Scioli Turco, Inc. v. Prioleau

207 A.3d 346

SCIOLI TURCO, INC., Appellant

v.Denise PRIOLEAU and Rasheed F. Prioleau and Isiah N. Burns, 3206 Pearl Street Philadelphia, PA 19104, OPA/BRT: 241155400

No. 422 EDA 2018

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted November 14, 2018

Filed March 29, 2019

Richard L.Vanaderslice, and Jonathan E. Stein, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Robert F. Datner, Lansdowne, for Burns, appellee.

City of Philadelphia, Bureau of Administrative Adjudication, Philadelphia, for City of Philadelphia, Bureau of Administrative Adjudication, appellee.

City of Philadelphia, Solicitor, Philadelphia, for City of Philadelphia, Solicitor, appellee.

BEFORE: BOWES, J., STABILE, J., and McLAUGHLIN, J.

OPINION BY BOWES, J.:

Scioli Turco, Inc. ("STI") appeals from the order that denied its petition for the appointment of a conservator pursuant to the Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship Act ("the Act"). We affirm.¹

On August 17, 2017, STI, a not-for-profit corporation, filed a petition to have itself appointed conservator of 3206 Pearl Street ("the Property") "to take possession of, rehabilitate and/or demolish" the Property. Petition, 8/17/17, at unnumbered 1. The petition identified Denise Prioleau, Rasheed F. Prioleau, and Isiah Burns ("Owners") as the owners of the Property. Id. at ¶ 9. The petition alleged, inter alia , that the Property was open and unsecured; presented a public nuisance; required major rehabilitation including a new roof, new floors and walls, and updated plumbing and heating; created a hazard through the accumulation of debris and uncut vegetation; and had not been occupied for the prior twelve months. The petition further averred that Owners had failed to take reasonable steps to secure the Property and take necessary remedial measures. Id. at ¶¶ 16, 19-30.

The trial court scheduled a hearing that was ultimately held on December 13, 2017, at which Denise and Rasheed appeared pro se . STI presented evidence in support of its petition, including the testimony of Helma Weeks, who had lived in the neighborhood for twenty years, and Ryan Spak, who runs Project Rehab, a nonprofit program that had been monitoring the Property since 2013. Ms. Weeks indicated that the Property appeared to be dilapidated, unkempt, and unkept. N.T. Hearing, 12/13/17, at 10-11. She also never noticed anyone living in the Property when she walked by it approximately twice each month. Id. at 13. Mr. Spak viewed the outside of the Property numerous times over the years, including three times in 2017. He had seen the interior twice, the last time being in 2014. Mr. Spak testified that the Property was a gutted shell in 2014, with exposed wires, portions of the floor and roof completely rotted, water damage, and no windows. Id. at 37-42. Mr. Spak further stated that the Property was "blatantly vacant," that no one had been occupying the Property for the past year, and that "[i]f someone was living there it would violate every building code the City has." Id. at 25, 40, 42. Mr. Spak indicated the Property was "a beacon for all the things that make a neighborhood unsafe."

Id. at 39. Mr. Spak acknowledged that he had spoken with Mr. Prioleau about Mr. Prioleau performing the work himself, and reminding him that, to do so, he would require permits. Id. at 46. Mr. Spak also testified that Owners, when he spoke to them in the early summer of 2017, gave no indication that they had performed any work toward accomplishing their goals in rehabilitating the Property. Id. at 25.

Mr. Prioleau testified that he has an associates degree in architectural design and is certified as a contractor. Id. at 60. He conceded that there were licensing and inspection violations against the Property, that he had not applied for any permits to perform work on it, and that the Property was not insured at the time of the hearing. Id. at 55-56, 61. However, he stated that he was informed that he did not require permits to do the work himself, and had begun gutting the inside in 2015 and working on the exterior one week before the conservatorship petition was filed. Id. at 53-54, 56. Mr. Prioleau provided photographs, all taken on or after September 23, 2017, to show his efforts on the exterior, but he had none of the interior. Id. at 66-69, 75. He indicated that it would take him approximately one year to complete all of the work himself. Id. at 72.

Mr. Prioleau further testified that he visited the Property every day between acquiring it in 2012 and the filing of the conservatorship petition. Id. at 53. He stated that he had been living there for three or four years, sleeping there three nights per week. Id. at 63. Mr. Prioleau used the Property's address on his driver's license and for his voter registration. Id. at 63-64. He indicated that the Property had running water until he turned it off to replace a cracked line, and that he used a generator for electricity until he had the electric turned on three months prior to the hearing. Id. at 59, 64, 74.

Upon receiving all of the evidence, the trial court took the matter under advisement. On December 20, 2017, the court entered an order denying the petition because "the Property at issue has been and remains occupied and therefore [is] not subject to" the Act. Order, 12/20/17. STI filed a post-trial motion for reconsideration,² which the trial court denied by order of January 16, 2018. STI filed a timely notice of appeal on January 19, 2018. The trial court did not order STI to file a statement of errors complained of on appeal, but did author an opinion pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a).

This Court dismissed STI's appeal after it failed to appear for scheduled oral argument. Upon STI's timely filing of an application to reinstate the appeal, this Court granted panel reconsideration by order of January 23, 2019. Accordingly, we now consider the following question presented by STI: "Did the trial court err[ ] by finding the Property was ‘legally occupied’ pursuant to [the Act] where the Property's condition, unsafe violations, and/or illegal use made it incapable of legal occupation?" STI's brief at 7.

We begin with the applicable standard of review.

Our 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. We must grant the court's findings of fact the same weight and effect as the verdict of a jury and, accordingly, may disturb the non-jury verdict only if the court's findings are unsupported by competent evidence or the court committed legal error that affected the outcome of the trial.

G & G Inv'rs, LLC v. Phillips Simmons Real Estate Holdings, LLC , 183 A.3d 472, 478 (Pa.Super. 2018)

The trial court held that STI failed to establish the first condition for the appointment of a conservator provided by the Act: that, as of the date of the filing of the petition, "[t]he building has not been legally occupied for at least the previous twelve months." 68 P.S. § 1105(d)(1). In construing this language, the trial court initially focused upon the definition of "occupy" – "to live or stay in (a place)." Trial Court Opinion, 2/20/18, at unnumbered 5³ (quoting Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014) (cleaned up). The trial court found credible Mr. Prioleau's testimony that he utilizes the Property as a residence, sleeping there three nights per week, and thus concluded that he occupied it within the meaning of the Act. Id. at 6-7.

The trial court then determined that Mr. Prioleau's occupation of the Property was legal because the legislative findings and purpose codified at 68 P.S. § 1102"demonstrate an intent for the term ‘legally occupied’ to distinguish properties abandoned by their owners and/or occupied by unauthorized entrants and vagrants, from properties occupied with their owners or with their owners' consent." Trial Court Opinion, 2/20/18, at unnumbered 6. Therefore, because Mr. Prioleau both owned and resided at the Property, he "legally occupied" it for the twelve months preceding the filing of STI's petition. Id. at 6-7.

As the trial court's factual findings are supported by the record, we are bound by them. G & G Inv'rs , supra at 478. Accordingly, we accept that Mr. Prioleau regularly spent nights at the Property, and reject STI's evidence that the Property was vacant. However, we are not bound by the trial court's legal conclusion that such activity established that the Property was "legally occupied" by Mr. Prioleau. Rather, the construction of the language of the Act is a question of law that we consider de novo . Generation Mortg. Co. v. Nguyen , 138 A.3d 646, 649 (Pa.Super. 2016) ("[T]o the extent that we must interpret a statute to resolve Appellant's issues, our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review is plenary.").

The Statutory Construction Act provides that legislative intent controls the construction of statutes. In effectuating the intent of the legislature, the following principles apply.

(a) The object of all interpretation and construction of statutes is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly. Every statute shall be construed, if possible, to give effect to all its provisions.

(b) When the words of a statute are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit.

1 Pa.C.S. § 1921. "Only if we determine that the statutory text is ambiguous may we look to considerations beyond the text such as the mischief to be remedied by the statute or what gave rise to its enactment."

Whitmoyer v. Workers' Comp. Appeal Bd. (Mountain Country Meats) , 186 A.3d 947, 954 (Pa. 2018). "[I]n determining whether language is clear and unambiguous, we must assess it in the context of the overall statutory scheme, construing all sections with reference to each other, not simply examining language in isolation." Id. "A term is ambiguous if, when it is read in context, it has more than one reasonable...