Court Opinion

ID: 9757136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:19:57.092794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:35.134060
License: Public Domain

*55ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority today holds that a Borough has authority to regulate the monthly rates charged by a private cable television company simply because cable television wires run beneath city streets, and therefore sustains an ordinance enacted by appellee, Borough of Scottdale (the Borough), requiring National Cable Television Corporation (National Cable) to submit proposed customer rate increases to the Borough for approval. Because I believe that a Borough is wholly without power to exact this requirement, I dissent.
In Gagliardi v. Ambridge Borough, 401 Pa. 141, 143, 163 A.2d 418, 419 (1960), this Court stated “A municipality is a creature of the state and possesses only such powers of government as are expressly granted to it and as are necessary to carry the same into effect.” Accord, Washington Arbitration Case, 436 Pa. 168, 177, 259 A.2d 437, 442 (1969); Wilkinsburg-Penn Joint Water Authority v. Churchill Borough, 417 Pa. 93, 100, 207 A.2d 905, 909 (1965); School District of Philadelphia v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, 417 Pa. 277, 280, 207 A.2d 864, 866 (1965); Cleaver v. Board of Adjustment, 414 Pa. 367, 372, 200 A.2d 408, 412 (1964); Schultz v. Philadelphia, 385 Pa. 79, 83-4, 122 A.2d 279, 281-2 (1956); White Oak Borough Authority Appeal, 372 Pa. 424, 427, 93 A.2d 437, 438 (1953); Genkinger v. New Castle, 368 Pa. 547, 549, 84 A.2d 303, 304 (1951).
“A municipal corporation does not possess and cannot exercise any other than the following powers: (1) those granted in express words; (2) those necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to the powers expressly granted; (3) those essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation, not simply convenient but indispensable.”
Valley Deposit and Trust Company of Belle Vernon, 311 Pa. 495, 498, 167 A. 42, 43 (1933); accord, Lesley v. Kite, 192 Pa. 268, 274, 43 A. 959, 961 (1899). “Any reasonable doubt as to the existence of power is resolved by the courts against its existence in the corporation, and therefore denied.” Valley Deposit and Trust Company of Belle Vernon, supra; Lesley v. Kite, supra.
*56Thus, unless the power to regulate the rates of a cable television franchise has been expressly delegated by the Legislature, a municipality can impose such regulation only if it possesses implied powers to do so. Any question as to the existence of such implied powers is to be resolved against the municipality. Valley Deposit and Trust Company of Belle Vernon, supra.
The Borough lacks express authority for this regulation. Section 1202(17) of the Borough Code, 53 P.S. § 46202,1 relied upon by the majority, authorizes the Borough to regulate the streets and public ways. This provision permits the Borough to grant cable television franchises and to impose conditions upon the installation, use and maintenance of cable television wires placed beneath municipal streets. It cannot, however, authorize a requirement that National Cable’s rates to its subscribers be approved by the Borough, for the requirement is regulation of National Cable’s business, not of the use of the streets as contemplated by the Code. See generally 46 South 52nd Street Corporation v. Manlin, 398 Pa. 304, 157 A.2d 381 (1960) (placement of newsstands on sidewalks).
Similarly, section 1202(74) of the Borough Code, 53 P.S. § 46202,2 also relied upon by the majority, does not confer upon the Borough express power to enact this ordinance. Section 1202(74), which provides that a municipality may enact ordinances not inconsistent with the laws and the *57Constitution of the Commonwealth, does not delegate to a municipality powers beyond those expressly authorized by enabling legislation. Such a catch-all provision is insufficient to authorize a municipality to enact an ordinance not specifically authorized by another section of the Code or by other enabling legislation.
In Washington Arbitration Case, supra, a statute expressly authorized third class municipalities to pay insurance premiums for city employees, but was silent concerning the power of third class cities to pay such premiums for families of employees. An arbitration award required the city to pay premiums for families of employees. This Court held that the award was not enforceable because the exercise of power called for was unauthorized by enabling legislation, despite the presence of a catch-all provision in the city code, substantively identical to that of the Borough Code. In Scott v. Philadelphia Parking Authority, 402 Pa. 151, 166 A.2d 278 (1960), a municipal authority sought to grant public employees tenure by contract. The power to do this was not expressly granted by statute, although a catch-all provision in the enabling legislation allowed the parking authority to make contracts of “every name and nature.” This Court invalidated the contract as unauthorized. The same result was reached in Genkinger v. New Castle, supra, where a statute was silent as to the power of a third class city to enact an ordinance concerning an employee retirement system. Notwithstanding the catch-all clause of the Third Class City Code, this Court held that the city lacked power to enact such an ordinance.
The facts here present a less compelling case for upholding municipal exercise of power than did the facts of these three cases. In Washington Arbitration, supra, the municipality would merely have extended the grant of medical benefits from employees, who were expressly covered by the statute, to the families of those employees. Scott involved a contract purportedly made pursuant to a statutory power to make contracts of “every name and nature.” In Genkinger v. New Castle, supra, the power to adopt an employee *58retirement system could easily be deduced from the undoubted power to hire and adequately compensate employees. Here, however, the regulation of rates of a commercial enterprise is not reasonably deducible from any of the specific powers granted to the Borough in the Borough Code. In short, the catch-all clause relied upon by the Borough cannot authorize a regulation of National Cable’s rates which exceeds the powers specifically granted by the Borough Code.
That the ordinance cannot be sustained as an exercise of the police powers is almost too obvious for discussion. No one doubts that a city must have implied powers to regulate public ways and to contract for public services. See, e. g., Butler v. Nuth, et al., 361 Pa. 484, 65 A.2d 687 (1949) (contract for garbage collection permissible as necessary for health of residents); but it cannot reasonably be asserted that a city, in order to preserve the public health, safety and welfare, must retain the implied power to approve the monthly rates charged by a private cable television company. “As the exercise of this right does not appear to be necessary to such municipalities to enable them to perform that share of the general government entrusted to them, there would seem to be no reason to imply it.” Valley Deposit and Trust Company of Belle Vernon, supra (priority in bank distributions).
When a municipality lacks statutory authority to enact an ordinance, it cannot attempt to enlarge its delegated powers by contract. A contract entered into by a municipality is valid only if authorized. O’Malley v. Olyphant Borough, 198 Pa. 525, 48 A. 483 (1901); cf. Scott v. Philadelphia Parking Authority, supra at 159, 166 A.2d at 283 (municipal authority). Hence, the Borough cannot rely on contractual principles to justify its unauthorized ordinance.
Philadelphia v. Holmes Electric Protective Company of Philadelphia, 335 Pa. 273, 6 A.2d 884 (1939) is not to the contrary. There, the only issue before the Court was interpretation of a provision of an agreement between the City of Philadelphia and a burglary alarm company. The compa*59ny never questioned the power of the City to enter the agreement. National Cable raises here the issue not involved in Holmes, and upon which Holmes cannot serve as authority.
In sum, the Borough lacks statutory power, express or implied, to impose upon National Cable a requirement of municipal approval of rate increases. Without statutory authorization, the Borough likewise lacks power to regulate National Cable’s rates under a contract theory. Nonetheless, the majority holds that the Borough may impose such a regulation. Perhaps the majority, noting that cable television companies are not currently subject to any form of state or federal rate regulation, seeks to plug the regulatory gap by conferring upon municipalities rate fixing power over the cable television industry. However wise regulation of rates may be as a matter of policy, it should not be imposed by this Court. If cable television rates are to be fixed, authority to do so must properly come not from this Court but from the Legislature of this Commonwealth, or the Congress of the United States.
I dissent.

. Act of February 1, 1966, P.L. (1965) 1656, No. 581, § 1202, 53 P.S. § 46202: “Among the specific powers of the borough shall be the following: . . . (17) Street and sewer regulations; obstructions. To regulate the streets, sewers, public squares, common grounds, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, culverts and drains, and the heights, grades, widths, slopes and construction thereof; and to prohibit the erection or construction of any building or other obstruction to the convenient use of the same.”

. “General powers. To make and adopt all such ordinances, bylaws, rules and regulations not inconsistent with or restrained by the Constitution and laws of this Commonwealth, as may be expedient or necessary for the proper management, care and control of the borough and its finances, and the maintenance of peace, good government, safety and welfare of the borough and its trade, commerce and manufacturers.”