Schenley Capital Partners and further outlined in the Motion to Disqualify the [c]ounsel for Schenley Capital Partners[?]

North Side’s Appellant Br. at 5.

A.

[1] Before addressing the merits of Appellants’ claims, we first consider whether Appellants waived their issues by failing to file post-trial motions.⁴ Pennsylvania’s Rules of Civil Procedure require parties seeking to appeal to file post-trial motions "within ten days after … the filing of the decision in the case of a trial without jury." Pa.R.Civ.P. 227.1(c)(2).

This Court previously held that "post-trial motions were necessary following" a conservatorship hearing under the Act, finding that "the hearing on [the conservatorship] petition constituted a trial for purposes of Rule 227.1." G & G Inv’rs., LLC v. Phillips Simmons Real Est. Holdings, LLC, 183 A3d 472, 477 (Pa. Super. 2018); see also Scioli Turco, Inc. v. Prioleau, 207 A3d 346, 349 n.2 (Pa. Super. 2019) (citing G & G Inv’rs., LLC for the proposition that "motions for post-trial relief filed pursuant to Pa.R.C[iv].P. 227.1 are required to preserve issues on appeal following a hearing on a petition under the Act").

[2] The Supreme Court, however, provided more recent guidance regarding when post-trial motions are required in non-jury matters in Wolk v. School District of Lower Merion, 649 Pa. 604, 197 A3d 730 (2018). Rather than focusing upon "whether a trial-like proceeding may have been conducted[,]" the Supreme Court directed courts to "focus[ ], in the first instance, on the stage of the proceedings" and specifically whether "the decision" has been issued that "disposes of all claims for relief." Id. at 740 (emphasis added). "Where ‘the decision’ in the case has not yet issued, Rule 227.1 is not implicated." Id.

Applying Wolk to the instant case, we find that the January 23, 2023 order did not dispose of all claims. Rather, when the trial court filed its order, it had yet to address North Side’s petition to disqualify Schenley Capital’s counsel or the distribution of the $69,193.55 in escrow. Moreover, the trial court granted only conditional relief to Top Choice. Thus, as in Wolk, we conclude that " ‘the decision’ of the case was not rendered for purposes of Rule 227.1, and no post-trial motions were implicated under that rule." Wolk, 197 A.3d at 741.⁵

In the absence of a decision requiring post-trial motions, we instead find these appeals proper under Pa.R.A.P. 311(a)(2), which provides that interlocutory orders "affecting the possession or control of property" are appealable as of right.⁶ While this Court has not addressed the applicability of Rule 311(a)(2) to the Act, the Commonwealth Court has held that orders denying petitions for appointment of a conservator under the Act "fall[ ] squarely within Rule 311(a)(2)" because they "affect[ ] the possession or control of property[.]" Philadelphia Cnty. Dev. Coal., Inc. v. Philadelphia Redevelopment Auth., 298 A.3d 172, 177-178 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2023) (citation omitted). We agree and proceed to address the merits of Appellants’ issues.

B.

[3, 4] It is well-established that "[o]ur review in a non-jury case is limited to whether the findings of the trial court are supported by competent evidence and whether the trial court committed error in the application of law." G & G Invs., LLC, 183 A.3d at 478 (citation omitted). When a trial court sits as factfinder, we accord the court’s findings "the same weight and effect as the verdict of a jury." Id. (citation omitted). Thus, we consider not whether "we would have reached the same result on the evidence presented, but rather, after due consideration of the evidence which the trial court found credible, whether the trial court could have reasonably reached its conclusion." Id. (citation omitted).

[5] Interpretation of statutory language, however, presents a question of law, for which we apply a de novo standard of review. See Scioli Turco, Inc., 207 A.3d at 350. In interpreting statutory language, our goal is to "ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly." 1 Pa. C.S. § 1921(a). "When the words of a statute are clear and...