Court Opinion

ID: 9708023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:27:40.229897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:41.312389
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In reversing the Commonwealth Court’s decision, the majority has interpreted the Ridley Township Refuse Collection Ordinance (“Ordinance”) in an illogical manner. They have also unnecessarily decided a constitutional question rather than merely considering whether the Ordinance was unreasonable under 53 P.S. § 56527.
In deciding whether the amounts charged by the Township to Ridley Arms were excessive, and thus, that the Ordinance was unreasonable under the First Class Township Code, 53 P.S. § 56527, there was no reason for the majority to analyze the Ordinance’s constitutionality. “It is well settled that when a case raises both constitutional and non-constitutional issues, a court should not reach the constitutional issue if the case can properly be decided on non-constitutional grounds.” Ballou v. State Ethics Commission, 496 Pa. 127, 129, 436 A.2d 186, 187 (1981) (footnote omitted).
This objection notwithstanding, I am not convinced that the treatment given to the Ordinance in conjunction with 53 P.S. § 56527 is correct. The majority’s analysis of “reason*552able fees and charges”, comparing only the payments made by Ridley Arms to the Township for the services and the payments made by Ridley Arms to the independent refuse collector, is too simplistic. Instead, a determination of whether a rate is unreasonable requires a comparison of the total costs to the Township of providing refuse collection to its residents, and the total fees taxed to the residents for such services.
The heavy burden of showing that this tax was unreasonable rested on Ridley Arms. See, Amidon v. Kane, 444 Pa. 38, 51, 279 A.2d 53, 60 (1971). To show this, Ridley Arms presented the testimony of the building owner and of an expert, a sanitary engineer. A review of this testimony indicates that the expert testified to a great extent about the sanitary implications of the Township’s refuse collection, but testified very little about the costs. The testimony concerning costs by the expert consisted mainly of his bald conclusion that the Township’s charges were unreasonable, and his opinion that its method of determining the price of refuse collection services was not equitable.
On this record, all that has been shown by Ridley Arms is that it cost more to pay the Township for refuse collection than to pay a private collector. To say that the tax is unreasonable solely for this reason is naive, for the Township, as a government, has other considerations associated with providing services that a private entrepreneur does not have — such as costs associated with bidding requirements and providing service to the entire community at a reasonable price.
Comparing costs encountered by the Township to those of a private contractor does not logically compel a finding of unreasonableness. In order to show the Township’s costs were unreasonable, Ridley Arms should have been required to show that the rates charged exceeded the Township’s costs. The record is void of such a showing and does not persuasively show that amounts charged by the Township were excessive. In fact, contrary to the tenor of the majority’s opinion, which would lead one to believe otherwise, the record in this case shows that the Township *553suffered losses each year in providing refuse collection to the community. For example, in 1979 the Township collected revenues for refuse collection in the amount of $493,-118.00, but the cost of providing the service was $643,087.00 —a deficit of $149,969.00. R., Exhibit “H”. The deficits in other years were not as great, but significant.
Finally, the majority’s solution to this dilemma is overly broad. Under their approach, any time a taxpayer could obtain services through the private sector at a lower price than that at which the municipality provided the services, he could challenge the tax as being unreasonable and prevail. In the instant case, it would allow the homeowners who also paid the rate to mount this same challenge and be successful. The majority’s analysis would also allow a person whose child attended private school for less money than the school district taxed for public schools to challenge the tax as being unreasonable, thereby exempting himself from the tax and perhaps establishing a right to a tax refund.
The problem of refuse disposal is a municipal problem and calls for a municipal solution. By analyzing this case in a manner dealing only with the individualized impact of taxes and costs of one building, the majority has ignored this fact and set an overly broad precedent which will seriously impede the ability of municipal corporations to provide services such as refuse collection at reasonable costs to everyone in the community.