Court Opinion

ID: 9631042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:27:32.733376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:04.497724
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority properly concludes that the complaint filed by appellant Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) against appellee St. Joe Minerals Corporation (St. *313Joe) is sufficient under Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, Act of October 27, 1955, P.L. 744, as amended, 43 P.S. § 959 (1964 and Supp.1977).
However, the majority goes on to prohibit the PHRC from compelling St. Joe to answer written interrogatories designed to assist the PHRC’s determination whether that party is engaging in unlawful discriminatory practices. The majority distorts the governing statutory scheme, undermines the investigatory authority of the PHRC, and flouts sound principles of administrative law. I dissent.
In an effort to combat discrimination against individuals and groups, the Legislature enacted the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, §§ 1 et seq., as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 951-1003. The Act recognizes several important rights of individuals, id., § 3, as amended, 43 P.S. § 953, and provides that acts of certain parties infringing these rights are unlawful discriminatory practices. Id., § 5, as amended, 43 P.S. § 955.
The Legislature established the PHRC to administer the Act. Id., § 6, 43 P.S. § 956. Sections 6 and 7 confer upon the PHRC broad powers. Id., §§ 6 and 7, as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 956 and 957. Section 6, in relevant part, provides:
“Subject to the provisions of this act, the Commission shall have all the powers and shall perform all the duties generally vested in and imposed upon departmental administrative boards and commissions by the [Administrative Code of 1929, Act of April 9, 1929, P.L. 177, §§ 1 et seq., 71 P.S. §§ 51 et seq. (1962)], and shall be subject to all the provisions of such code which apply generally to departmental administrative boards and commissions.”
Section 7, in relevant part, provides:

“Powers and duties of the Commission

The Commission shall have the following powers and duties:
(f) To initiate, receive, investigate, and pass upon complaints charging unlawful discriminatory practices.
*314(g) To hold hearings, subpoena witnesses, compel their attendance, administer oaths, take testimony of any person under oath or affirmation and, in connection therewith, to require the production for examination of any books and papers relating to any matter under investigation where a complaint has been properly filed before the Commission. . . . ”
The Act also sets forth a procedural mechanism for dealing with suspect practices. Id., § 9, as amended, 43 P.S. § 959. Section 9, in relevant part, provides:
“After the filing of any complaint, or whenever there is reason to believe that an unlawful discriminatory practice has been committed, the Commission shall make a prompt investigation in connection therewith.”
This statutory scheme vests in the PHRC broad authority to ferret out and investigate suspected violations of the Act. Section 6’s reference to the Administrative Code of 1929, conferring broad subpoena powers upon administrative departments, Administrative Code of 1929, § 520, 71 P.S. § 200, Section 7’s enumeration of specific powers, including power to “initiate, . . . investigate, and pass upon” complaints, conduct hearings, and compel the production of evidence, and Section 9’s directive that “prompt investigation[s]” be conducted, demonstrate the importance of the investigatory authority of the PHRC.
Thus, the Legislature recognized the need to give the PHRC full authority to gather information necessary to administer the Act. Professor Schwartz points out the importance of gathering information:
“Information is the fuel without which the administrative engine could not operate; the old saw that knowledge is power has the widest application in administrative law. To exercise its substantive powers of rule-making and adjudication intelligently, the agency must know what is going on in the area committed to its authority.”
B. Schwartz, Administrative Law § 34, p. 87 (1976). Adequate information enables the agency to develop a full case against violators, to determine when a violation has not *315occurred, and, accordingly, to use its resources most efficiently.
Federal administrative law recognizes the importance of vesting in a regulatory agency the power to gather relevant information. In United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U.S. 632, 70 S.Ct. 357, 94 L.Ed. 401 (1950), the Supreme Court enforced an order of the Federal Trade Commission requiring responses to “special reports” aimed at determining whether a company was complying with a cease-and-desist order. There, the agency was not expressly authorized by statute to compel filing of reports describing a company’s compliance with a cease-and-desist order. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld the FTC’s power to gather the information in the challenged manner by reading other statutory grants of power to the FTC to include the specific circumstances. The Court did so on the theory that the FTC needs such power to perform its statutory role in the regulation of trade.
Here, as in Morton Salt, the agency must be able to enforce the law. As Justice Jackson, speaking for a unanimous Court, stated:
“The only power that is involved here is the power to get information from those who best can give it and who are most interested in not doing so. . [I]t does not follow that an administrative agency charged with seeing that the laws are enforced may not have and exercise powers of original inquiry. . . . [The agency has power] more analogous to the Grand Jury, which does not depend on a case or controversy for power to get evidence but can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even just because it wants assurance that it is not. When investigative and accusatory duties are delegated by statute to an administrative body, it, too, may take steps to inform itself as to whether there is probable violation of the law.”
Id. at 642-43, 70 S.Ct. at 364. The Human Relations Act’s broad delegation of investigatory authority, unrestricted by any language of limitation, gives the PHRC all reasonable *316investigatory tools which will assist performance of its statutory responsibilities. Written interrogatories, which are flexible, effective, convenient, and speedy, fulfill this requirement. To hold otherwise would impair the PHRC’s ability to pursue the ends contemplated by the Act.
The majority concludes that the hardships on suspected violators, particularly employers, is too great to justify judicial recognition of the PHRC’s power to compel answers to written interrogatories, absent express statutory authorization. I do not agree. Nothing in the record indicates that compliance will subject St. Joe or any other party to unreasonable hardships. Nor is the existence of such hardship so indisputable as to justify this Court’s recognition of it absent supporting evidence. Indeed, because parties such as St. Joe routinely gather information about their businesses, answering most, if not all, questions should require minimal effort.
If certain interrogatories prove unduly burdensome, a party could challenge them in an orderly manner before the PHRC or in an enforcement proceeding. A court may, when necessary in a particular case, consider the reasonableness of specific interrogatories to which a party has objected and grant the necessary relief. See Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, § 10, as amended, 43 P.S. § 960. But the mere possibility of such occasional hardship cannot justify the majority’s blanket prohibition against all written interrogatories. I cannot condone this relegation of the PHRC to rigid procedural devices, frustration of the PHRC’s performance of its statutory role, and destruction of the express policy of the Commonwealth in this important area of human relations.
I dissent and would reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court.
NIX, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.