There’s a lot of detailed legal analysis in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Eastern District)’s opinion in Pignetti v. Pennsylvania, No. J-11A-2024 (Apr. 25, 2025). But in the end it boiled down to a simple concept.
The case was about what property constituted the larger parcel. As the court put it, where “the condemnation of one parcel may affect the use and the value of another to such an extent that the two parcels should be valued as one.” Slip op. at 1-2 (footnote omitted). In Pennsylvania, they apparently call this “plottage,” but the analysis is familiar. (Think “three unities” — or some combination thereof.)
The Pennsylvania Legislature codified what in a lot of other jurisdictions is a common law doctrine. The statute provides:
Where all or a part of several contiguous tracts in substantially identical ownership is condemned or a part of several noncontiguous tracts in substantially identical ownership which are used together for a unified purpose is condemned, damages shall be assessed as if the tracts were one parcel.
In this case the DOT condemned a portion of Parcel 44 and all of 45. Mr. and Mrs. Pignetti owned 44, while Mr. Pignetti alone owned 45. The parcels do not actually touch, because a small “unoccupied and unused sliver of land no more than several square feet in area” separates them. Slip op. at 3. The Pignettis, however, asserted they used 44 and 45 together, to store equipment and trucks for their electrical business. Thus, they argued, the two parcels should be treated as one under the statute.
After taking evidence, the trial court agreed. Slip op. at 5 (“The trial court then determined that the Parcels has substantially identical ownership and that the Pignettis used the Parcels together for a unified purpose.”). But the Commonwealth Court (Pennsylvania’s appellate court) reversed, holding that the statute merely codified existing case law, and thus must be “so inseparably connected in the use to which they are applied as that the injury or destruction of one must necessarily and permanently injure the other.” Slip op. at 6. “Sameness” of purpose of the use isn’t the standard, and the evidence merely established that the Pignetties parked vehicles for their business on both lots, and did not provide evidence about how the effects of one parcel’s use on the other, or that they were “inseparably connected” by their mutual use. Slip op. at 8.
If the appellate court’s analysis and conclusion has you scratching your head for the actual difference, you are not alone. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court took up the issue, and concluded the Pignettis have the better of it.
The court’s analysis starts off where all statutory cases should start off — with the language of the statute. The statute says “used together for a unified purpose[.]” Slip op. at 14. And storing vehicles and equipment for the family business on both parcels qualifies.
“Together” is the critical terms, and the court started by asking whether dictionary definitions help give more meaning to that word. But it came to the conclusion that no, checking Webster’s doesn’t advance the ball at all, because the definition of “together” loops you back into other, similar words: “Together is a more or less irreducible word, and one with a manifestly familiar meaning.” Slip op. at 16. We don’t need any dictionary to tell us what “together” means:
Two tracts are “used together” when they are used together.
Id. When you say it that way, Your Honors…
The court concluded:
If our account is consonant with a plain-language approach, then the case becomes easy. The lots, separated by a few paces, are used together for the one purpose of storing vehicles and equipment in service of Mr. Pignetti’s business. To say more is to complicate a straightforward matter, and to do so unnecessarily.
Slip op. at 17.
Game over, the Pignettis win the day. Lesson here: don’t overthink things; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
One Justice dissented, because that, “[i]n my mind, the phrase ‘used together for a unified purpose’ ultimately connotes something more than simply ‘used in furtherance of a shared enterprise.'” Dissent at 1-2.
Pignetti v. Pennsylvania, No. J-11A-2024 (Pa. E.D. Apr. 25, 2025)