Court Opinion

ID: 9729169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:28:33.811343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:55.792863
License: Public Domain

*154Dissenting Opinion by
Judge Cbaig:
This court should not hold that the exercise of injunctive powers by an administrative agency is less amenable to appellate review than the injunctive functions of a trial court.
Without doubt, the Rules of Appellate Procedure generally relate to appellate review of administrative agency actions as well as those of courts. Pa. R.A.P. 311(a)(4) explicitly allows an appeal by right from an “order . . . dissolving injunctions.”
If the provisions of Pa. R.A.P. 312, 1301-1323, allowing appeals by permission subject to certification by the tribunal of first consideration, apply to administrative agencies, why should not the companion appeal-by-right authorization in Pa. R.A.P. 311 also apply to them?
Although Pa. R.A.P 1311(a) expressly refers to administrative agencies by use of the words “other government unit” (defined in Pa. R.A.P. 102), subsection (a)(4) of Pa. R.A.P. 311—unlike subsection (e)—contains no language limiting its application to trial courts.
The terms of 42 Pa. C. S. §5105(c), authorizing appeals by right “as may be specified by law” (emphasis added), would not seem to be limited to statutory specifications of such rights because the previous statutes authorizing appeals by right have been repealed and superseded by the Supreme Courts Pa. R.A.P. 311 as to such subject matter. Section 5105(c) does not speak in terms of limiting appeals by right to those instances formerly specified by law.
A negation of appeals by right from administrative agency injunctive functions means that every administrative agency, by refusing certification as to an interlocutory injunctive action, can—except in cases of egregious refusals—forestall review until a final order is later reached, while trial court actions of that sort are *155subject to review immediately. In view of the severe impact commonly involved in the granting or refusal of injunctive orders, even the expertise of administrative agencies would not seem to warrant reading the rules to shield their injunctive orders from prompt review more than those of the judiciary.
Judge Barry joins this dissent.