Court Opinion

ID: 9649017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:40:45.037823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:07.141190
License: Public Domain

*406
CONCURRING OPINION

Chief Justice CAPPY.
I concur in the result reached by the majority. As the equal protection approach taken by the majority was not discussed by the Appellees before our Court or raised in the filings below,11 do not believe that we should strike down the subject statute as unconstitutional on this basis.
I do believe, however, that the statute is infirm on the basis articulated by Mr. Justice Castille in his concurring opinion— that is, the lifetime ban on employment has no rational relationship to the legitimate goal of protecting our older adults from harm. As stated by Appellees, “[I]t is not as if the General Assembly made a reasoned but imperfect attempt to draw a line at some rational point; rather, it chose not to draw any line in favor of an outright, permanent, and absolute ban.” Appellees’ Brief at 31. It is this absolute ban that renders the statute constitutionally defective. Thus, I join that portion of Mr. Justice Castille’s concurring opinion that would affirm the Commonwealth Court on this basis.
Justice NEWMAN joins this concurring opinion.

. Specifically, the grounds on which the majority bases its approach were not raised by Appellees in their original Petition for Review, the Petition for Preliminary Injunction, or the Memorandum of Law submitted therewith. While mention of this argument was orally made in the hearing before Judge Dan Pellegrini regarding the Petition for Preliminary Injunction, Transcript of Proceedings, August 31, 2000, p. 8, it was not thereafter raised in the briefs to our Court. Thus, I do not believe that our Court should strike a statute on a basis that was not urged by the complaining parties. Furthermore, the General Assembly could simply eliminate the distinction that leads the majority to find the statute unconstitutional by applying the prohibition on employment to all employees and not just those who have not held a continuous job in a covered facility since July 1, 1997.. As set forth herein, I believe that there is a more fundamental infirmity with the statute that would lead us to conclude that the statute is unconstitutional, and one that was clearly raised by Appellees.