Case ID: pa_264/html/0231-01.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

Dunmore Borough’s Election.
    
      Election law — Amendment—Jurisdiction of court — Thirty-day limit — Act of May 19,187k, P. L. 218.
    
    In a contested election proceeding, an amendment which' affects the jurisdiction of the court cannot be allowed after the expiration of the statutory period of thirty days.
    Argued Feb. 24,1919.
    Appeal, No. 164, Jan. T., 1919, by V. Ameliano, E. E. Myers et al., from order of Q. S. Lackawanna Co., Dec. T., 1917, No. 234, dismissing petition and quashing proceedings In re Contested Election in the Fifth Ward of the Borough of Dunmore.
    Before Brown, C. J., Stewart, Moschzisker, Frazer and Kephart, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Petition to contest the election of James O’Hara to the office of councilman of the Fifth Ward of the Borough of Dunmore. The petition was filed on December 5, 1917. On December 29, 1917, a rule was granted to dismiss the petition on the ground that it was not signed by twenty-five qualified electors, and that the affidavit was not sworn to by five qualified electors. On August 21, 1918, a motion to amend the petition by adding the name of six other petitioners, was refused, and the proceedings were quashed in an opinion by Edwards, P. J.
    The contestants appealed.
    
      Error assigned was the order of the court quashing the appeal.
    
      A. A. VosTmrg, with him B. A. Zimmerman, for appellants.
    The proposed amendment cured any possible defeet, and it should have been allowed by the court: Sheppard’s Contested Election, 65 Pa. 20; Welti’s Contested Election, 3 W. N. C. 165; Wylie’s App., 239 Pa. 510; Mooch v. Conrad, 155 Pa. 586.
    
      David J. Reedy, with him M. J. Murray, Jr., for appellee.
    An amendment to cure a jurisdictional defect in the original petition will not be allowed after the expiration of the thirty days allowed for filing the petition: Election Cases, 65 Pa. 20; Contested Election, 1 W. N. C. 326; Williams v. Johnson, 16 W. N. C. 223; North Union Twp. Election Case, 250 Pa. 98; Forst’s License, 208 Pa. 578.
    March 24,1919:
   Per Curiam,

This appeal is dismissed, at the costs of the appellants, on the following from the opinion of the learned president judge of the court below refusing to allow their petition to be amended and quashing the proceeding: “Whatever has been said by our appellate courts as to the liberality with which amendments should be allowed in contested election cases, it must be understood that amendments which affect the jurisdiction of the court cannot be allowed after the expiration of the statutory period of thirty days.”

Appeal dismissed.