In re a Private Road for O'Reilly

29 Pa. D. & C.5th 353
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County
DecidedMarch 5, 2013
DocketNo. 04-2972
StatusPublished

This text of 29 Pa. D. & C.5th 353 (In re a Private Road for O'Reilly) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re a Private Road for O'Reilly, 29 Pa. D. & C.5th 353 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2013).

Opinion

FIKE, S.J.,

MEMORANDUM

This litigation commenced with the filing by Timothy R O’Reilly (“petitioner”) of a “petition for the appointment of a board of viewers pursuant to 36 P.S. section 2731, et seq.”, requesting that a private road be laid out and opened across land of adjoining property owners to provide access to petitioner’s landlocked property.

The case is now before this court on remand from the Commonwealth Court with direction to develop an evidentiaiy record so that findings of fact can be made to provide the basis for a decision whether the opening [355]*355of a private road pursuant to the legislation known as the Private Road Act, 1836, June 13, P.L. 551, §11, as amended, 36 P.S. §2731, et seq., entitled “Proceedings To Open Private Roads” (“act”), under the circumstances presented by the instant petition, would constitute an unconstitutional taking of private property in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Sections 1 and 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

A brief summary of the history of the case will provide a background that might be helpful in understanding the present procedural posture of the proceedings and the task now assigned to this court as a trial court.

Petitioner is the owner of two parcels of land that became landlocked as a result of the Commonwealth’s condemnation of a portion of the tracts of which the two parcels were a part, for the purpose of constructing the interstate highway designated Interstate 79. Respondent, Hickory on the Green Homeowners Association (“Hickory on the Green”), is a corporation that serves as a homeowners association for residents of the Hickory on the Green subdivision. At the time the petition was filed, the respondent, Mary Lou Sorbara (“Sorbara”) owned a parcel of land lying between petitioner’s landlocked property and land of the Hickory on the Green subdivision. Sorbara’s land is now owned by Mark Polk. The remaining respondents are property owners in the Hickory on the Green subdivision. Petitioner seeks to have a road established across the Sorbara (now Polk) property, to the Hickory on the Green subdivision property, thence [356]*356continuing across the subdivision property to the cul de sac on a public road known as Clubview Drive in the subdivision.

The filing of the petition elicited preliminary objections from Hickory on the Green and the individual respondents. The preliminary objections included the contention that the act is unconstitutional, and that, consequently, if the petition were granted, the opening of the private road easement requested by petitioner would be unconstitutional as taking respondents’ property for a private, rather than public, purpose and use.

This court determined that, under then controlling appellate authority, the act was not unconstitutional; that, therefore, if the prerequisites established in the act were met, opening oftheproposedroadpursuanttotheprovisions of the act would not constitute an unconstitutional taking; and that, therefore, the preliminary objection based on respondents’ constitutional challenge should be overruled. Interlocutory appeal to Commonwealth Court ensued.

Upon appeal, the Commonwealth Court affirmed in a divided en banc opinion. In re: Opening a Private Road for the Benefit of O’Reilly, 954 A.2d 57 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2008). The maj ority concluded that applicable precedent required such a result; that even under traditional takings analysis, “a public purpose is served by allowing the laying out of roads over the lands of another” for access to landlocked property, id. at 72; that, because of historical imposition of an incorporeal burden on all land of six percent for construction of roads, laying out of a road under the act was not a taking, but an obligation imposed on all [357]*357landowners to allow for the construction of private roads in the manner determined by their elected representatives; and that historically, private roads laid out to provide ingress and egress had been considered a necessary part of the Commonwealth’s road system.

Respondents appealed to the Supreme Court, which, in a divided opinion, vacated the Commonwealth court’s decision and remanded the case to the Commonwealth Court for further review. In re: Opening a Private road for the Benefit of O’Reilly, 607 Pa. 280, 5 A.3d 246 (2010). The Supreme Court did not declare the act facially unconstitutional. However, the court’s majority disagreed with the reasoning upon which the Commonwealth Court’s constitutional analysis was based; rejected its reliance on the concept of an historical incorporeal burden alleged to have been imposed on all landowners in the Commonwealth; and dismissed petitioner’s argument that, since establishment of a private road under the act is not governed by the Eminent Domain Code, opening of the requested road would not constitute a taking at all, but, rather, a valid exercise of the police power. The majority opinion, also, rejected the suggestion that the purpose served by the act is analogous to the doctrine of implied easement by necessity, pointing out that the element of severance by a common owner that gives rise to the implication of consent in a case of easement by necessity is lacking in the instant case. Id, 607 Pa. at 258, 5 A.3d at 301.

The Supreme Court majority explained that, although not governed by the Eminent Domain Code, creation of [358]*358a road under the act’s provisions must be evaluated by the same strict standards as an exercise of the power of eminent domain by a government agency. Therefore, to satisfy the requirement that a taking serve a public purpose, “the public must be the primary and paramount beneficiary of the taking.” Id. at 299, 5 A.3d at 258. The court concluded that the Commonwealth Court’s majority opinion had not analyzed the purpose of the taking by the proper standard. Consequently, the court vacated the Commonwealth Court’s decision, and determined that remand to the Commonwealth Court was necessary, explaining:

Perhaps the most compelling assertions advanced by Appellee lie in the purported interrelation between the Commonwealth’s initial exercise of its eminent domain power to construct an interstate highway-which apparently isolated Appellee’s property from access to public roads-and Appellee’s subsequent invocation of the PRA [Act] to restore access. In light of the course this appeal has taken, however, potentially relevant details (for example, whether Appellee’s use of the PRA to restore access to the property was contemplated at the time the Commonwealth removed it, and whether Appellee acted with reasonable promptitude such that the two takings reasonably might be regarded as an interconnected course of events) are not well developed before this court. Accordingly, we will return the matter to the Commonwealth Court to consider this and any remaining matters which have been raised and preserved for judicial review and which may bear on [359]*359whether the public is fairly regarded as the primary and paramount beneficiary.

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Related

In Re Opening Private Road Ex Rel. O'Reilly
954 A.2d 57 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 2008)
In Re Interest of Forrester
836 A.2d 102 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2003)
In Re Opening a Private Road for the Benefit of O'Reilly
5 A.3d 246 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2010)
O'Reilly v. (a) Hickory On Green Homeowners Ass'n
22 A.3d 291 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 2011)

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Bluebook (online)
29 Pa. D. & C.5th 353, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-a-private-road-for-oreilly-pactcomplallegh-2013.