Court Opinion

ID: 9752736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:31:34.123023+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:46:41.090347
License: Public Domain

OPINION
ROBERTS, Justice.
Appellants, licensees of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (“Board”), appeal from an order of the Commonwealth Court affirming an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County which made absolute a rule to show cause why the Board should not be held in contempt for failing to enforce an order of suspension entered by the Board against appellants in August of 1972. On this record the order of the Commonwealth Court must be reversed and the matter remanded to the Board for proceedings consistent with this opinion.1
The procedural history of this case is long and complex. On May 8, 1972, the Board issued citations against appellants, charging each of them with having permitted a person with an interest in another distributorship to have an interest in its business, a violation of the Liquor Code. Act of April 12, 1951, P.L. 90, as amended, 47 P.S. § 4-436(f) and *11§ 4-438(b) (1969 and Supp.1982-83). Following an administrative hearing on August 25, 1972, the Board determined that appellants were in fact operating in violation of the Code and entered an order suspending each of appellants’ licenses for a period of twenty-one days and thereafter until all persons except appellants had been divested of all interest in the licensed premises.
Appellants appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County. On October 19, 1973, after hearing the case de novo, the court sustained the Board’s findings and decision and entered an order identical to that of the Board. Appellants then appealed to the Commonwealth Court. On August 19, 1974, while these appeals were pending, appellants and the Board entered into a stipulation and agreement under which appellants agreed to withdraw their appeals and to redraft their management agreements in a manner acceptable to the Board. In turn, the Board agreed, upon appellants’ performance of the provisions of the stipulation, to reconsider the disposition of the citations it had previously issued. Appellants withdrew their appeals, redrafted their agreements, and then filed a petition for reconsideration and modification of penalty with the Board.
On December 10, 1974, appellees Pennsylvania Tavern Association and P.U.B.L.I.C., associations comprised of appellants’ competitors, brought an action in mandamus in the Commonwealth Court, seeking to compel the Board to enforce the original suspension order. While the mandamus action was pending, the Board granted appellants’ petition for reconsideration and, on February 3, 1975, issued an amended order vacating its original order and imposing upon each appellant in lieu of suspension a fine of $1,000, the maximum permitted under the Liquor Code. See 47 P.S. § 4-471.
On February 10,1976, the Commonwealth Court held that the Board lacked the authority to modify its suspension order after it had been judicially reviewed and thus granted appellees’ requested relief in mandamus, directing the Board to reinstate its original order of suspension. Pennsylvania *12Tavern Association v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, 23 Pa.Cmwlth. 264, 352 A.2d 221 (1976). On appeal, this Court reversed the order of the Commonwealth Court in a decision in which three opinions were filed. 472 Pa. 567, 372 A.2d 1187 (1977). A plurality per curiam opinion, in which three justices joined, found mandamus to be improper because an adequate remedy at law was available to appellees by way of a petition to the court of common pleas to enforce its own order sustaining the license suspensions. Justice Eagen concurred in the result. This writer, joined by then Chief Justice- Jones, concurred in the reversal but would have dismissed the action on the ground that appellee associations lacked standing to maintain a mandamus action against the Board. Justice Manderino dissented, arguing that, although appellees did have standing, the Board had the power to modify its earlier order.
On October 3, 1977, appellees filed a petition in the court of common pleas for a rule to show cause why a citation for contempt should not be issued against the Board for its failure to enforce its original order of suspension. The court granted appellants’ petition to intervene and, following a hearing, made the rule absolute on December 27, 1977. Appellants appealed to the Commonwealth Court, which, after determining that the rule absolute was an appealable order, affirmed the ruling of the trial court. Elemar, Inc. Liquor License Case, 44 Pa.Cmwlth. 515, 404 A.2d 734 (1979).
On August 27, 1979, appellants filed a timely petition for allowance of'appeal to this Court, as well as an application for a stay' of the Commonwealth Court’s order. Two days later, on August 29, the Board complied with the order of the Commonwealth Court and reinstated its original order of suspension. The Board, however, did not attempt to enforce its order. On September 25, 1979, the court of common pleas held the Board in civil contempt for failing to enforce its reinstated order and held that the Board could purge itself by immediately obtaining possession of appellants’ licenses. On the following day, September 26, this Court *13granted appellants’ petition for allowance of appeal and issued a stay of the contempt citation.
Initially, we reject appellees’ argument that this appeal should be dismissed as moot because the Board reinstated its original order of suspension in August of 1979. As the reinstatement was entered only in response to the order of the Commonwealth Court and has not been enforced, an actual controversy continues to exist. See generally In re Gross, 476 Pa. 203, 382 A.2d 116 (1978).
On this record, we must likewise reject appellants’ argument that appellees were without standing to institute the contempt proceeding in the court of common pleas. In this Court’s first decision in this case, the three justices joining the plurality opinion stated:
“In our view, an adequate remedy was available to the appellees in this action [ (Pennsylvania Tavern Association and P.U.B.L.I.C.) ] by way of a petition to the Lancaster County Court to enforce its order sustaining the license suspension imposed by the Board.”
Pennsylvania Tavern Association v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, supra, 472 Pa. at 571, 372 A.2d at 1189. Although the question of appellees’ standing was not expressly resolved, it must be concluded from the above statement that the plurality opinion implicitly found appellees to have standing to maintain the present action. When the view of Justice Manderino that “appellees do have standing,” id., 472 Pa. at 581, 372 A.2d at 1193 (Manderino, J., dissenting), is added to the view of the three justices joining in the plurality opinion, it is apparent that a majority of the Court found that appellees could properly maintain the action that is the basis of this appeal. Accordingly, on this record, appellants’ challenge to appellees’ standing must be denied.
Unlike the issue of appellees’ standing, the question of whether the Board had the authority to modify its original order following affirmance of that order by the court of common pleas and appellants’ withdrawal of their appeal to *14the Commonwealth Court was expressly left open by the plurality opinion in the first decision in this case. In a footnote, that opinion observed: “While this presents an interesting question, the appropriate forum for its resolution would in the first instance have been the court which originally heard the matter: the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County.” Id., 472 Pa. at 571-72 n.7, 372 A.2d at 1189 n.7. That “interesting question” is now properly before this Court. We agree with appellants’ contention that the court of common pleas and the Commonwealth Court erred in holding the Board to be without such authority and conclude that the contempt citation was thus erroneously entered.
In reaching their decisions, both the court of common pleas and the Commonwealth Court relied on Taylor v. Weinstein, 207 Pa.Super. 251, 217 A.2d 817 (1966). In that case, the Board initially rejected an application for the transfer of a liquor license. The applicant then appealed to the court of quarter sessions, but subsequently withdrew the appeal and filed a petition for reconsideration with the Board, which reversed its decision and approved the transfer. The Superior Court held the approval to be invalid for two reasons: first, the original protestants to the application had not received notice of the petition for reconsideration; second, “[t]he taking of the appeal to the court of quarter sessions terminated the Board’s power to grant reconsideration. It is settled law that, after an appeal has been taken, the tribunal below loses jurisdiction to proceed with the case in the absence of a statute providing otherwise.” Id., 207 Pa.Superior Ct. at 255, 217 A.2d at 818.
As there is no question of lack of notice to appellees in this case, the first basis of the Taylor holding is clearly inapplicable. The second basis of the holding is both over-broad and, in part, erroneous. Although there is no question that, with certain limited exceptions, jurisdiction is removed from the “tribunal below” while an appeal is pending, see, e.g., Corace v. Balint, 418 Pa. 262, 210 A.2d 882 (1965); Weise v. Goldman, 229 Pa.Super. 187, 323 A.2d 31 (1974), *15where the tribunal below is statutorily empowered to grant reconsideration of its decision, there is no bar to such reconsideration if the appeal has been withdrawn before decision.
Here, and in Taylor as well, as noted in the dissenting opinion of Judge Watkins in that case, the Board possessed such statutory authority. The Board’s regulation 138.08, enacted pursuant to Section 207 of the Liquor Code, 47 P.S. 2-207(i),2 and in effect at the time the Board modified its penalty, stated:
“Section 138.08. Further Hearing, Hearing, Rescission of Modification orders.
“A. Any petition for further hearing, for reopening of hearing, rescission, or reconsideration or modification of a board order, shall be in writing, setting forth in numbered paragraphs the findings or orders of the board that may be involved, the points relied upon by the petitioner, with appropriate record references and specific requests for the findings or orders desired.
“B. If the petition be for further hearing or for reopening the proceeding to take further evidence, the nature and purpose of the evidence to be adduced must be briefly stated.”
The above regulation understandably provides no specific time limit for the filing of such petitions. The Legislature has granted the Board broad authority to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages in the Commonwealth. Indeed, section 2-207(h) of the Liquor Code directs the Board “to do all things and perform all such acts as are deemed necessary and advisable for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this act and the regulations made thereunder.” 47 P.S. § 2-207(h). As the Board has continuing jurisdiction over all licensees, it is appropriate that the Board have continuing jurisdiction to grant reconsideration of its orders when the circumstances warrant. Thus, had appellants withdrawn their appeals to the court of common pleas *16before that court reached a decision, the Board could properly have granted reconsideration of its order.
That, however, is not this case. The crucial issue in this case, an issue to which Taylor v. Weinstein is irrelevant, is whether the Board had the authority, pursuant to regulation 138.08, to modify its order with respect to the original penalty imposed after the court of common pleas had affirmed that order on appeal.
With regard to Board orders revoking or suspending a license or imposing a fine, section 4 — 471 of the Liquor Code provides that
“[u]pon appeal, the court so appealed to shall, in the exercise of its discretion, sustain, reject, alter, or modify the findings, conclusions and penalties of the board, based on the findings of fact and conclusions of law as found by the court.”
47 P.S. § 4-471. Under the case law of this Commonwealth, there exists one longstanding exception to this discretionary power of the courts to alter a penalty imposed by the Board which is within the prescribed maximum and minimum allowable penalties:
“ ‘[T]he lower court must make findings of fact on the material issues different from those as found by the board before the action taken by the board can be reversed or changed. Unless the lower court’s change or modification is so grounded, it cannot stand.’ ”
Carver House, Inc. Liquor License Case, 454 Pa. 38, 40, 310 A.2d 81, 82-83 (1973), quoting Italian Citizens National Association of America Liquor License Case, 178 Pa.Super. 213, 216, 115 A.2d 881, 882 (1955) (citing cases). Such a limitation on judicial review is well founded. As the relationship between penalty and policy is one particularly within the Board’s special competence, the Board’s decision as to the appropriate sanction to impose for a violation of the Code should not easily be disturbed on appeal.
Here the Board, after finding appellants to be in violation of the Code, imposed in its discretion a suspension “for twenty-one days and thereafter until persons other than the *17licensees have been divested of all interests in the licensed premises.” On appeal, the court of common pleas made no materially different findings of fact and, accordingly, was without power to disturb the penalty imposed by the Board, whether or not the court might have considered a greater or lesser penalty more appropriate. Thus, although the court’s order sustaining the Board’s decision reiterated the language of the Board’s sanction, the court’s decision was in fact only an affirmance of the Board’s finding that a violation had occurred, and nothing more. Pursuant to its duty under the Liquor Code, the Board was required by this affirmance to take action to correct the violation, as it would also have been required to do if its determination had not been appealed. That violation having been corrected by the Board’s stipulation and agreement with appellants and their subsequent compliance with the provisions of the Code, the question of the appropriate punishment to impose for the violation remained where it had always been, within the sound discretion of the Board.
We hold that neither appellants’ discontinued appeals to the Commonwealth Court nor the affirmance of the Board’s decision by the court of common pleas affected the Board’s authority to modify its original penalty. Hence the Board could properly conclude, in its discretion, that appellants’ discontinuation of their appeals and immediate correction of the Code violations made a fine, rather than a suspension, the appropriate sanction.
The order of the Commonwealth Court is reversed and the matter is remanded to the Board for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
LARSEN and McDERMOTT, JJ., concur in the result.
NIX and HUTCHINSON, JJ., file dissenting opinions.

. This case was reassigned to this writer on May 20, 1982.

. 47 P.S. 2-207(i) provides, in pertinent part,
“Such regulations adopted by the Board shall have the same force as if they formed a part of this act.”