Thatcher v. Hack

270 A.3d 1164 (Table)

Rosie THATCHER, Appellant

v.Deborah HACK

Rosie Thatcher, Appellant

v.Gary Hack

Rosie Thatcher, Appellant

v.Gregory Hack

Rosie Thatcher Appellant

v.Chad Hack

Rosie Thatcher, Appellant

v.Abby Hack

Rosie Thatcher, Appellant

v.Ryan Hack

No. 1401 MDA 2020

No. 1402 MDA 2020

No. 1403 MDA 2020

No. 1404 MDA 2020

No. 1405 MDA 2020

No. 1406 MDA 2020

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Filed December 27, 2021

MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.:

Appellant Rosie Thatcher (hereinafter "Mother") appeals from the order of the Huntingdon County Court of Common Pleas denying her six petitions for Protection From Abuse (PFA) orders against her family members, Appellees Deborah Hack, Gary Hack, Gregory Hack, Chad Hack, Abby Hack, and Ryan Hack. Mother argues that the trial court abused its discretion in concluding that she failed to show Appellees’ behavior constituted "abuse" as defined in the PFA Act ( 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 6102 ). We affirm.

On October 19, 2020, Mother filed PFA petitions on behalf of her herself and her husband, John Thatcher, Sr. ("Father"), against her daughter, Deborah Hack; Deborah's husband, Gary Hack; Deborah and Gary's sons, Gregory Hack and Chad Hack; Chad's wife, Abby Hack; and Chad and Abby's fifteen-year-old son, Ryan Hack.¹ On the same day, the learned trial court held a hearing with Mother's counsel and Mother, who appeared via telephone. The trial court entered temporary PFA orders until a full hearing could be held.

On October 28, 2020, the trial court held an evidentiary hearing at which Mother testified as well as a majority of Appellees, except for Ryan Hack, who is a minor.² Thereafter, the trial court made the following factual findings:

1. In 2014, Mother and Father deeded their house, located at 760 King Street in the Borough of Petersburg, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, to Deborah.³ N.T., Protection From Abuse Hearing, Oct. 28, 2020 (the "PFA Hearing"), at 55. Testimony as to the reasons for the transfer is scant, but Deborah testified that she believed Father and Mother wanted the house to be in her name, and that there was some fear that otherwise Mother and Father would lose their home. N.T. PFA Hearing, at 58-59, 73. Mother made a vague reference to a possible life tenancy in the property for her and Father, but no evidence was presented establishing one.⁴

2. Conflict began about a year later, in 2015. Mother has five Chihuahuas that either have acted aggressively toward other people, or have bitten them (this was disputed by Mother). The insurance company providing homeowners’ coverage for the property apparently threatened to stop coverage if the dogs were not removed. Presumably discussion occurred between the parties leading up to this point, but Deborah and Gary wound up engaging an attorney, who sent a demand letter to Mother seeking removal of the dogs. Mother took this as a threat to kick her and Father out of the house. There was also testimony that the dogs are damaging the house. Id . at 13-16, 34-35, 64, 78.

3. Deborah's sister, Wendy Thatcher, is often present at the house. Wendy ostensibly is there to serve as a caregiver for Mother and Father. Deborah alleges that Wendy's presence goes beyond caregiving, and that Wendy lives there full time. Deborah has been seeking to exclude Wendy from the house for some time, starting with demand letters sent to her through counsel, and now via a separate ejectment action, CP-31-CV-1694-2019. Wendy is represented in the ejectment action by the same counsel as Mother for this action, Attorney Sawicki. At the PFA Hearing, Attorney Sawicki sought to use this conflict between Deborah and Wendy as evidence of abuse. She emphasized Mother's health problems and characterized the ejectment action as an attempt by Deborah to deny Mother a necessary caregiver. N.T., PFA Hearing, at 59-64.

4. Aside from the ejectment action, there appears to have been a long-running conflict between Wendy and Deborah, with Mother aligning with Wendy, and the remaining defendants aligning with Deborah. Separate from the instant action, Mother and Wendy have sought to exclude [Appellees] from the house and the surrounding property entirely. See , e.g. , id . at 80, 99-100. Father's position in regard to the dispute is unknown, but it appears that [Appellees] have sought to keep some degree of contract with him, and he presumably desires this. Id . at 68 (Deborah's testimony that she was last inside the house over a year ago to give Father a gift); 76 (Deborah's testimony that she cannot see Father, because Wendy and Mother do not allow her into the house), and 85 (Gregory's testimony that he was at the house in March of 2020 to take Father for a two-hour ride with Gregory's children, Father's great grandchildren).

5. Deborah has some concerns with conditions in the house for her parents, and particularly for her father. Id . at 64 (Deborah's testimony that she has previously taken pictures inside the house of damage caused by the dogs, and of Father); 80 (Deborah's testimony that she contacted the Area Agency on Aging to report her concerns regarding Mother and Father). Deborah is aware of Mother having health problems, though not the full extent of them, due to the lack of communication from Mother and Wendy. Deborah has helped Mother attend medical appointments when Wendy was not able to. Id . at 63, 66.

6. Mother's testimony is that she is under constant harassment from [Appellees]. She alleged that they come up to the house and enter whenever they like without warning, that they constantly poke around in the outbuildings, that Deborah routinely enters and takes pictures of the house, and that Deborah has threatened many times to sell the house out from under her and Father and basically kick them out into the street. Most significantly in regard to abuse, she testified that one time when Deborah and Gregory were at the property to wash the porch and front of the house, Gregory entered the house to fill a bucket of water, and instead of waiting until Mother and Wendy had secured the dogs, he pushed his way into the house and kicked one of the dogs across the kitchen floor. Id . at 22-23, 25-26.

7. Mother had a high degree of difficulty remembering the level of detail regarding the alleged incidents that was included in the petitions, particularly with dates and timeframes. She often looked to Attorney Sawicki for assistance in testifying. Each time Attorney Sawicki attempted to fill in the details for her, typically from the contents of the letters that had been exchanged between the parties’ respective counsel over the years (completely ignoring the fact that such allegations are inadmissible hearsay). See , e.g. , id . at 16-20, 22-24, 50-51.

8. Mother appears to have a degree of paranoia regarding people being at or around the house. Many of the [Appellees] testified that on those occasions when Mother or Father had come out on the front porch to see them, at least three different locks needed to be opened. When Mother testified that Gary had been at the house one evening to go into one of the outbuildings, she said she had been alerted to his presence by the dogs barking, and expressed an irrational level of fear associated with the dogs’ barking possibly being caused by someone's presence outside the house. Id . at 29.

9. [Appellees] moving the lawn is a particularly stressful matter for Mother. She made much of the [Appellees] showing up "without warning" to mow, and the fact that some of her attorneys’ letters to [Appellees] had demanded twenty-four hours’ notice before they came to the house for any reason. Mother seemed to believe this was an absolute requirement, whereas Deborah's testimony was that there was no such agreement in place. Id . at 8-9, 37-39, 66, 69-70.

10. There was at least anecdotal evidence that Wendy provided much of the information relied on by Attorney Sawicki in preparing the petitions, though Wendy neither sought PFAs for her own benefit nor testified at the PFA hearing. Id . at 31 (Attorney Sawicki attempting to question Mother about changes to the petitions suggested to Attorney Sawicki by Wendy).

Trial Court Opinion, 12/28/20, at 3-6 (footnotes omitted).

On October 29, 2020, the trial court entered orders denying Mother's six petitions and vacating the temporary PFA orders. Mother filed a timely notice of appeal at each of the six docket numbers and complied with the trial court's order to file a concise statement of errors complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b).⁵

Mother raises the following issues for review on appeal:

A. What evidence is required to establish abuse under 23 Pa.C.S. § 6102(5) : "Knowingly engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts toward another person ... which place the person in reasonable fear of bodily injury"? Is it reasonable for an 85-year-old woman to fear bodily injury through exposure to COVID-19 and through aggravation of her hypertension, anxiety, and insomnia by threats to intrude into her home at will, by actual intrusions, at all hours without warning, and by demonstrations of violence against her pets and care-giver?

B. Is an attorney's letter admissible as evidence to show that a person who received the letter was aware of its contents and to confirm the date before which an event occurred? Are attorney letters excluded per se , either by the relevance rules, Pa.R.E. 401 - 403, or by the hearsay rules, Pa.R.E. 801 - 803 ?

Mother's Brief, at 2.

In reviewing the trial court's denial of Mother's petitions for PFA orders, our standard of review is well-settled:

In a PFA action, this Court reviews the trial court's legal conclusions for an error of law or an abuse of discretion. Custer v. Cochran , 933 A.2d 1050, 1053-54 (Pa. Super. 2007) (en banc ). A trial court does not abuse its discretion for a mere error of judgment; rather, an abuse of discretion occurs "where the judgment is manifestly unreasonable or where the law is not applied or where the record shows that the

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