Woodhouse Hunting Club, Inc. v. Hoyt

183 A.3d 453

WOODHOUSE HUNTING CLUB, INC., a Pennsylvania Non–Profit Corporation, Plaintiff

v.William HOYT, Mark Hoyt, Edward C. Hoyt, Theodore R. Hoyt, and George S. Hoyt, t/d/b/a the Firm of Hoyt Brothers and their unknown heirs, successors, and assigns, Defendants

Hoyt Royalty, LLC, Trustees of the Margaret E. Haight Trust; Karol Tarnowski; Thomas Pedder Bispham; Sydney Wynne Woodward; Gertrude Weber; John Wedel; Matt Wedel; Jay Wedel ; Caroline Hoke Weber; Helen Hoyt Weber; Virginia Foote Haggerty; Nathan Clark Sweet; John Weber Sweet; and all other unknown heirs, successors and assigns of William Hoyt, Mark Hoyt, Edward C. Hoyt, Theodore R. Hoyt, and George S. Hoyt, individually, jointly, and/or Trading as Hoyt Brothers, Counterclaim Plaintiffs

v.Woodhouse Hunting Club a/k/a Woodhouse Hunting Club, Inc. and Camp Woodhouse Hunting Club; SWN Production Company, LLC ; and Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, f/k/a Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation of Delaware and Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation of West Virginia, and Woodhouse Holding Company, Counterclaim Defendants

Appeal of: Hoyt Royalty, LLC

No. 327 MDA 2017

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued October 18, 2017

Filed March 29, 2018

Ronald L. Hicks, Jr., Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Jeffrey J. Malak, Wilkes–Barre, for SWN Production Company, appellee.

Helen L. Gemmill, Harrisburg, for Woodhouse Hunting Club, appellee.

BEFORE: BOWES, J., OLSON, J., and RANSOM, J.

OPINION BY RANSOM, J.:

Appellant, Hoyt Royalty, LLC, appeals from the trial court's order of February 1, 2017, granting summary judgment in favor of Appellee, Woodhouse Hunting Club ("Woodhouse"). After careful review, we affirm.

We adopt the following statement of facts from three trial court opinions issued in this matter, which are in turn supported by the record. See Trial Court Opinion (TCO), 1/8/14, at 7–19; TCO, 2/7/17, at 1–5; TCO, 6/12/17, at 1–2. This is an action to quiet title, involving the subsurface oil and gas rights to a tract of land consisting of nine hundred thirty-seven acres located in Morris Township, Tioga County, Pennsylvania, for which Warrant No. 1179 was issued in April 1792 ("the Property").

In 1891, William Hoyt, Mark Hoyt, Edward C. Hoyt, Theodore R. Hoyt, and George S. Hoyt ("the Hoyts") acquired title to the Property. In 1893, the Hoyts conveyed the Property to Union Tanning Company. The deed reserved ownership of the gas, oil, and mineral rights, and created a subsurface estate in favor of the Hoyts, their heirs, and assigns. The Hoyts did not notify the Tioga County commissioner of the severance or their ownership in the subsurface estate.

Between 1893 and 1902, the Property was assessed as unseated land.¹ On August 30, 1902, the Property was sold at tax sale due to the nonpayment of taxes on both the surface and subsurface estates. The sale was recorded in the Treasurer's Sale Book of Unseated Lands by the Treasurer of Tioga County to Morris Manufacturing Company. On November 17, 1902, after the tax sale but prior to the recording of the tax sale deed, Union Tanning Company executed a second deed to the surface rights of the Property in favor of Morris Manufacturing Company,² and purportedly reserved mineral and oil rights in favor of the Hoyts and their heirs and assigns. The tax sale deed was not recorded until January 1903.

In 1932, the Property was again sold at tax sale. C.C. Slaght Lumber Company ("C.C. Slaght"), the record owner at the time, was allowed to redeem the Property in 1935, despite the expiration of the two-year redemption period. In May 1952, Woodhouse received title from C.C. Slaght. In 1953, Morris Township separately identified a mineral estate associated with Warrant 1179. In 1967, the Property was again sold at tax sale, but the rights eventually reverted to Woodhouse. Following several assignments through which Woodhouse reserved the subsurface rights, Woodhouse is the current record owner of the Property.³

In 2011, Woodhouse commenced an action to quiet title against Appellant, Hoyt Royalty, a Colorado-based LLC formed to acquire, own, possess and manage all rights, title, and interests in the subsurface mineral rights originally owned by the Hoyt brothers. Appellant claimed to possess an 83.9% interest in the subsurface rights to the Property. Litigation commenced, and Appellant joined additional defendants and filed a counterclaim.

In June 2013, Appellant filed a motion for summary judgment against Woodhouse, arguing that the 1893 deed to Union Tanning Company severed the natural gas, oil, and mineral rights from the 629.178–acre parcel of disputed land. In response, Woodhouse argued that the tax sale of 1902 extinguished the chain of title upon which Appellant relied, essentially effectuating a "title wash." In its response, Woodhouse proceeded solely on the "title wash" theory and abandoned several other claims to quiet title raised in the Complaint. The trial court granted the motion with respect to the claims abandoned by Woodhouse, but denied the remaining issues raised by Appellant.

In November 2014, Woodhouse filed a motion for summary judgment, and Appellant filed a countermotion. All parties agreed to stay the action pending the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in Herder Spring Hunting Club v. Keller , 636 Pa. 344, 143 A.3d 358 (2016), which implicated similar concerns. Following the Herder Spring decision, the parties filed supplemental briefs, and the court issued its decision. The trial court quieted title in favor of Woodhouse as to the entire Property and enjoined Appellant and its successors from asserting a contrary record title.

Appellant timely appealed and filed a court-ordered Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement of errors complained of on appeal. The trial court issued a responsive opinion.

On appeal, Appellant raises the following issues for our review:

1. Whether summarily quieting title for those whose title to the oil and gas rests solely from earlier tax sales, rather than Appellant and its related parties, whose title flows directly from a duly recorded 1893 deed severance, is erroneous when, as the party with the burden of proof, the tax title claimants did not proffer the delivered treasurer's deeds or other admissible evidence sufficient under the Statute of Frauds and prior case law to prove a legally superior title?

2. Whether the trial court erred in ruling the 1932 unseated land tax sale divested Appellant's 1893 recorded subsurface title when the summary judgment record contained undisputed evidence that a duly documented redemption occurred, rendering the sale a nullity?

3. Whether the trial court erred in ruling the 1902 and 1932 unseated land tax sales divested Appellant's 1893 recorded subsurface title when a strict construction of the tax statutes reveals the term "lands" means only the surface estate and when the summary judgment record reveals Morris Township identified no severed subsurface estate until 1953, thereby confirming only the severed surface estate was assessed and intended to be sold at the 1902 and 1932 tax sales or, alternatively, creating a genuine material, factual issue precluding summary judgment?

4. Whether summarily quieting title for those whose title to the oil and gas rests solely from earlier tax sales, rather than Appellant and its related party, whose title flows form a duly recorded 1893 deed severance, is erroneous when the summary judgment record includes: (a) disputed evidence of "potential infirmities" and "other sale related defects" concerning the 1902 and 1932 tax sales, (b) a duly recorded admissible 1902 deed within the tax claimant's chain of title which, being executed and recorded after the 1902 tax sale, does not mention it or any purportedly delivered treasurer's deed but instead expressly acknowledges the recorded 1893 deed severance, and (c) an inadmissible 1909 deed which does not involve the property?

5. Whether Pennsylvania's unseated land tax [statutes] under which the 1902 and 1932 tax sales were made and quiet title has been summarily entered violate federal and state due process as applied to Appellant and its related parties, as the known owners of recorded, nonproducing oil, gas, and other subsurface interests, who received no personal notice of such sales, including the 1902 tax sale which took place on a Saturday, August 30, 1902, in contravention of the statutes' requirement that all sales occur on the second Monday in June?

6. Whether the trial court erred in ruling Appellant is time-barred from defending its record title to the oil, gas, and other subsurface interests in a quiet title action the tax title claimants did not commence until 2008 based on 1902 and 1932 tax sales for which no treasurer's deeds exists?

Appellant's Brief at 5–7 (suggested answers omitted).

An action to quiet title is designed to resolve a dispute over the title to real estate of which the plaintiff is in possession. See Moore v. Duran , 455 Pa.Super. 124, 687 A.2d 822, 827 (1996). The plaintiff bringing a quiet title action has the burden of proof and must recover on the strength of its own title. See Herder Spring , 143 A.3d at 372. With regard to motions for summary judgment,

the standards which govern summary judgment are well settled. When a party seeks summary judgment, a court shall enter judgment whenever there is no genuine issue of any material fact as to a necessary element of the cause of action or defense that could be established by additional discovery. A motion for summary judgment is based on an evidentiary record that entitles the moving party to a judgment as a matter of law. In considering the merits of a motion for summary judgment, a court views the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and all doubts as to the existence of a genuine issue of material fact must be resolved against the moving party. Finally, the court may grant summary judgment only when the right to such a judgment is clear and free from doubt. An appellate court may reverse the granting of a

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