Court Opinion

ID: 9702918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:32:00.622191+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:43.520629
License: Public Domain

Opinion by
Mb. Justice Bell
Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part :
It has always seemed to me to be unfair and unjust that in these modern times the Commonwealth should be allowed to retain all the attributes, privileges and prerogatives of an ancient Sovereign. In particular I believe that the Commonwealth should have to pay interest on just debts and just claims (including tax refunds) exactly the same as individuals do. However, this Court has often decided to the contrary. Moreover this Court specifically decided in the recent case of Culver v. Commonwealth, 348 Pa. 472, 35 A. 2d 64 (1944), that the Commonwealth did not have to pay interest in an eminent domain proceeding. That case enunciated no new rule or principle; that rule or principle has, until today, always been the law. When the majority decides to overrule Culver v. Commonwealth (as it has), it should not do so under the misapprehension that that case established a new principle of *509law, or that there has been any change of circumstances since 1&44 which justifies an overruling of that case, or merely of that case.
The question of detention of damages and of interest disturbs me. The Courts have remedied part of the injustice which usually results from the exemption of a Sovereign from interest on just claims, by allowing so-called “detention damages”. “Detention damages” in effect (although in a disguised form) really amount to interest. However, until today, detention damages, if allowable at all, were allowed and assessed by a jury from the time of the taking until the jury’s award. The majority Opinion now changes this well established law and allows a Court not only to overrule the findings of a jury but also to calculate and assess detention damages to the date of the entry of the judgment in favor of the property owner. I know of no authority or reason which justifies this change in the law.
The majority Opinion then further changes the law by allowing interest on the judgment until the date of final payment by the Commonwealth, i.e., interest on interest. Not only is the allowance of interest against the Commonwealth contrary, as above stated, to well settled, ancient and recently reiterated principles of law, but the allowance of interest on interest (so-called “detention damages”) is not only unfair but is also unrealistic so far as the Commonwealth is concerned. If interest is to be allowed against the Commonwealth from the time of entry of the judgment, it should be allowed only where and to the extent that there has been an unreasonable delay in payment of the judgment.*

 The State, unlike an individual, has to appropriate by Legislative action money for payment of claims. Even if no allowance is made for the usual slow bureaucratic processes, it is unrealistic to compel <the payment of interest by the Commonwealth for and during the time reasonably required for State action and payment.