Court Opinion

ID: 9746314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:11:48.650444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:11.987618
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
My disagreement with the majority is based on the same considerations set forth in my concurring opinion in National Wood Preservers, Inc. v. Dept, of Environmental Resources, 489 Pa. 221, 414 A.2d 37, appeal dismissed, 449 U.S. 803, 101 S.Ct. 47, 48, 66 L.Ed.2d 7 (1980). Although I agreed with the result in that case, I feared that the opinion of the court might be misconstrued as creating strict liability under the statute at issue in that case and this, viz. section 316 of the Clean Streams Law, 35 P.S. § 691.316. I did not believe the majority opinion in that case would permit the DER (or DEP) to *316“compel the expenditure of financial sums by an owner or occupant of land based on no other factor but the ownership or occupancy of the land.” 489 Pa. at 240-41, 414 A.2d at 47 (Flaherty, J, concurring). I regarded the “conclusion that Section 316 is a declaration of the strict liability of these appellants to correct the condition [of pollution] is erroneous as a matter of law because such a construction of Section 316 would permit the Commonwealth to engage in regulation which constitutes the taking of property without compensation, and hence, would be an unconstitutional exercise of police power.” Id., 489 Pa. at 241, 414 A.2d at 47, quoting the late Judge Bowman in Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corp. v. Commonwealth, D.E.R., 35 Pa.Cmwlth. 443, 459, 387 A.2d 142, 150 (1978).
This analysis recognized that the rights of property ownership carry concurrent obligations to society
These obligations, however, have always related to the use one puts to property, not mere ownership. The ancient maxim of the common law is, “Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas,” 9 Coke 59 — So use your own property as not to injure your neighbor. Where society requires, the property of another can be taken, but only with due compensation. To construe the subject Act as providing for strict liability, based on nothing more than the ownership or occupation of land, would be to impose on innocent individuals the burden which should be borne by society as a whole, thus, an unconstitutional taking.
National Wood Preservers, Inc. v. Dept, of Environmental Resources, supra, 489 Pa. at 243, 414 A.2d at 48.
My rejection of strict liability under the statute in question, as stated in National Wood Preservers, supra, applies with equal force in this case. The record herein fails to establish that Adams Sanitation Company was in any way at fault with respect to the contamination which existed on the land leased, not owned, by Adams. Nevertheless, it was ordered to treat the refuse so that the runoff contained no noxious chemicals. In my judgment, such an order under section 316 of the Clean Streams Law constitutes an impermissible exercise of the *317police power. I would therefore reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court.