Court Opinion

ID: 9635423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:50:27.784848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:27.037136
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. I believe Commonwealth Court has exclusive original jurisdiction over this controversy. It involves the Department’s discretion in closing a facility, see Hoolick v. Retreat State Hospital, 24 Commonwealth Ct. 218, 354 A.2d 609 (1976), affirmed, 476 Pa. 317, 382 A.2d 739 (1978), not a modification of a commitment order under the Mental Health Procedures Act, see 50 P.S. § 7115. Of course, the effect of any such order on individuals who have been individually committed may. be subject to review on due process grounds. Such individual, particularized review may be alternately available in the forum which entered the commitment order, here Philadelphia Common Pleas. The type of review required in Common Pleas would, however, be totally inappropriate for a class action because the needs of each individual patient are discrete and particular. In the old style chancellors would have said the equitable remedy of class action is unavailable because the issues are multifarious. The Defender’s Association of Philadelphia’s attempt to bring a class action on behalf of all the patients at Woodhaven should be dismissed or transferred because judicial review of the Department of Public Welfare’s decision to close the facility will focus on the impact of the closing on the patients as a group, and not as individuals. Consequently, this case belongs in' Commonwealth Court.
FLAHERTY, J., joins in this Dissenting Opinion.