Court Opinion

ID: 9719139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:43:23.621562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.775179
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy :
I concur in the result reached by the Court today because it is manifest on this record that mandamus does not properly lie against these particular appellees, the Auditor General and the State Treasurer. The writ is available only “to compel the performance of a ministerial act or mandatory duty where there is a clear legal right in the plaintiff, a corresponding duty in the defendant, and a want of any other appropriate and adequate remedy.” Philadelphia Presbytery Homes, Inc. v. Abington Board of Commissioners, 440 Pa. 299, 303, 269 A. 2d 871 (1970). Clearly, the writ cannot issue where the task sought to be compelled is beyond the scope of an official’s duties.
Article 5, §16(a) of the Constitution of 1968 provides that “Justices, judges and justices of the peace *90shall be compensated by the Commonwealth as provided by law.” Schedule 16 (u) to Article 5, abolished the office of magistrate and established in its place a Municipal Court and Traffic Court for the City of Philadelphia, with enlarged functions and responsibilities. It follows, therefore, that the Magistrates’ Court Act of 1937, Act of June 15, 1937, P. L. 1743, No. 368, §37, as amended, 42 P.S. §1138, which contains authorization for the payment of magistrates, will no longer support any salary payment to appellants. Furthermore, Article 5, §16(a), supra, provides that compensation be paid to the judges of the new Philadelphia courts by the Commonwealth, while the Magistrates’ Court Act orders payment by the City of Philadelphia. As the salary bill for these two courts which was finally enacted by the legislature, Act of October 17, 1969, P. L. 259, §2, 17 P.S. §711.2, related the increased salaries bach only to July 1, 1969, it is clear that for the period commencing January 1, 1969, and ending June 30, 1969, there was no law authorizing the payment of salaries to appellants. That during this time they in fact received compensation at the old rate for magistrates does not affect the legal issues involved. In the absence of specific legal authorization of judicial salaries covering the period in question, appellees had no express legal authority to pay any amount.1 They cannot now be compelled by a suit in mandamus to perform a further act admittedly beyond their legal poAvers, viz., to pay the increase in the new judicial rate over the old magisterial rate for the first six *91months of the year. This would be so even if the compensation already paid for the six month period in question were constitutionally inadequate, an argument which has not been made in this case.2

 By Act No. 696, Appropriation Act No. 4-A of 1969, the General Assembly appropriated, inter alia, the sum of §137,500 for salaries for the 22 members of the Municipal Court and $38,750 for salaries for the 6 members of the Traffic Court for the period July 1, 1968 to June 30, 1969. This enactment, however, was strictly an appropriation, and did not establish a salary for judges serving on those courts.

 This is not to say that appellants may not resort to mandamus to compel the legislature to provide for their adequate compensation. See Commonwealth ex rel. Carroll v. Tate, 442 Pa. 45, 274 A. 2d 193 (1971); Leahey v. Farrell, 362 Pa. 52, 66 A. 2d 577 (1949). Such a suit would presumably involve, inter alia, the questions whether the amount of the old magistrate’s salary, which in fact was paid to appellants for the first six months of 1969, was constitutionally adequate and whether the constitutional prohibition against diminution of judicial salaries during their terms of office, unless by law applying to all salaried officers of the Commonwealth, Article 5, §16(a), would inhibit the payment of any amount less than that provided by the Act of October 17, 1969, establishing a salary scale for the period commencing July 1, 1969. Any comment on these questions at this time would, of course, be both premature and unwise.