Court Opinion

ID: 9751327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:21:03.608239+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:42.866900
License: Public Domain

EAGEN, Justice
(concurring).
I join in the order of the Court remanding the case to the trial court for further proceedings, but I do not join in the opinion of Mr. Justice Roberts.
Section 6 of the Local Tax Enabling Act, Act of December 31, 1965, P.L. 1257, as amended, 53 P.S. § 6906 (1972) gives standing to appeal to “taxpayers . aggrieved by [an] ordinance” [Emphasis supplied] which is passed pursuant to the act. And for at least four decades this Court has consistently ruled that a person “aggrieved” by an order or other action of an administrative agency is one who has a direct, substantial, immediate and pecuniary interest in the action taken by the administrative body. Mr. Justice Roberts would now eliminate the “pecuniary” interest requirement. I do not subscribe to such a ruling in the instant case.
(1) The elimination of the requirement in this case is inappropriate because both classes of plaintiffs, the parking taxpayers and the lot owners, assert a pecuniary interest. The Commonwealth Court noted that both had a pecuniary interest. Given the long line of precedent in Pennsylvania which requires the interest to be pecuniary, I see no reason to overrule that precedent with what is arguably dictum.
(2) Accepting that the elimination of the pecuniary interest requirement may be the trend in appeals from actions by nonelected administrative bodies, it should be noted that we are here concerned with a challenge to a taxing ordinance which was enacted by an elected body. Clearly a pecuniary interest would be the type of interest which the legislature would envision as causing a taxpayer to be aggrieved by such an ordinance. Whether any *222other type of interest would be so envisioned, especially in a tax enactment, is a question the Court need not now reach.
(3) If the pecuniary interest requirement is eliminated in this case, the effect would be twofold. First, the specific statute involved would be viewed as granting standing to taxpayers whose nonpecuniary interests are affected by an ordinance. The breadth and nature of such interests are not before the Court for consideration. Second, by dictum the entire body of administrative law would be altered. I think a more acceptable way of altering the body of law would be on a case by case basis wherein the interest asserted by a plaintiff could be considered in light of the interests which the administrative body is required to consider in making its determinations. Cf. Stewart, The Reformation of American Administrative Law, 88 Harv.L.Rev. 1669, 1736 (1975).
(4) Mr. Justice Roberts cites many United States Supreme Court cases in support of his position. The cases do not involve tax statutes which necessarily have as their primary concern pecuniary interests. Further, the complexity of the cases cited and the difficulty that Court generally has in determining whether a certain type of interest affected by an administrative ruling is within the interests the administrative body was required to consider, and if it is, whether it is substantial, indicates Pennsylvania’s rule should not be overruled unnecessarily.
(5) The Pennsylvania cases cited by Mr. Justice Roberts are questionable authority for his position. Azarewicz Liquor License Case, 163 Pa.Super. 459, 62 A.2d 78 (1948), involved a challenge to the granting of a liquor license for a building within 300 feet of a church. The church clearly had standing without showing a pecuniary interest, not because a pecuniary interest was no longer required generally, but because the legislature gave the Liquor Control Board the specific discretion to refuse a li*223cense to a place within 300 feet of a church. The church interest was clearly identified by the specific grant of discretion. There is no such clearly identified nonpecuniary interest in the statute in question.
The other Pennsylvania case cited is Frame v. Sutherland, 459 Pa. 177, 327 A.2d 623 (1974). That case involved the interest of a senator in confirming or rejecting gubernatorial appointments. Mr. Justice Roberts states that the case eliminates the pecuniary requirement by implication. The opinion did not discuss standing. The case did not involve an administrative body, nor a delegation of power to an elected body. The policy considerations in allowing standing in such a case without a showing of pecuniary interest are vastly different than a case involving an appeal from an order of an elected administrative body enacting a tax ordinance.
JONES, C. J., and POMEROY, J., join in this concurring opinion.