Blue Collar Holdings v. Bodine, A.

Opinion

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

BLUE COLLAR HOLDINGS, LLC : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA :

v. :

: :

ALBERT H. BODINE AND JEAN M. : BODINE, HIS WIFE; THEIR HEIRS, : EXECUTORS, ADMINISTRATORS, : No. 3277 EDA 2025 LEGATEES AND ASSIGNS, AND ALL : PERSONS CLAIMING ANY RIGHT, : TITLE, INTEREST IN OR CLAIM : AGAINST THE LAND DESCRIBED : HEREIN :

: :

APPEAL OF: ROBERT E. BODINE :

Appeal from the Order Entered November 21, 2025 In the Court of Common Pleas of Pike County Civil Division at No(s): 2023-00149

BEFORE: LAZARUS, P.J., MURRAY, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E. 

MEMORANDUM BY FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.: FILED AUGUST 25, 2026

In this quiet title action, Robert E. Bodine appeals pro se from the order

that simultaneously granted Blue Collar Holdings, LLC’s (Blue Collar) “Motion

for Summary Judgment” and denied Robert’s “Cross-Motion for Summary

Judgment.” The order “forever barred” Robert, among others, from “asserting

any right, lien, title, or interest in the real property” located at 406 Avenue I,

Matamoras, Pennsylvania 18336. Order, 11/21/25, at 1-2. Robert raises a

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 Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

series of constitutional challenges against Pennsylvania’s Real Estate Tax Sale

Law (RETSL).1 As Robert did not provide notice to the Attorney General of

Pennsylvania regarding his intent to challenge RETSL’s constitutionality, either

at the trial-court level or contemporaneous with the filing of the record or

appellate brief in this Court, he has necessarily waived review of his claims.

As such, we affirm.

The trial court summarized this matter as follows:

This is an action in quiet title attendant to the sale of real property by the Pike County Tax Claim Bureau in satisfaction of unpaid real property taxes pursuant to [RETSL, which had been] purchased by Judicial 2017, LLC on or about November 27, 2017. Thereafter, on or about April 17, 2018, the property was purchased from Judicial 2017, LLC by Blue Collar, who instituted the present proceedings in 2023. …

The operative and material facts … are not in dispute. At the time of the tax sale in 2017, both Albert and Jean Bodine had been deceased for many years[,] in 1987 and 2004[,] respectively. Public records reflect (by absence), and no participant in this action has disputed, that no estate was ever raised for either Albert or Jean. Although it has been alleged that Jean left a last will and testament[,] the truth of this allegation is irrelevant since, whether she died testate or not, no personal representative was ever named and no distribution of her estate was ever made in accordance with applicable law[.]

Prior to Jean’s [death], the address for service of notices on file with the Tax Claim Bureau was changed to that of her son Reid Bodine, who continued to receive such notices thereafter, and upon whom the statutorily required notice of the 2017 sale was duly served. Robert E. Bodine, a grandchild of Albert and Jean, and the only potentially interested party to participate meaningfully in this action, has repeatedly conceded through his

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1 Act of July 7, 1947, P.L. 1368, as amended, 72 P.S. §§ 5860.101-5860.803.

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filings that service of relevant notices was done in accordance and confirmative with applicable Pennsylvania law, specifically 72 P.S. [§] 5860.602. It is also undisputed that no person in interest ever challenged the tax sale itself by filing objections, exceptions, or any other means procedurally or statutorily available, and that the sale was confirmed absolutely in accordance with applicable law and procedure.

After filing its complaint, Blue Collar served copies bearing a notice to defend upon various members of the extended Bodine family in the manner appropriate for original process. Three such recipients responded. Reid Bodine, a child of Albert and Jean, filed an argumentative, non-responsive and non-conforming document. Michelle Bijesse, a grandchild, filed an answer consisting of perfunctory admissions, denials, and assertions of lack of information. Robert E. Bodine, another grandchild, filed a more substantial answer, which included inartfully-pled “affirmative defenses” and, despite failing to properly plead any counterclaim(s), demands for various relief. Blue Collar subsequently filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, which was denied[.]

Blue Collar then, on May 27, 2025, filed the instant motion for summary judgment with a brief in support. In accordance with common local practice, [the court] issued an order on May 28, 2025, directing any interested persons to file an answer and brief in opposition. Michelle Bijesse filed another sparsely-worded answer which consisted only of bare admissions, denials, and nonresponses , with no further exposition or argument and no legal memorandum. Robert E. Bodine responded with a substantial answer and “cross-motion” for summary judgment, and an appropriate brief.

Id. 2-4 (unnecessary capitalizations, footnotes, and citations omitted; some

names altered).

In its order granting summary judgment as to Blue Collar, the court

found, inter alia, that Robert

largely conceded the material facts, arguing instead that, regardless of any (non-)dispute of facts, Blue Collar is not entitled to judgment “as a matter of law[.”] In support of his position, he

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advances a variety of novel federal constitutional theories of dubious provenance, which purport to challenge the entire scheme of property sales for the purpose of recoupment of unpaid taxes. However, conspicuously absent from his exposition is any citation to any ruling by any court of competent jurisdiction that tax sales in general or [RETSL] in particular (or any relevant provision thereof) have ever been found unconstitutional or otherwise legally lacking. Upon close inspection, the various federal cases he cites are all some combination of inapt, inapplicable, out of context, or misconstrued.

Furthermore, Robert has produced no compelling authority to suggest that the instant quiet title action, brought by a subsequent third-party purchaser for value of the subject realty, is the proper forum in which to contest the legal propriety of judicial tax sales. The procedural protections built into [RETSL] gave ample opportunity for any interested party to challenge the sale at the time it occurred and in the context of the judicial proceedings which authorized it. Robert did not attempt to implead or otherwise involve the Pike County Tax Claim Bureau in the current action[] and repeatedly concedes that he is not seeking any direct relief from it.

… Robert’s claims are backed only by appeal to broad constitutional hypotheses which do not stand up to scrutiny[] and which do nothing to explain or excuse his or his family’s failure to establish and/or defend whatever rights they may have had to the subject property at a time when doing so may have availed them. In addition, Robert’s demands for relief are inappropriately raised and defined in his answer and cross-motion for summary judgment[] and not properly framed in a counter-claim as required by relevant law and rules of court, thereby denying Blue Collar the ability to formulate a proper response and defense at the pleading stage.

Thus, [the court found] that Blue Collar has met its burden. No dispute as to any material fact has been identified by any adverse participant, and Blue Collar is entitled to judgment in quiet title as a matter of law.

Id. 5-7 (unnecessary capitalizations and footnote omitted; some names

altered).

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Robert timely appealed from the court’s decision, and now, before this

Court, raises four issues for our review:

1. Whether the trial court erred in holding, without reasonable specificity, that the tax sale of the property which resulted in forfeiture of equity far exceeding the tax debt, did not violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution?

2. Whether the trial court erred in holding, without reasonable specificity, that the tax sale of the property and transfer of surplus equity to a private purchaser did not constitute an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth and Fourteeth Amendments to the United States Constitution?

3. Whether the trial court erred in holding, without reasonable specificity, that the tax sale did not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, §2 of the United States Constitution where no reasonable attempt was made to identify and notify out-of-state heirs whose interests were reasonably ascertainable?

4. Whether the trial court erred in holding that a quiet title action under [Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure] 1061(b)(2) was not the proper forum to determine the validity of deeds arising from an allegedly unconstitutional tax sale?

Appellant’s Brief at 5 (suggested answers omitted).

Robert’s first three claims expressly challenge the constitutionality of

RETSL, while his fourth contention derivatively does the same. See Appellant’s

Brief at 46-49 (at the fourth issue: “[Robert’s] position has been that the

deeds in the chain of title are invalid because their validity depends on the

constitutionality of the underlying tax sale. That claim falls squarely within

the scope of Rule 1061(b)(2). By failing to address whether the deeds

themselves were valid, the trial court failed to apply the governing rule and

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therefore erred in granting summary judgment.”) (emphasis added). Robert

explicitly “does not dispute, for purposes of this appeal, that the statutory

procedures prescribed by [RETSL] were followed.” Appellant’s Reply Brief at

1. Instead, Robert’s “position is that statutory compliance alone does not

independently resolve whether the challenged deprivation satisfied the

requirements of the United States Constitution.” Id. at 1-2. Thus, Robert’s

averments solely challenge the constitutionality of RETSL.

After thoroughly reviewing the record, we find no evidence that Robert

has provided the requisite notice to the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, in

accordance with the applicable rules of civil or appellate procedure because of

the nature of his claims. Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 235 states, in

relevant part:

In any proceeding in a court subject to these rules in which an Act of Assembly is alleged to be unconstitutional … and the Commonwealth is not a party, the party raising the question of constitutionality … shall promptly give notice thereof by registered mail to the Attorney General of Pennsylvania together with a copy of the pleading or other portion of the record raising the issue and shall file proof of the giving of the notice.

Pa.R.Civ.P. 235. In addition, Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 521(a)

indicates that:

It shall be the duty of a party who draws in question the constitutionality of any statute in any matter in an appellate court to which the Commonwealth or any officer thereof, acting in his official capacity, is not a party, upon the filing of the record, or as soon thereafter as the question is raised in the appellate court, to give immediate notice in writing to the Attorney General of Pennsylvania of the existence of the question; together with a copy of the pleadings or other portion of the record raising the

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issue, and to file proof of service of such notice.

Pa.R.A.P. 521(a).

While providing notice to the Attorney General is necessary only in facial

challenges, and not as-applied challenges, to the constitutionality of a statute,

see Kepple v. Fairman Drilling Co., 615 A.2d 1298, 1303 n.3 (Pa. 1992),

Robert’s contentions clearly attack the general tax sale framework and are, as

such, facial in nature. See, e.g., Appellant’s Brief at 22 (“[T]he Constitution

requires that the State make a reasonable, good-faith effort to avoid forfeiture

of equity grossly disproportionate to the underlying tax obligation.

Pennsylvania’s current framework contains no such safeguard.”). Therefore,

Robert was required to notice the Attorney General and thereafter file proof

of service thereof, both to the trial court and this Court.

This Court has held that in an “action that involves a constitutional

challenge to a statute, in which the Commonwealth is not a party, failure to

provide Rule 235 notice results in waiver of the constitutional issue.” Adelphia

Cablevision Associates of Radnor, L.P. v. University City Housing Co.,

755 A.2d 703, 709 (Pa. Super. 2000); see also Hill v. Divecchio, 625 A.2d

642, 648-49 (Pa. Super. 1993) (“If the litigant raising the constitutionality of

a statute fails to notify the Attorney General pursuant to Pa.R.Civ.P. 235 and

Pa.R.A.P. 521, the claim is barred.”). Robert failed to apprise the Attorney

General both during proceedings before the trial court and in conjunction with

this appeal. Accordingly, he has waived review of his constitutional challenges

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to the RETSL. As those are the only issues contained in his appeal, we affirm

the court’s order granting Blue Collar’s motion for summary judgment and

denying Robert’s cross-motion for summary judgment.

Order affirmed.

Date: 8/25/2026