In re: CONDEMNATION BY the COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, OF RIGHT OF WAY FOR STATE ROUTE 0079, SECTION W10, a Limited Access Highway, in the Township of Cecil. Dennis Sluciak , Appellant.

Helen and Joseph Sluciak , Dennis Sluciak’s parents, purchased a sixty acre parcel of land in the Township of Cecil, Washington County, Pennsylvania, in April 1938. In August 1938, Mary Dagsher and her husband purchased the adjoining property. Mr. and Mrs. Sluciak , who used the property as a farm, had frontage on Grudevich Road but used a driveway that cut across a "sliver" of property owned by Dagsher to access Grudevich Road (Sliver). Dennis and Mr. and Mrs. Sluciak have maintained this access over the Sliver since 1938. On April 21, 1993, the Department filed a declaration of taking and acquired 12.190 acres of Sluciak’s property including eight hundred feet of frontage. On May 17, 1993, Sluciak signed an estimated just compensation application and subsequently received estimated just compensation of $145,000. The Department valued the property at $460,000 prior to the taking and at $315,000 after the taking. On October 12, 1993, Sluciak petitioned for appointment of a board of viewers . Before the board on March 24, 1994, Sluciak testified that he had no legal access to his property after the taking and that the only access was over the Sliver, which he did not own. Sluciak asserted that the property was landlocked by the condemnation, that the property was an assembled economic unit and the value after the taking was zero, resulting in damages greater than three million dollars. On October 28, 1994, the board found that Sluciak’s property did not abut Grudevich Road but that he had either an irrevocable license or an easement by necessity over the Sliver.

The board also found that the assembled economic unit doctrine was inapplicable and found damages in the amount of $145,000. On November 22, 1994, Appellant appealed to the trial court. Subsequently, in February 1997, the Department condemned the Sliver and insured that Appellant has access to Grudevich Road. Both Appellant and the Department requested that the trial court schedule a hearing on the access issue. Originally, this request was denied as was the parties' request for reconsideration. However, on April 10 1997, the trial court held that Appellant's property was not landlocked.

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Sluciak appealed. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania reversed the common pleas judgment, remanding the case for additional determinations. 727 A.2d 618 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1999). The date shown above is the date of the appellate court decision and not the trial date. Reported by JAB.