Court Opinion

ID: 9755827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:52:53.398022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:11.777105
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Cohen :
In our earlier disposition of this case, sub nom. Philadelphia v. Smith, 412 Pa. 262, 194 A. 2d 177 (1963), we remanded it to the lower court for the presentation of additional factual data regarding the differences between gas and electric companies which would permit or deny different gross receipts tax treatment. Otherwise, we rejected the arguments made by the City of Philadelphia and the United Gas Improvement Company.
The purpose of our remand was to enable the parties and the lower court to make some rational dis*281position of the argument that the classification involved is unreasonable (i.e., in imposing tax upon gross receipts of municipal gas companies and not upon those of municipal electric companies) by viewing more closely whether or not such distinctions as exist between the two types of companies are reasonably related to and justify different tax treatment. We had no intention of ruling on the validity of the distinction or of shifting the appellants’ burden of proof in such a case, and we do not perceive that anything we said did so.
On remand appellants presented testimony to the effect that the gas and electric industries have become increasingly alike in recent years, both in purpose and operation. In addition, they offered testimony from a former State Senator indicating that the statutory amendment in question was aimed solely at exacting tax revenue from the Philadelphia Gas Works in order to balance the budget and was not founded on any legislative consideration of a difference in the gas works from nongas municipal utilities but only on a deliberately discriminatory scheme.
No additional evidence was offered by the Commonwealth. The lower court then determined that the classification was reasonably related to a different tax treatment and upheld the statute.
On the present state of the record there is little, if anything, to support the classification made in the statute; or, to put this conclusion in proper perspective, appellants have shown that no meaningful differences related to a different tax policy exist. However, since our previous decision, this Court has dealt with the same constitutional problem in a different context and decided it in such a way as to reject such considerations. This is what the majority now holds although it does not clearly so state.
*282In Commonwealth v. Life Assurance Company of Pennsylvania, 419 Pa. 370, 214 A. 2d 209 (1965), appeal dismissed, 384 U.S. 268 (1966), we ruled flatly that in testing the constitutional validity of a revenue-raising statute, we need not find some reasonable relation between the classification contained in the statute and its purpose in order to uphold it. 419 Pa. 370, 377, 214 A. 2d 209, 214-15. We ruled that it was necessary only that some reasonable distinction exist between who is taxed and who is not taxed even if that distinction is unrelated to the purpose of a tax statute. Furthermore, we indicated our belief that the current view of the United States Supreme Court is in agreement with this position and rejected the taxpayer’s reliance upon such decisions as Quaker City Cab Co. v. Commonwealth, 277 U.S. 389, 48 S. Ct. 553, 72 L. ed. 927 (1928),1 and Concordia Fire Ins. Co. v. Illinois, 292 U.S. 535, 54 S. Ct. 830, 78 L. ed. 1411 (1934).2 I disagree with this conclusion and believe that these decisions remain good law, imposing the same requirements on a distinction made in a tax statute as in any other kind of statute.
I do, however, agree with the majority’s comment on the legislative witness. Although by this late date one would have been justified in assuming that resort to the legislative debates and the like is an improper evidentiary procedure in passing upon the validity of a Pennsylvania statute,3 appellants in this case never*283theless refer to the discussions on the floor of the legislature and even put on the witness stand a former member of the State Senate who ivas personally cognizant of the activities that led to the enactment of the legislation in question. Such evidence is irrelevant and improper and should not have been entertained.
I dissent.

 See 419 Pa. 370, 382, 214 A. 2d 209, 217 n. 15.

 See 419 Pa. 370, 386, 214 A. 2d 209, 219.

 Statutory Construction Act, Act of May 28, 1937, P. L. 1019, §51, 46 P.S. §551. As long ago as Bank of Pennsylvania v. The Commonwealth, 19 Pa. 144 (1852), in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Jeremiah Sullivan Black, the Court unanimously held that in construing an act of the legislature it did not look to what occurred when it was on passage through the legislature. Such evidence is “not only of no value but it was delusive and dangerous.” More recently in Martin Estate, 365 Pa. 280, 74 A. 2d *283120 (1950), Mr. Justice Bell (now Chief Justice) wrote “. . . in ascertaining the legislative meaning while what is said in debate is not relevant, the report of a legislative commission . . . may . . . be considered.”