Case ID: pa_500/html/0325-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM: HUTCHINSON, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

456 A.2d 540
    BOROUGH OF MEDIA and the Media Municipal Authority, Appellants, v. The PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION.
    Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
    Argued Oct. 18, 1982.
    Filed Jan. 28, 1983.
    Reargument Denied March 16, 1983.
    Edward M. Gallagher, Media, for appellant at No. 731.
    D. Barry Gibbons, Media, for appellee.
    George H. Buchanan, Harrisburg, for PUC.
    George M. Aman, III, Pa. Bar Ass’n, Jane A. Soldoveri, Philadelphia, for amici curiae.
    William Moyer, Philadelphia, for appellant in No. 734.
    Before O’BRIEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, NIX, LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT and HUTCHINSON, JJ.
   ORDER

PER CURIAM:

Order affirmed. 53 Pa.Cmwlth. 535, 419 A.2d 215.

O’BRIEN, former C.J., and McDERMOTT, J., did not participate in the decision of this case.

HUTCHINSON, J., files a dissenting opinion in which FLAHERTY, J., joins.

HUTCHINSON, Judge,

dissenting.

I dissent. Without discussion, the majority ignores section 9(C) of the Municipalities Authority Act of 1945, Act of May 2, 1945 P.L. 382, as amended, 53 P.S. § 311. Section 9(C) provides:

This section, without reference to any other law, shall be deemed complete for the acquisition, by agreement, of projects, as defined in this act. . . any provisions of other laws to the contrary notwithstanding, and no proceedings or other action shall be required except as herein prescribed.

That language and its legislative history show a plain legislative intent to deprive the Public Utilities Commission of jurisdiction over the transfer of utility facilities to a municipal authority. That decision may be unwise. However, in the absence of a constitutional problem, it is within the province of the legislature and not our power to ignore it.

FLAHERTY, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.