Landis v. Wilt, 1655 MDA 2018
| Decision Date | 23 October 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 1655 MDA 2018,1655 MDA 2018 |
| Parties | James M. LANDIS and Donetta M. Landis v. Luther H. WILT v. Orchard Glen Condominium Association, Inc. Appellants |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
OPINION BY BOWES, J.:
Orchard Glen Condominium Association, Inc. ("the Association") appeals from the judgment entered upon the trial court's order quieting title in a strip of land in favor of James and Donetta Landis (collectively "the Landises"). We affirm.
Luther and Helen Wilt owned land in York County, Pennsylvania, which they proposed to develop as a residential neighborhood. In 1967, the Wilts' revised subdivision plan for Smith Gardens was approved by the East Manchester Township Board of Supervisors and recorded. The recorded plan included 50-foot-wide Orchard View Drive among the proposed roadways of the subdivision. The instant action arose from the fact that most of Orchard View Drive was never opened as a roadway.
The Stonesifers, Donetta Landis's parents, purchased Lot 45 in Smith Gardens in 1967. They built a house on the lot, which was known as 55 Lincoln Place. In 1976, they acquired the lot behind the home: Lot 41 of the Smith Gardens subdivision plan, which abutted unopened Orchard View Drive. In 2012, the Landises acquired Lots 45 and 41 from the Stonesifers.1 From 1976 onward, the Stonesifers and Landises mowed and fertilized the twenty-five-foot-wide strip of land behind their property that was to have been one half of Orchard View Drive (hereafter "Disputed Area"). The Landises also installed a fence along their property line, separating their yard from unopened Orchard View Drive.
Meanwhile, although additional lots and streets were developed according to the Smith Gardens plan, more than a dozen lots along unopened Orchard View Drive were not. Instead, these lots were consolidated2 and converted into a new subdivision plan for the Orchard Glen Residential Development. The Orchard Glen plan was reviewed by the York County Planning Commission in 1997, approved by the East Manchester Township Board of Supervisors in 1998, and recorded with the Recorder of Deeds. This new Orchard Glen subdivision entirely subsumed Orchard View Drive in some places where it combined lots that were on opposite sides of that proposed street. Where Smith Gardens lots remained on the opposite side of Orchard View Drive, the Orchard Glen subdivision plan incorporated only the half of Orchard View Drive abutting its land. Condominiums were constructed according to the Orchard Glen plan, and the Association's half of what would have been Orchard View Drive was paved and named Yarrow Court.
For ease of visualization, we offer the following diagram showing the land occupied by the Orchard Glen condominiums superimposed on the Smith Gardens plan.
Landises' Trial Exhibit GG (modified). We also present a modified photograph of the land at issue.
Association's Trial Exhibit A.3
Residents of Orchard Glen condominiums began to use the Smith Gardens' half of unopened Orchard View Drive, including the Disputed Area, for activities such as dog walking and playing ball. N.T. Trial, 2/7/18, at 163-64. The Association's landscaper also plowed snow onto the Disputed Area when there were significant snowfalls. Id . at 172-73.
Although the Landises acknowledged that their predecessors had never complained or interfered with anyone's use of the Disputed Area during the time they owned lot 41, after they acquired the Stonesifers' property, they began to take steps "to exclude people from the disputed land ... to exert their ... dominion and control over the property." Findings of Fact, 2/13/18, at 4-5. For example, the Landises planted bushes, placed "no trespassing" signs along the edges of the Disputed Area, yelled out the window at people to stay off the land, called the police when snow was plowed onto the Disputed Area,4 picked up dog feces that was left in the area and left it at the residence of an Association board member, and set up motion-activated cameras to monitor the Disputed Area. N.T. Trial, 2/7/18, at 42, 45-46, 49, 51-52, 134.
In 2016, the Landises filed a complaint to quiet title, naming the successors, heirs, and assigns of Smith Gardens developer Luther Wilt as the defendants. Therein, the Landises alleged that they and their predecessors exercised exclusive, visible, notorious, distinct, and hostile possession of the Disputed Area for an uninterrupted period of more than twenty-one years. Complaint, 8/18/16, at 2. The Association filed a petition to intervene in the action, claiming that it had used and maintained all or a portion of the Disputed Area, and that determination of the action could adversely affect its legal interests. Petition to Intervene, 12/13/16, at 2. Following a hearing, the trial court determined that the Association showed a prima facie case that it had an interest in maintaining access to the Disputed Area, and permitted it to intervene. Order Allowing Intervention, 10/18/17, at 2-3. The court also scheduled a trial on the matter, and provided that the Landises were permitted to assert a claim that they obtained title to the Disputed Area through the failure of Orchard View Drive to have been opened as a public road, in addition to their adverse possession contentions. Order Scheduling Trial, 10/18/17, at 2.
At trial, the parties offered testimony and exhibits to establish the facts detailed above regarding the ownership and use of the land at issue. After the parties' submission of post-trial briefs, the trial court entered an order indicating that its verdict was in favor of the Landises, and directing them to prepare a deed describing the Disputed Area. Order, 4/19/18. The Association filed a timely post-trial motion seeking judgment notwithstanding the court's order/verdict, or modification of the order to acknowledge an easement in favor of the Association. The trial court denied the motion after entertaining oral argument and briefing by the parties. The Association filed a premature notice of appeal from the order denying its post-trial motion, which we treat as an appeal from the judgment upon the trial court's verdict subsequently entered on November 14, 2018. See Pa.R.A.P. 905(5) (). Both the Association and the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
The Association presents two questions for this Court's consideration, which we have reordered for ease of disposition:
Association's brief at 4 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).
We begin with a review of the applicable law.
Our standard of review in non-jury cases is limited to: a determination of whether the findings of the trial court are supported by competent evidence and whether the trial court committed error in the application of law. Findings of the trial judge in a non-jury case must be given the same weight and effect on appeal as a verdict of a jury and will not be disturbed on appeal absent error of law or abuse of discretion. When this Court reviews the findings of the trial judge, the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the victorious party below and all evidence and proper inferences favorable to that party must be taken as true and all unfavorable inferences rejected.
Kowalski v. TOA PA V, L.P. , 206 A.3d 1148, 1159 (Pa.Super. 2019) (cleaned up).
Woodhouse Hunting Club, Inc. v. Hoyt , 183 A.3d 453, 457 (Pa.Super. 2018) (citations omitted). It has long been the law in Pennsylvania that "where the side of a street is called for as a boundary in a deed, the grantee takes title in fee to the center of it, if the grantor had title to that extent, and did not expressly or by clear implication reserve it[.]" Rahn v. Hess , 378 Pa. 264, 106 A.2d 461, 464 (1954). It is also well-settled that, "where an owner of land subdivides it into lots and streets on a plan and sells his lots accordingly, there is an implied grant or covenant to the purchaser that the street shall be forever open to the use of the public and operates as a dedication of them to public use." Id . at 463.
In 1889, in an effort "to relieve land upon which streets have been laid out by the owners, but not used, from the servitude imposed," legislation was enacted to limit the time in which a paper road must be opened to retain its nature as a public thoroughfare.5 Id . The statute, codified at 36 P.S. § 1961, provides as follows:
Any street, lane or alley, laid out by any person or persons in any village or town plot or plan of lots, on lands owned by such person or persons in case the same has not been opened to, or used by, the public for twenty-one years next after the laying out of the same, shall be and have no force and effect and shall not be opened, without the consent of the owner or owners of the land on which the same has been, or shall be, laid out.
36 P.S. § 1961.
However, there is "a clear distinction between the public right of passage over dedicated streets and the individual rights of property [owners] involved...
To continue reading
Request your trial