Court Opinion

ID: 9762811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:31:28.548981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:37.629103
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I would limit the holding in In Re Taylor, 412 Pa. 32, 193 A.2d 181 (1963), to the facts there before the Court and thus distinguish it from the facts of the instant case. The majority has made a good case for doing so; and, therefore, it is unnecessary to repeat the reasons here. It may be observed, however, that the same limitation upon Taylor has already been suggested by the Supreme Court when, in Hepps v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 506 Pa. 304, 485 A.2d 374 (1984), it said that the Pennsylvania Shield Law “was never intended to be interpreted as insulating the publisher from its negligence or actual malice.” Id., 506 Pa. at 328 n. 14, 485 A.2d at 387 n. 14.
The broad interpretation placed upon Taylor by the majority must inevitably permit the media to suppress at will any and all “information” gathered but not published. Not only is such a result unwise — as the majority concedes — but it clearly was not intended by the legislature, whose sole purpose in enacting the Pennsylvania Shield Law was to protect the media against being required “to disclose the source of any information procured or obtained.” 42 Pa. C.S. § 5942(a) (emphasis added).
I would affirm the order entered by Judge Greenberg in the Hatchard case. In the Lefkoski case, I would modify *56the order to protect against the disclosure of appellant’s “sources” and, as so modified, would affirm the order of Judge Brominski.
ROWLEY, J., joins this dissenting opinion.