Court Opinion

ID: 9716023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:23:53.333198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:52.233460
License: Public Domain

*162Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Allen M. Stearne:
The effect of the majority opinion is the acme of legal sophistry, viz.: to declare unconstitutional a constitutional amendment.
Since Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in The Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. (U. S.) 518, 4 L. Ed. 629, and Brown v. Hummel, 6 Pa. 86, 92, (see also 13 Am. Jur. 222, Sec. 77), the legal doctrine remains unchallenged that in the absence of a constitutional prohibition, a city acts as an agent of the state. It is invested with certain subordinate governmental functions for reasons of convenience and public policy. There is no such prohibition in the Pennsylvania Constitution. Consequently, a city charter may be altered or revoked at any time at the pleasure of the Legislature. The majority obviously concedes, as indeed it must, the existence of this doctrine. It is equally apparent that, unless a subsequent constitutional amendment provides otherwise, any act adopted by the Legislature affecting such a charter must be a constitutional act, i. e.: in accordance with the constitutional mandates of Article III, Section 7, which enumerates twenty-eight prohibitions as set forth in the majority opinion. See accurate and informative article by Thomas Raeburn White, Esq., on Constitutional Changes in Matters of Home Rule and Municipal Government in 25 Temple Law Quarterly 428.
What the majority decides is that Section 5 of the Act of August 26, 1953, P. L. 1476, 53 PS 3422, is unconstitutional because it violates the constitutional prohibition of Article III, Section 7, against (a) Special laws and (b) Local laws.
While apparently not controverted, a summary of the constitutional provisions and amendments must be considered in order to comprehend the scope and effect *163of the highly technical objections to the legislative enactment questioned by the majority.
The constitutional amendment, Article XV, Section 1, which is the foundation of the present Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, adopted November 7, 1922, provides : “. . . Cities, or cities of any particular class, may be given the right and power to frame and adopt their own charters and to exercise the powers and authority of local self-government, subject, however, to such restrictions, limitations, and regulations, as may be imposed by the Legislature. . . .” (Italics supplied)
In pursuance to this constitutional amendment the Legislature, on April 21, 1949, P. L. 665, 53 PS 3421.1 et seq. granted to “cities of the first class” the right to frame, adopt and amend their own charters and authorized City Council, upon petition of citizens, to appoint a Commission to frame a new charter. The Commission so appointed submitted a proposed “Philadelphia Home Rule Charter” to the voters of Philadelphia who adopted it on April 17,1951, effective January 7,1952.
It is vitally important to observe that the power to frame a charter is not derived from the Constitution itself; the Constitution grants the right to the Legislature to enact legislation giving a city the right to adopt a home rule charter, in summary, then, the Constitution gave the Legislature the power to permit cities to have home rule. The Legislature exercised this power and granted permission to first class cities to adopt their own home rale charters. The only then existing first class city, viz.: Philadelphia, did adopt a home rule charter.
After the adoption by the City of Philadelphia of a home rule charter, there still existed dual sovereignty of city and county offices within the geographical area of Philadelphia. To eliminate this situation, the Constitutional Amendment, Article XIV, Section 8, was *164passed by the voters of the Commonwealth on November 6, 1951. This amendment, commonly termed the “Consolidation Amendment”, expressly made county functions subject to the provision of Article XV, Section 1, of the Constitution (the section empowering the Legislature to grant home rule). Subsection 2 of Section 8 of this amendment provides: “(2) Local and special laws, regulating the affairs of the city of Philadelphia and creating offices or prescribing the powers and duties of officers of the city of Philadelphia, shall be valid notwithstanding the provisions of section seven of article three of this Constitution.” (Italics supplied) Section 5 of the Act of 1953, supra, (the subject of the present litigation) reads as follows: “The Sheriff, City Commissioners, the members of the Board of Revision of Taxes and the members of the Registration Commission shall continue to be elected or appointed, organized and compensated, and shall continue to perform all duties and shall have all powers and authority, including, but not limited to, the power and authority to hire and remove employes, as were provided by the Constitution and the acts of Assembly in effect immediately preceding the adoption of Article XIV, Section 8 of the Constitution, and the provisions now or hereafter contained in the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter relating to civil service and prohibiting political activities by officers and employes of the City of Philadelphia shall be inapplicable to the Sheriff, City Commissioners, Board of Revision of Taxes and members thereof and the Registration Commission and members thereof, and the subordinates and employes of such officers, board and commission.”
The majority decides that since Section 5 of the Act made the home rule charter inapplicable to only four of the former county offices, the Act is unconstitutional on the ground that it is special legislation
*165prohibited by Article III, Section 7, of the Constitution. It overlooks, however, the effect of the subsequent Constitutional Amendment, Article XIY, Section 8, which specifically provides: “(2) Local and, special laws, regulating the affairs of the city of Philadelphia and creating offices or prescribing the powers and duties of officers of the city of Philadelphia, shall be valid notwithstanding the provisions of section seyen of article three of this Constitution.” (Italics supplied)
Despite the distinct sanction by the voters of the entire Commonwealth in enacting the Constitutional Amendment, Article XIV, Section 8, curiously enough the majority decides, under the principle of expressio ■unius est exclusio alterius, that since only two of the twenty-eight constitutional prohibitions of Article III, Section 7, are enumerated in the Consolidation Constitutional Amendment, the remaining twenty-six are left as prohibitions. It is maintained that since one of the remaining twenty-six prohibitions is against special legislation changing a charter, Section 5 of the Act of 1958, supra, is unconstitutional.
Such a construction indeed leads to remarkable results. It does not give full effect to the will of the voters. The words “shall be valid notwithstanding the provisions of section seven of article three of this Constitution” obviously mean all of the provisions of Section 7 inconsistent with the subsequent constitutional amendment, viz.: Article XIY, Section 8 (2), and not only those enumerated. Should the majority be correct, a paradoxical result would necessarily follow : the Constitutional Amendment allows special legislation regulating the affairs of the city, creating offices, and prescribing powers and duties of officers of the city, but the majority says the charter cannot be changed by.special legislation since the Constitutional Amendment does not include cha/nging a charter. *166The Philadelphia Home Rule Charter regulates the affairs of the city, creates offices, and prescribes powers and duties of officers of the city. When the Legislature enacts special legislation, permitted by the Constitutional Amendment, regulating the affairs of the city, creating offices, and prescribing powers and duties of officers of the city, the city charter is automatically changed. The position of the majority is, therefore, untenable. Subsection 2 of Section 8 of Article XIV must logically be held to include all of the provisions of Section 7 of Article III of the Constitution inconsistent loith the former. It, therefore, necessarily follows that since the Legislature may constitutionally enact such “special” laws the prior constitutional requirement of reasonable classification becomes unnecessary. Such consideration is purely political and not judicial. We have frequently decided that the Court is not concerned with the wisdom of legislation, but merely its legality.
As to the question of local laws: the Legislature may constitutionally adopt local laws governing the population of Philadelphia. This conclusion is buttressed by even a casual reading of the Consolidation Constitutional Amendment. The Constitutional Amendment itself singles out the City of Philadelphia. Such amendment does not refer to a city of any particular class. Consequently, any act of the Legislature passed in accordance with the power conferred by the Constitutional Amendment may, therefore, specifically refer to the City of Philadelphia. To decide that, since the Act of 1953, supra, singles out the City of Philadelphia and is not expressed in terms of a city of a certain class, it is unconstitutional has the effect of declaring unconstitutional a constitutional amendment.
I, therefore, dissent and would affirm both judgments .of. the court below... .....