Superior Court Rules On Due Diligence Required In Quiet Title Action

The Superior Court recently weighed in with an interesting decision involving due diligence in the context of service by publication when potentially interested parties to a litigation cannot be located. See Sisson v. Stanley, No. 1347 MDA 2013 (Pa. Super. Ct., Jan. 27, 2015).

In 1953, Joseph Stanley transferred all right, title, and interest in real property located in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania to Pauline Battista, subject to a reservation of mineral and gas rights. The present owners of the property, Donald R. Sisson and Mary Sisson, acquired the property in 1986 from Battista subject to the same reservation.

In 2010, a producer of natural gas, Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, approached the Sissons with a proposed lease to extract shale gas. Chesapeake informed the Sissons of the cloud on title, prompting the Sissons to file a quiet title action in the Susquehanna County Court of Common Pleas in April 2010. In their quiet title action, the Sissons sought, in