Court Opinion

ID: 9634261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:07:44.881029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:59.879422
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority errs in analyzing the court’s Order as an award of attorney’s fees within the purview of 42 Pa.C.S. § 2503. Although the Order encompassed the amount that the Township had expended in attorney’s fees and costs, it was in fact in the nature of damages, a remedial punishment for the Appellants’ contempt of the court’s 1979 Order. Cf. Bata v. Central-Penn National Bank, 448 Pa. 355, 293 A.2d 343 (1972). Simply put, the court found that the Appellants willfully and intentionally violated the 1979 Order, persisted in the violation over the course of nine months during which the court was conducting the contempt proceedings, and corrected the violation only shortly before the final hearing regarding the contempt citation.1 I find no abuse of discretion in either the contempt finding or the punishment imposed.
*561Moreover, even if I were to agree that 42 Pa.C.S. § 2503 is applicable, I would remand to the common pleas court to allow the trial judge the opportunity to analyze the matter according to that statute. The court’s failure to characterize the Appellant’s conduct as “dilatory, obdurate or vexatious” reflects the fact that the court was not awarding counsel fees “as part of the taxable costs of the matter” under § 2503; it does not indicate if the court would have found the Appellants’ conduct to be “dilatory, obdurate or vexatious” had it been applying that statute.2

. It should be noted that the 1979 Order was entered by stipulation to resolve litigation concerning the application of the Township’s zoning ordinance to a pre-existing non-conforming use. The Township had brought an action to enforce the setback provisions of its ordinance, and the Appellants stipulated that they would conduct their business within certain boundaries, which were consistent with- the setback provisions. When the Appellants’ junkyard operation exceeded those boundaries, the Township brought this action to have the Appellants held in contempt. Had the Township instead brought an action to enforce the setback provisions, the court would clearly have been *561authorized to order the Appellants to pay "all court costs, including reasonable attorney fees,” 53 P.S. § 10617.2(a) (emphasis added).

. The court found the Appellants’ conduct to be “willful” and “intentional” and disbelieved their claim that they did not understand the requirements of the 1979 Order.