Long-Temple, A. & Temple, W. v. Holder, R. ( 2020 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
ARDELL J. LONG-TEMPLE AND : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
WILLIAM K. TEMPLE : PENNSYLVANIA
:
Appellants :
:
:
v. :
:
: No. 582 MDA 2019
RAMONA HOLDER :
Appeal from the Judgment Entered April 9, 2019
In the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County Civil Division at No(s):
10420-2016
BEFORE: BOWES, J., LAZARUS, J., and DUBOW, J.
MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 25, 2020
Appellants, Ardell J. Long-Temple and William K. Temple, appeal from
the April 9, 2019 Judgment entered in the Luzerne County Court of Common
Pleas in this Partition action. After careful review, we are constrained to quash
this appeal.
The relevant facts and procedural history are briefly as follows. On
January 15, 2016, Appellants and Appellee, Ramona Holder, purchased an
investment property located at 44 Walnut Street, Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne
County for $65,000. The business relationship between the parties soured,
and, on October 7, 2016, Appellants pro se filed a Complaint against Appellee
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seeking repayment of $21,666.33 plus interest Appellants alleged Appellee
owed them.1
On December 14, 2016, Appellee filed an Answer, New Matter, and
Counterclaim in Partition. Relevantly, in her Counterclaim, Appellee sought,
inter alia, a determination from the trial court of her ownership interest in the
property and an order of Partition. Counterclaim, 12/14/16, at 5. Appellants
filed an Answer to Appellee’s New Matter on December 15, 2016.
On January 24, 2017, the trial court entered a “Preliminary Conference
Order and Appointment of Master in Partition.” This Order appointed Michael
Hudacek, Esquire as Master and directed him to “hear all issues in Partition
pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. 1557 and 1559” and to “take such examinations and
hold such hearings as may be necessary to resolve:”
(a) [t]he fair market value of the subject property;
(b) [t]he mortgages, liens, encumbrances or charges[,] which
affect the subject property and the amount due[] thereon;
(c) what costs and counsel fees shall be paid and by whom;
(d) whether the property can be divided without prejudice to or
spoiling of the whole;
(e) whether the property shall be offered at private sale confined
to the parties pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. No. 1563)(a);
(f) if a private sale confined to the parties cannot be confirmed,
whether the property shall be sold at public sale or at private sale
not fined to the parties pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. 1668;
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1Appellants proceeded pro se before the trial court until counsel entered his
appearance on October 12, 2018.
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(g) to hold and conduct such public or private sale, to sign any
and all documents on behalf of either, or both, of the parties
including the sales agreement and deed, to complete such sale, to
take control of the monies from said sale, to pay any and all debts
related to the property, to determine what attorney fees are due
and who shall pay them and to divide the balance between the
parties as said Master believes is just and proper.
Order, 1/24/17, at 1-2.
The Master held hearings on the Partition claim on June 8, 2017, July
14, 2017, and September 6, 2017.2
After considering the evidence put forth by the parties and briefing by
the parties, on February 16, 2018, the Master issued his Recommendation in
which he concluded, inter alia, that the property was incapable of division
without prejudice. Recommendation, 2/16/18, at 3 (unpaginated). He,
therefore, awarded the property “among the parties with provisions for
owelty.”3 Id. In particular, the Master recommended that the property should
be awarded to Appellants subject to their payment of $25,264.33 to Appellee.
Id. at 8.
On February 26, 2018, Appellee filed Exceptions to the Master’s
Recommendation in which she claimed that, in calculating the owelty owed to
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2 Pursuant to a stipulation by the parties, the Master also hired an appraiser
to appraise the property, and such appraisal took place.
3 “Owelty” is the term used to describe the amount of money one co-owner of
property must pay to another co-owner of property so that each co-owner
receives the value of their ownership share of the property.
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her, the Master had underestimated the value of the labor and other
expenditures she had contributed to the property.
On March 1, 2018, the trial court entered an Order remanding the
matter to the Master for further findings of fact related to Appellee’s
Exceptions.4
On remand, the Master held a hearing on June 6, 2018, at which he
heard additional testimony and considered additional evidence of the value of
Appellee’s contributions to the ownership and maintenance of the property.
On August 21, 2018, the Master entered his Recommendation Following
Remand, in which he concluded that Appellee was entitled to the increased
owelty of $50,225.34.
On August 29, 2018, Appellants filed Exceptions to the Master’s
Recommendation Following Remand. On September 13, 2018, the trial court
entered an Order adopting the Master’s Recommendation of February 16,
2018, as amended by the August 21, 2018 Recommendation Following
Remand.
On March 1, 2019, the Master filed a Petition for Return of Sale pursuant
to Pa.R.C.P. 1573. In the Petition, the Master represented to the court that
he had received and held in escrow a check in the amount of $50,225.34 from
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4 On March 8, 2018, Appellants filed Exceptions to the Master’s
Recommendation. On March 14, 2018, Appellee requested that the court
dismiss Appellants’ exceptions as null and void as the trial court had already
ordered the matter remanded to the Master for further findings of fact.
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Appellants’ counsel, and had received an executed deed from Appellee to
effectuate the transfer of her interest in the property. He, thus, requested
that the court confirm the sale and transfer of the property between the
parties. The trial court entered an Order granting the Petition that same day.
On March 12, 2019, Appellants filed a “Motion for Post-Trial Relief” in
which they argued that the trial court erred by granting Appellee’s Exceptions
to the Master’s Recommendation and by denying Appellants’ Exceptions to the
Master’s Recommendation Following Remand. The trial court denied
Appellants’ “Motion for Post-Trial Relief” that same day. On April 9, 2019,
Appellants filed a Praecipe for Entry of Judgment on the trial court’s March 1,
2019 Order approving the Return of Sale.
This appeal followed. Both Appellants and the trial court have complied
with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
Appellants raise the following issue on appeal:
Did the lower court err by granting [Appellee’s E]xceptions to the
original report of the [M]aster in [P]artition, and by denying
[Appellants’ E]xceptions to the modified report of the [M]aster in
[P]artition, resulting in an erroneous calculation of owelty in which
all factors weighing in [Appellants’] favor were omitted?
Appellants’ Brief at 3.
Before we address the merits of Appellants’ issue, we first consider, sua
sponte, whether we have jurisdiction over this matter. Kapcsos v. Benshoff,
194 A.3d 139, 141 (Pa. Super. 2018) (en banc). “Jurisdiction is purely a
question of law; the appellate standard of review is de novo and the scope of
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review plenary.” Commonwealth v. Seiders, 11 A.3d 495, 496–97 (Pa.
Super. 2010).
“Partition is a possessory action; its purpose and effect being to give to
each of a number of joint owners the possession [to which] he is entitled ...
of his share in severalty ... The rule is that the right to partition is an incident
of a tenancy in common, and an absolute right.” Lombardo v. DeMarco,
504 A.2d 1256, 1260 (Pa. Super. 1985) (citations omitted). “The purpose of
partition is to afford those individuals who no longer wish to be owners the
opportunity to divest themselves for a fair compensation.” Russo v.
Polidoro, 176 A.3d 326, 329 (Pa. Super. 2017) (citation omitted). Any one
or more co-tenants may bring an action for partition, and all other co-tenants
must be joined as defendants. Pa.R.C.P. 1553.
The Rules of Civil Procedure provide the procedural framework for a
partition action. Relevantly, Rule 1557 states:
If the court determines that there shall be partition because of a
default or admission or after a hearing or trial, the court shall
enter an order directing partition which shall set forth the names
of all the co-tenants and the nature and extent of their interests
in the property.
Pa.R.C.P. 1557.
Rule 1558 then provides that, “after the entry of the order directing
partition” and the parties’ appearance at a preliminary conference, the
court “may appoint a master to hear the entire matter or to conduct any sale,
or to act upon only specified issues or matters relating to the carrying out of
the order of partition.” Pa.R.C.P. 1558(a), (b) (emphasis added). Rules 1569
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and 1570 delineate the court-appointed master’s responsibilities, directing
that the master file a report including findings of fact and an order specifying
the master’s recommended method of partition.
Interpreting the interplay of these procedural rules, this Court, in
Kapcsos, recently explained the law of partition procedure as consisting of
“two, distinct, chronological parts[,]” each of which “must produce its own,
distinct, appealable order.” Kapcsos, 194 A.3d at 141. The first, predicate
part, “directs partition of the parties’ legal interests into severalty.” Id. at
142 (citing Pa.R.C.P. 1557). In other words, the court, pursuant to Rule 1557,
must first determine whether the property is capable of partition under law by
assessing: (1) whether the parties jointly own the property; and, if so, (2)
what fractional legal interest each owner holds. Id. Rules 1557 and 1558 are
clear that, once the court makes this determination, the court must enter an
order so reflecting, and only afterward may it appoint a master. See Pa.R.C.P.
1557, 1558
According to the Kapcsos Court, only after the Rule 1557 Order
becomes final—either because no party appeals5 it or an appellate court
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5 A Rule 1557 Order directing partition and delineating the names and
ownership interests of the parties is an interlocutory Order appealable as of
right pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 311(a)(7). Kapcsos, 194 A.3d at 142.
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affirms it—can the trial court proceed to determine in which manner it will
partition the property pursuant to Rule 1570.6 Kapcsos, 194 A.3d at 142.
In Kapcsos, the trial court neglected to enter the requisite Rule 1557
order before proceeding to Rule 1570 proceedings and conditionally awarding
the property to Kapcsos subject to, inter alia, payment of owelty to Benshoff.
Benshoff appealed to this Court. An en banc panel of this Court unanimously
quashed the appeal, reasoning:
[A Rule 1557] order must precede [a Rule 1570 order]. [The]
failure of the parties to secure and record a [Rule 1557] order
partitioning the property deprived the trial court of jurisdiction to
conduct [Rule 1570 proceedings]. If the property is never
partitioned via a [Rule 1557] order, the court has nothing to divvy-
up in [pursuant to Rule 1570], because the parties still own
undivided interests in the whole. A [Rule 1557] order must first
disentangle their legal interests and extinguish rights of
survivorship. Also, recording a [Rule 1557] order is absolutely
imperative to protect the various rights of the parties and their
heirs.
Id. at 145 (emphasis added). See also Zablocki v. Beining, 155 A.3d 1116,
1117-18 (Pa. Super. 2017) (where this Court quashed an appeal from a Rule
1570 order because the trial court had not first entered a Rule 1557 order.)
The Kapcsos Court, thus, concluded that, by failing to enter a Rule 1557
order dividing their legal interests into severalty, the court did not complete
that requisite phase of the proceedings. Therefore, the distribution scheme it
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6 “A Rule 1570 order may (1) divide the partitioned property among the
parties, (2) force one or more of the parties to sell their interest in the land to
one or more of the parties, or (3) sell the land to the general public and
distribute the proceeds among the parties.” Kapcsos, 194 A.3d at 142.
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established was a nullity, and this Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the
appeal. Id.
Instantly, our review of the record reveals that the trial court failed to
enter the requisite Rule 1557 Order before entering the separate and distinct
Rule 1570 Order. Rather, on January 24, 2017, prior to entering an Order
“determin[ing] that there shall be partition” and dividing the property into
severalty pursuant to Rule 1557, the trial court entered a Rule 1558 Order
appointing a Master. Then, after conducting evidentiary hearings and
considering the parties’ Briefs, the Master issued a Recommendation and
revised Recommendation—adopted by the trial court on September 13,
2018—determining that the property is incapable of division, memorializing
the $91,000 appraisal value of the property, and ascertaining the owelty owed
to Appellee.7 Importantly, the court never entered a Rule 1557 Order
determining whether the parties jointly own the property and, if so, the
fractional legal interest each owner holds, and dividing their legal interests
into severalty. Thus, as in Kapcsos and Zablocki, the trial court’s September
13, 2018 Order adopting the Master’s Recommendation is a nullity, and we
are constrained to quash this appeal.
Appeal quashed.
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7 The Master noted in his February 16, 2018 Recommendation that he had
considered the factors set forth in Rule 1570 when making his determination.
In particular, the Master considered Rule 1570(a)(1) (relating to whether the
property is capable of division; 1570(a)(4) (relating the existence of any
mortgages, liens, or other encumbrances on the property); and 1570(a)(5)
(related to any credits owed from one co-owner to another).
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Judge Bowes joins the memorandum.
Judge Lazarus files a concurring memorandum.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 2/25/2020
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