Case ID: pa_308/html/0309-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Bailey v. Waters, Auditor General, et al., Appellants.
    Argued May 26, 1932.
    Before Frazer, C. J., Simpson, Kephart, Schaffer, Maxey, Drew and Linn, JJ.
    
      
      Harris C. Arnold, Deputy Attorney General, with him Wm. A. Schnader, Attorney General, for appellant.
    The change of salary is a necessary result of constitutional mandate.
    The reassignment of judicial districts was required.
    The salary readjustment was necessary: Com. v. Mathues, 210 Pa. 372.
    
      Nothing in the Constitution forbids a downward change of plaintiff’s salary under the present circumstances.
    The power of the legislature to reduce judicial salaries is not here involved.
    ' Our cases agree that there may be implied as well as express limitations on the legislature, in a constitution. But such an implication must be very clear in order to overcome the general legislative power of state legislatures: Lewis & Nelson’s App., 67 Pa. 153, 165; Page v. Allen, 58 Pa. 338; Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Pa. 147.
    
      Geo. Ross Hull, of Snyder, Miller, Hull & Hull, for appellee.
    The legislature has no power under the Constitution to diminish the salary of a judge learned in the law during his continuance in office: Lewis and Nelson’s App., 67 Pa. 153; Sharpless v. Mayor, 21 Pa. 147; Page v. Allen, 58 Pa. 338.
    The legislature cannot reduce the salaries of judges while in office: Com. v. Mann, 5 W. & S. 403; Com. v. Mathues, 210 Pa. 372.
    If the legislature has no Constitutional power specifically and directly to diminish the salary of a judge learned in the law, during his continuance in office, it can not do so by the indirect method of reapportioning judicial districts and applying thereto a salary schedule based on population: Com. v. Comrey, 149 Pa. 216; Com. v. Woodring, 274 Pa. 553.
    June 30, 1932 :
   Per Curiam,

The judgment is affirmed on the opinion of the learned president judge of the court below.