Source: http://pa.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19800320_0040747.PA.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 12:15:09+00:00

Document:
W. Charles Hogg, Jr., Stephen W. Miller, Philadelphia, for appellant.
Lawrence Barth, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Eagen, C. J., and O'Brien, Roberts, Nix, Larsen and Flaherty, JJ. Roberts and Nix, JJ., filed dissenting opinions.
Appellant filed preliminary objections contending, inter alia, that according to the rule enunciated in Texas v. New Jersey, 379 U.S. 674, 85 S.Ct. 626, 13 L.Ed.2d 596 (1965), the lower court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter of the petition in escheat. These preliminary objections were dismissed by order of the lower court dated July 15, 1976, and appellant subsequently filed an appeal to the Commonwealth Court pursuant to the Act of March 5, 1925, P.L. 23, as amended, 12 P.S. § 672.*fn2 That court affirmed the order of the lower court dismissing appellant's preliminary objection to jurisdiction. O'Connor, Escheator of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Sperry and Hutchinson Co., 32 Pa. Commw. 599, 379 A.2d 1378 (1977). We granted appellant's petition for allowance of appeal.
The competency of the court to determine controversies of the general class to which the case presented for its consideration belongs, and the controlling question is whether the court had the power to enter upon the inquiry, not whether it might ultimately decide that it was unable to grant the relief sought in the particular case. . . . [T]he Act of 1925 was not concerned with matters going to the right of plaintiff to recover on his cause of action but only with his right to have his cause of action heard and determined. Strank v. Mercy Hospital of Johnstown, 376 Pa. 305, 309, 102 A.2d 170, 172 (1954).
With this test for subject matter jurisdiction in mind, we turn to appellant's jurisdictional objections.
First, appellant contends that insofar as the addresses of stampholders are unknown, the rule set forth in Texas v. New Jersey, supra, constitutes a complete jurisdictional bar to any consideration of the petition in escheat by a Pennsylvania court. The Texas rule establishes priority among multiple states attempting to escheat the same res. It specifies that the state of the last known addresses of the creditors of intangible personalty has the superior right to escheat, and where such addresses are lacking, the superior power of escheat resides in the state of corporate domicile.*fn4 Texas v. New Jersey, supra, 379 U.S. at 681, 85 S.Ct. at 631, 13 L.Ed.2d at 601. Since the creditors' addresses in the instant case are unknown, appellant concludes both that Pennsylvania lacks the power to escheat according to the Texas rule, and lacking such power to escheat, Pennsylvania courts also necessarily lack the power to hear this action in escheat. Such a conclusion is totally without merit.

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