Beckert v. Warren
| Decision Date | 22 December 1981 |
| Citation | 497 Pa. 137,439 A.2d 638 |
| Parties | Paul R. BECKERT, President Judge, Individually and on behalf of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Plaintiffs v. Andrew L. WARREN, Elaine P. Zettick, and Carl F. Fonash, County Commissioners and members of the Bucks County Salary Board, Ward F. Clark, Esquire, Controller and member of the Bucks County Salary Board, William P. Snyder, Treasurer of the County of Bucks, and Paul R. Beckert, President Judge as a member of the Bucks County Salary Board, Defendants. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Henry T. Reath, Michael M. Baylson, George E. Pierce, Philadelphia, for plaintiffs.
Robert L. White, County Sol., Ward F. Clark, County Comptroller, Doylestown, for defendants.
Before O'BRIEN, C. J., and ROBERTS, NIX, LARSEN, FLAHERTY, KAUFFMAN and WILKINSON, JJ.
This action was precipitated by the breakdown of negotiations between the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County and the Bucks County Commissioners concerning that court's budgetary requirements for fiscal 1981. Although this dispute originates at the county level, it represents a deadlock between the judicial and legislative branches of government in the exercise of their respective powers. Such a deadlock calls into question the relationship between those branches and the extent of their powers, and its resolution is crucial to both the unified judicial system and county governments throughout this Commonwealth.
The budget proposal for 1981 which the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas submitted to the Bucks County Commissioners, in addition to providing for the maintenance of existing personnel and programs, called, inter alia, for the funding of a number of new positions to meet what the court considered its immediate and anticipated future needs. Court and county officials conferred several times in October and November of 1980, yet on December 10, 1980, the county published a proposed 1981 budget which not only excluded funding for these new positions but also provided for reductions in the Court's existing staff. Subsequent meetings were apparently fruitless, as the county's 1981 budget in its final form continued to reflect these limitations on court staffing. 1
Plaintiffs, the judges of the Court of Common Pleas acting through Paul R. Beckert, President Judge, instituted this action in their own court on December 30, 1980, seeking to enjoin defendant County Commissioners from adopting any budget for 1981 which did not provide for full funding of the court's requests, and to enjoin defendant county Salary Board members from either eliminating existing positions from its manning tables or from adopting manning tables which did not provide for the requested new positions. In addition, plaintiffs sought a writ of mandamus compelling defendants to comply with the court's budget demands. Plaintiffs grounded their entitlement to relief on "the inherent power (of the judiciary) to determine and compel the budgeting, appropriation and payment by the executive and legislative branches of those sums that are reasonable and necessary to carry out its mandated responsibilities for the judicial administration." (Plaintiffs' Complaint at 2)
On the same date, Judge Robert A. Freedberg of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, specially assigned, issued a preliminary injunction. Justice Rolf Larsen of this Court vacated that injunction on December 31, 1980, and the County Commissioners immediately took the steps necessary to adopt its 1981 budget. The threatened personnel reductions have not, however, been implemented during the pendency of this action.
Plaintiffs filed a petition in this Court on January 12, 1981, asking that we assume plenary jurisdiction of their action. On March 30, 1981, we granted the petition, simultaneously, remanding the matter to Commonwealth Court for an expedited hearing. 2 Judge David W. Craig was designated hearing judge by President Judge Crumlish. The hearing began on June 11, and, after nine days of testimony, concluded on June 25, 1981. At the commencement of the hearing, Judge Craig ruled, inter alia, that plaintiffs bore the burden of proof, and that defendants were not entitled to a jury trial. On July 22, Judge Craig submitted to this Court his findings of fact and conclusions of law as to those issues not resolved prior to or in the course of the expedited hearing. 3 His submission reflects the following conclusions:
"F. Plaintiff has sustained its burden of proof with respect to establishing the following new positions for necessary judicial functions not now being performed:
Four (4) collection officers
Three (3) clerk stenographers
One (1) URESA specialist
Two (2) microfilm clerks
One (1) procedural auditor
G. Plaintiff has sustained the burden of establishing that efficient judicial administration requires the existing tipstaff positions, minute clerk positions and court stenographer positions, and also requires the following additional positions:
Five (5) judicial clerks
H. Plaintiff has not sustained the burden of establishing that efficient judicial administration requires the following additional positions:
Five (5) clerk stenographers, in the domestic relations section
One (1) conference officer supervisor
One (1) secretary for the above supervisor
Two (2) tipstaves
One (1) minute clerk
Two (2) court stenographers
I. The non-union court personnel, for 1981, are entitled to a cost-of-living wage or salary increase of seven percent (7%), to be granted retroactively from January 1, 1981. " 4
Beckert v. Warren, supra, at 38-40 (Conclusions of Law "F" through "I").
Both parties filed exceptions in this Court to Judge Craig's determinations. 5 We referred these exceptions to Judge Craig for consideration and disposition, and on October 14, 1981, he dismissed all exceptions. Pursuant to this Court's sua sponte order entered immediately thereafter, argument of this matter was heard on October 28, 1981, in Philadelphia.
Because this Court has retained plenary jurisdiction of this matter, no final decree has been entered. Both parties have, however, been given the opportunity to file exceptions to Judge Craig's findings of fact and conclusions of law, and to present briefs and argument in support of those exceptions. Accordingly, it is appropriate and in the interest of an expeditious resolution of the instant dispute that we consider it as in appellate posture. We have therefore reviewed only those findings of fact and conclusions of law to which specific exceptions have been raised. For reasons to be fully discussed below, we now adopt all of Judge Craig's determinations as to the reasonable necessity of the new and existing positions at issue herein, as well as his determination that plaintiffs' non-union employees should be granted a seven percent salary increase retroactive to January 1, 1981. The salary levels of the new positions so approved must be fixed by the Salary Board, contrary to Judge Craig's conclusion that the salary levels should be set at the rates requested by plaintiffs.
The existence of the judiciary's inherent power to compel expenditures necessary to prevent the impairment of its exercise of the judicial power or of the proper administration of justice is well established. See Commonwealth ex rel. Carroll v. Tate, 442 Pa. 45, 274 A.2d 193, cert. denied sub nom. Tate v. Pennsylvania ex rel. Jamieson, 402 U.S. 974, 91 S.Ct. 1665, 29 L.Ed.2d 138 (1971) (plurality opinion); Leahey v. Farrell, 362 Pa. 52, 66 A.2d 577 (1949); Commonwealth ex rel. Hepburn v. Mann, 5 Watts & Serg. 403 (1843); In re Surcharge of County Commissioners, 12 Pa. D. & C. 471 (C. P. Lackawanno 1929) (Maxey, J.); see generally Annot., 59 A.L.R.3d 569 (1974) and cases cited therein. The circumstances in which the exercise of such power is justified, however, must be clearly delineated.
The notion of the inherent power of the judiciary is implicit in the doctrine of separation of powers. We discussed this fundamental doctrine recently in Zemprelli v. Daniels, --- Pa. ---, 436 A.2d 1165, at 1168 (Pa.Sup.Ct. 1981), quoting Sweeney v. Tucker, 473 Pa. 493, 507-508, 375 A.2d 698, 705 (1977):
(emphasis supplied)
The allocation of these governmental powers to three distinct branches averts the danger inherent in the concentration of absolute power in a single body:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
The Federalist No. 47 (J. Madison). However, the separation of powers would not achieve this prophylactic effect unless it also prevented one branch from usurping the powers committed to the other branches of...
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