Court Opinion

ID: 9710941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:21:06.525614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:01.222143
License: Public Domain

CRAIG, Judge,
concurring.
This concurring opinion, in addition to confirming joinder in Judge Doyle’s opinion for a unanimous panel of the Court, relates to the disturbing fact that the processing of the discrimination complaint in this case by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission extended over a period of more than thirteen years, from October of 1974 until August of 1988.
Concerned by the time span and the inability of counsel for the Commission to explain it at argument, this Court ordered that the Commission file a supplementary brief detailing and explaining the delay, with an opportunity to the Pittsburgh Board of Education to file a supplementary brief in reply. Both parties have filed supplementary briefs as ordered.
The Commission’s chief plea is that, despite earnest attempts to obtain needed appropriations and legislative assistance, it has been understaffed and overworked, unable to process thousands of complaints efficiently. That plea causes more concern than it allays. If the delay in this case stemmed from a general lack of resources, rather than from any administrative failings peculiar to this particular case, are we to conclude that a number of other substantial complaints have required more than a decade to be resolved?
Close examination of the supplementary brief’s chronology, which the Commission has forthrightly supplied, reveals that the Commission’s work on the case was handled by a *333succession of three principal investigators over the years. More significantly, the investigative process appears to have consisted of a long chain of correspondence with the Pittsburgh Board of Education, seeking information in an incremental manner, with inexplicably long periods between the time the Commission received information from the Board and the date of the next request for information issued by the Commission.
Four-and-one-half months elapsed between the Commission’s receipt of an answer from the Board in November, 1974 until the Commission’s next inquiry in March, 1975.
Another four-and-one-half-month lapse occurred between the time of the Board reply in early July of 1975 and the date of the Commission’s next inquiry in late October, 1975.
After that, the pace slowed even more. Two years and nine months passed between the time of a Board reply in July, 1977 until the Commission sent another letter in late April, 1980.
One year and seven months transpired between a Board reply of May, 1980 and the next correspondence from the Commission on January 5, 1982.
There was an eight-and-one-half-month lapse between early February and late October of 1982, when the Commission dispatched its next letter.
Two years and one month passed between a Board response in November, 1982 and the next Commission inquiry in January of 1985.
A two-year period was required after the Commission was ready for a conciliation conference in January of 1985 until the Commission finally held its public hearing in February of 1987.
A year-and-a-half passed between the time of that public hearing and the issuance of the Commission’s decision.
The Board was not faultless in contributing to the slow pace. The chronology reveals a four-and-a-half-month delay between the time the Commission sought information in *334October, 1975 and the Board reply in March, 1976, and one year passed between a Commission inquiry of July 1, 1976 until June 27, 1977, when the Board finally completed supplying all of the information then requested.
The complainant, Samuel Howard, did not sleep on his rights. After an initial period of four months had passed, complainant Samuel Howard wrote to the Commission, expressing concern over the delay in the investigation of his complaint.
Although the Commission doubtless has struggled against a shortage of personnel in the face of a great workload, questions necessarily arise concerning the effectiveness of an investigative process which consists of the seemingly desultory issuance of inquiry letters, with intervals of months and years between the receipt of information and the next inquiry.
This case is not the first discrimination case before this Court which has evidenced a long delay. Beaver Cemetery v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, 107 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 190, 528 A.2d 282 (1987), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 518 Pa. 627, 541 A.2d 1138 (1988), as noted in the Court’s unanimous opinion, involved an eight-year delay. The concern felt by this Court, in encountering such system delays after the fact, is increased by the realization that the few cases which come up on appeal represent only a small fraction of the whole picture.
As pointed out in this Court’s opinion by Judge Doyle, all parties in the matter are disadvantaged by the passage of time. The complainant—whose complaint has now been found to be justified by the Commission and this Court— has undeniably suffered an aggravation of the fundamental injury, but even the respondent Board is now faced with an obligation to pay a dollar amount of backpay much greater than what would be involved in a case handled with dispatch.
Because of the truth of the familiar statement that justice delayed is justice denied, we take this opportunity to make a *335record with respect to the serious time problem which exists in resolving discrimination issues, to encourage a solution, not only by the Commission, but by the executive branch and the legislative branch as well.