Court Opinion

ID: 9749972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:09:15.323797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:00.863412
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Jones:
Believing that the Board of Commissioners of Erie County had the power to dismiss at pleasure Schluraff, an appointed member of the Board for the Assessment and Revision of Taxes of Erie County, I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion.
However, I must disassociate myself from the reasoning in the majority opinion which seeks to differentiate between the impact of a staggered or rotated term provision in a statute and a definite or fixed term provision in a statute as indicative of a legislative purpose to condition the terms or tenure of appointees to a legislatively created office. Despite our previous rulings to the contrary in Commonwealth ex rel. Houlahen v. Flynn, 348 Pa. 101, 34 A. 2d 59 and Commonwealth ex rel. Reinhardt v. Randall, 356 Pa. 302, 51 A. 2d 751, our Court held in Watson v. Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, 386 Pa. 117, 125 A. 2d 354, Bowers v. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, 402 Pa. 542, 167 A. 2d 480 and Commonwealth ex rel. Hanson v. Reitz, 403 Pa. 434, 170 A. 2d 111: “that where the legislature creates a public office and provides that the holders of that office shall be appointed for fixed terms with staggered expiration dates, the presence of staggered terms indicates a legislative intent that the holders of the office are not removable by the appointor at his pleasure.”*
In Bowers and Reitz I dissented on the ground that such staggered term provisions do not indicate any such legislative intent and to that view I still adhere. In Bowers, in dissenting, I stated (576) : “if a staggered or rotated term provision is indicative of a legis*147lative purpose to condition the terms or tenure of appointees to a legislative office, then certainly a statutory provision fixing a definite term for such appointees . . . reflects such legislative aim with greater strength and force.”
I believe that under our Constitution and our case law, prior to Watson, Bowers and Beits, it is clear beyond any question that neither a staggered or rotated term statutory provision nor a fixed or definite term statutory provision reflects any legislative intent contraindicating the right of the appointing power to remove the appointed officer at pleasure. In the following cases, even though the statute creating the offices set fixed terms for the appointed officers, we held that such statutory provisions setting fixed terms did not reflect any legislative aim or purpose to protect such appointed officers from dismissal at the pleasure of the appointing power: Weiss v. Ziegler, 327 Pa. 100, 193 A. 642; Commonwealth ex rel. Schofield v. Lindsay, 330 Pa. 120, 198 A. 635; Kraus v. Philadelphia, 337 Pa. 30, 10 A. 2d 393.
The majority errs in attempting to distinguish between the effect of a statutory provision creating a staggered or rotated term for an appointed officer and a statutory provision providing for a fixed term for such appointed officer. In my opinion, in neither instance has the legislature by its definition of the terms of the appointed officers intended to protect such appointed . officers from removal at the pleasure of the appointing power.

 From the majority opinion.