Court Opinion

ID: 9727292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:29:38.45585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:36.026284
License: Public Domain

Opinion by
Me. Justice Jones
dissenting and concurring in part:
The writ of certiorari sued out by the appellant should be quashed. The order of the Banking Board of Pennsylvania approving the articles of merger is not judicially reviewable. It is a legislatively authorized administrative and -non-judicial act from which no appeal has been provided by the legislature. The action of the majority in according a right of appeal from an order of the Banking Board in the absence of legislative authorization constitutes a flagrant departure from established rules of legal procedure. It veritably works an unconstitutional intrusion by the judiciary upon the province of the legislative branch of our State Government.
The non-appealability of an order of similar character has been directly ruled by this court. Cf. Short’s Estate, 315 Pa. 561, 173. A. 319, where we. quashed an appeal, in the nature of a certiorari, from- the refusal *329of the Board of Finance and Revenue to allow a refund of inheritance taxes which the appellant claimed had been illegally collected. The opinion for the majority in the instant case seeks to pass off the pertinency of the decision in Short’s Estate as being based upon “an exceptionally short Per Curiam opinion”. The opinion was sufficiently long, however, to go directly to the procedural question involved and to decide flatly that “The motion to quash must be sustained for the reason that an appeal from the action of the Board of Finance and Revenue, an administrative body, does not lie, unless expressly authorized by statute.” The valiant effort of learned counsel for appellant to distinguish Short’s Estate only serves, in its manifest faithfulness to the law and logic, to confirm that the order of the Banking Board is likewise not appealable.
In Newport Township School District v. State Tax Equalization Board, 366 Pa. 603, 608, 609, 79 A. 2d 641, where an appeal was sought to be taken from an order of the State Tax Equalization Board, the late Mr. Justice Ladner, speaking for a unanimous court, after recognizing our plenary power to review and supervise proceedings of inferior courts or judicial officers or judicial tribunals of this Commonwealth by the common law writ of certiorari, observed that “Whether we have the power to review directly by certiorari, the findings or actions of a non-judicial administrative board in the absence of any such authorization by the legislature is an entirely different question.” And, in answering the “different” question, the learned Justice said, — “In Short’s Estate, [cit. supra], we decided we had no such right. . . . ‘[T]he authorities agree that certiorari does not lie to review or annul any judgment or proceeding which is not judicial in its nature, but with respect to various proceedings there *330is room for great difference of opinion as to whether they are judicial or not. If they are either legislative or executive, they are beyond the reach of this writ.’ ” An order of an administrative body which does not adjudicate property rights is non-judicial, and that is the status of the order of the Banking Board with which this case is concerned. The merger did not pass upon anyone’s rights. It was the voluntary corporate action of the constituent banking institutions and required only the approval of the Banking Board and the Department of Banking. It did not require the approval of a court. It is interesting to note that our decision in the Newport Township case, supra, which denied judicial review of an order of the State Tax Equalization Board, was handed down on March 22, 1951, and that, six months later, by amendment of the Administrative Agency Law of 1945, P. L. 1388, an order of the State Tax Equalization Board was made judicially reviewable by way of appeal to the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County: see Section 7 of the Act of September 28, 1951, P. L. 1561, 71 PS §1710.51 (a) (44). That, the legislature could competently do; but for this court to accord such a right amounts to a wilful assumption of a jurisdiction which is not ours.
Neither the Department of Banking Code nor the Banking Code confers any right of appeal from an order of the Banking Board or the Department of Banking. On the contrary, Section 501 of the Department of Banking Code of 1933, P. L. 565, as amended, 71 PS §733-501, provides that “The decision . .-. of the Banking Board .;. -.. shall:be conclusive.And not subject to. any review” ' (Emphasis; supplied).- Consonantly, Section 1406 of the Banking Code of 1933, P. L. 624, as amended, ,:7 PS.-. §.819-1406,-expressly .provides with respeet to:approval--of :articles, of -merger by. the *331Department of Banking that “The decision of the Department of Banking shall be conclusive and not subject to review.” In addition to that, Section 7 of the Act of September 28, 1951, P. L. 1561, 71 PS § 1710.51, in amending Section 51 of the Administrative Agency Law of 1945, P. L. 1388, specifically withheld, in respect of all actions of the Banking Board of Pennsylvania, the right of judicial review and appeal which the Administrative Agency Law otherwise confers with respect to the actions of other specified administrative agencies. It is plain beyond peradventure not only that the legislature has not authorized judicial review of an order of the Banking Board or of the Department of Banking but has, in fact, expressly excluded any such right; and, that was well within the legislature’s constitutional power.
The instant action of the Banking Board is an authorized administrative exercise of the legislature’s power “by general law to provide for the incorporation of banks and trust companies, and to prescribe the powers thereof”: Article XVI, Section 11, of the Pennsylvania Constitution. With such matters the courts have nothing whatsoever to do in the absence of legislative provision for judicial review. In short, the people have, by their fundamental law, committed the creation, control and supervision of banks and trust companies to the legislature. Such matters being peculiarly administrative, there is no right of appeal to the courts except as the legislature may have authorized. For the courts to intrude in administrative legislative matters, where the legislature has seen fit not to authorize judicial review, would amount to an unconstitutional usurpation by the judiciary of legislative power. Inasmuch as the courts, by virtue of their position in our governmental system, have the duty ultimately to determine and denounce invasions by *332one coordinate branch of the province of another, it behooves them, especially, to regard scrupulously the constitutional delimitations upon their own powers. The way to maintain one’s jurisdiction in full vigor and integrity is to respect that of another.
The discussion in the majority opinion as to the relative scope of review upon a broad or a narrow certiorari is wholly irrelevant to the question of appealability of an order of the Banking Board. The inquiry here is not how one gets into court for the review of such an order, but whether he gets there at all. Insofar as the cases cited in the majority opinion involved appellate review on certiorari, they were concerned with judgments, orders or decrees of judicial or quasi-judicial bodies where, of course, certiorari by this court lies. Even in respect of such judicial bodies, when an appeal is statutorily denied, a review by this court on certiorari is narrowly limited to questions of jurisdiction and regularity of the proceedings. How, then, can the majority, aside from the error of allowing an appeal from the administrative order of the Banking Board, say that “certiorari lies in its broadest sense” in the present instance? It is simply not possible to overestimate the harm that will ensue from this court’s allowance of an appeal in this case.
If, however, the appeal is to be entertained and the appellant accorded standing which it manifestly does not have,1 I agree that the order should be affirmed. *333The Board followed the directions of the statute (Sec. 204D of the Banking Code), the intent whereof is plainly expressed in words not susceptible of misunderstanding.
Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearne and Mr. Justice Chidsey join in this opinion.

 In Pennsylvania Commercial Drivers Conference v. Pennsylvania Milk Control Commission, 360 Pa. 477, 484, 62 A. 2d 9, we said that “not only must a party desiring to appeal have a direct interest in the particular question litigated, but his interest must be immediate and pecuniary, and not a remote consequence of the judgment. The interest must also be substantial.” His mere appearance on the record as a protestant in the proceeding does not entitle him to appeal: see Arsenal Board of Trade v. Pennsylvania *333Public Utility Commission, 166 Pa. Superior Ct. 548, 551-552, 72 A. 2d 612. In the present instance, the appellant has neither a substantial nor a direct interest in the Banking Board’s order. All that concerns it is a speculative fear of loss based upon an assumption of harmful competition from the merged bank. Such conjectural interest, even if well-founded, would not give the appellant standing to appeal in any circumstances.