Court Opinion

ID: 9703130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:41:42.874562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:45.908129
License: Public Domain

*63ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
A township solicitor does not operate a Legal Aid Society for the benefit of township officials. Rather, by statute, a township solicitor may represent a township official only “wherein or whereby any of the estates, rights, privileges, trusts, ordinances, or accounts, of the township, may be brought in question before any court in the Commonwealth .. . . ” Second Class Township Code, Act of May 1, 1933, P.L. 103, § 582, as amended, 53 P.S. § 65582 (1957). Despite this clear legislative judgment on the scope of a solicitor’s authority, the majority concludes that a township solicitor can successfully resist a motion seeking to disqualify her from representing two township supervisors who are the subject of a valid, statutorily authorized removal proceeding. The Second Class Township Code is clear that the township solicitor, herself a township official, is without authority to represent the township officials in their personal capacities. I must dissent.
The present removal complaint, bearing the signatures of more than twenty-five percent of the citizens of Buckingham Township and an even greater share of the electorate, contains allegations that petitioners, two Buckingham Township Supervisors, have engaged in numerous wrongful acts. The complainants seek to remove petitioners from office because each of the two supervisors allegedly “refuses or neglects to perform his duties. . . . ” Second Class Township Code, § 503, as amended, 53 P.S. § 65503. These allegations are serious, indeed. “[W]hen these duties are not performed, mismanagement of the township affairs is the usual corollary and fraud and corruption are thereby facilitated.” Crane’s Appeal, 344 Pa. 624, 627, 26 A.2d 457, 459 (1942).
The majority is incorrect in concluding that “interests” of the township are at issue. The present removal complaint does not call into question any accounts or other interests of the township. Rather, a reading of the removal complaint makes clear that the present proceeding is against township supervisors in their personal capacity. It is settled that “a *64municipal corporation has no . . . interest in a suit exclusively directed against its officers, charging lack of legal qualifications to hold office and gross malfeasance in office. . . . ” 10 McQuillin on Municipal Corporations § 29.14 at 211-12 (3d ed. 1950). This is precisely the gravamen of the removal proceeding. On no basis, therefore, can it be concluded, as the majority concludes, that the Buckingham Township Solicitor may represent the two township supervisors in the removal proceeding.*
In its zeal to afford the two supervisors the services of the township solicitor, appointed by the supervisors at public expense, the majority has overlooked the consequences of its conclusion. In the event that it is determined that either one or both of the supervisors are guilty of refusing and/or neglecting to perform their duties, one or both supervisors are subject to removal from office. See Second Class Township Code, § 503. Despite their removal for official misconduct, under the majority’s view the supervisors would receive the services of the township solicitor free of charge.
There is no principle of public service or public policy which grants to public officials adjudged to have acted improperly in office and subject to removal the exceptional privilege of having the township’s solicitor defend their misconduct in office. As our Superior Court long ago observed,
“to permit such use of public funds is but to encourage a disregard of duty and to put a premium upon neglect or *65refusal of public officials to perform the duties imposed upon them by law.”
Roofner’s Appeal, 81 Pa. Super. 482, 485 (1923).
On this record, the trial court’s interlocutory order directing the township solicitor’s disqualification is manifestly proper. The majority’s determination to the contrary is both premature and incorrect. I dissent and would not disturb the interlocutory order of disqualification.

 Even if the majority were correct in concluding that the present action does call into question the township’s interests for purposes of section 582 of the Code, a conclusion I do not share, the majority fails to justify the township solicitor’s conduct in choosing to represent two supervisors who are subject to the removal proceeding, rather than either the third supervisor, who has joined with the complaining residents of Buckingham Township, or the residents themselves. Where, as here, two township supervisors are the subject of a removal proceeding, the solicitor’s representation of one or both of such individuals is manifestly inappropriate. By condoning the township solicitor’s selective representation, the majority makes its faulty analysis of section 582 all the more apparent. One wonders whether the majority would reach the same result if only one supervisor were the subject of removal.