Commonwealth ex rel. Kelley v. Brown

• Decision Date: 07 July 1937
• Docket Number: 3316
• Citation: 193 A. 258,327 Pa. 136
• Parties: Commonwealth ex rel. Kelley et al. v. Brown et al
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

193 A. 258

327 Pa. 136

Commonwealth ex rel. Kelley et al. v. Brown et al

No. 3316

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

July 7, 1937

Argued June 7, 1937

Quo warranto proceeding. Original jurisdiction, No. 352 Miscellaneous Docket No. 6, in case of Commonwealth ex rel Charles F. Kelley, District Attorney, v. Charles L. Brown et al., individually and as Judges of the Municipal Court of Philadelphia County. Writ dismissed and judgment entered for defendants.

The writ is dismissed and judgment is entered for the defendants.

Edward Friedman, with him John Y. Scott, Deputy Attorneys General and Charles J. Margiotti, Attorney General, for Commonwealth ex rel. Margiotti, intervenor.

Robert T. McCracken and George Wharton Pepper, with them Warwick Potter Scott, Hubert J. Horan, Jr., and Morris Wolf, for respondents.

Francis Biddle and Shippen Lewis, filed a brief for intervenors, as amici curiae.

Before KEPHART, C.J., SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW, LINN, STERN and BARNES, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE LINN:

This case involves the validity of the legislation to abolish the Municipal Court of Philadelphia.

On May 19, 1937, an Act was approved entitled "An Act Abolishing the Municipal Court of Philadelphia and transferring actions, books, records, documents and papers in the possession of said court to other courts of the County of Philadelphia." The judges of the Municipal Court were advised by counsel, as their answer filed in this proceeding shows, that the act and others on the same subject, to be considered in this opinion, were unconstitutional and that the respondents were therefore required to continue in the performance of their judicial duties. Accordingly, the Commonwealth, at the relation of the District Attorney of Philadelphia, instituted this proceeding in quo warranto alleging that both the judges of the Municipal Court and the judges of the Family Court claimed "to have exclusive jurisdiction in such vast fields of litigation as Domestic Relation cases, Juvenile cases, Morals Court cases, and similar matters. . . ." In response to the writ, the judges of the Municipal Court appeared by counsel and answered. The Attorney General intervened, also on the part of the Commonwealth, and set forth "that by reason of the Acts aforesaid [to be referred to], the Municipal Court of the County of Philadelphia has been abolished, its rights, powers, duties, authority, jurisdiction, immunities and emoluments have been divested and transferred to other tribunals."

This court has jurisdiction: Article V, section 3, of the Constitution; Com. ex rel. v. Glass, 295 Pa. 291, 145 A. 278.

The Municipal Court was established by the Act of July 12, 1913, P.L. 711, 17 PS section 681. The Act conferred jurisdiction in classes of civil actions at law and in equity for claims not exceeding $600, in personal injury actions not exceeding $1,500, and in minor offenses. Exclusive jurisdiction was conferred in desertion and nonsupport cases and those involving dependent, delinquent and neglected children. Supplements and amendments to the original Act greatly enlarged the jurisdiction and power of the court.

For many years the Municipal Court has published an annual report of its work; several of these, including the report for 1935, containing some 300 pages, are before us. The general character of the litigation, pending or determined, and of the judicial business transacted in that court, is of course familiar and we take judicial notice ^[1] of the facts generally disclosed in these reports. In desertion and nonsupport cases, of which the court has exclusive jurisdiction, the report for 1935 shows that at the end of that year, 22,802 support orders were in force, 6,042 being described as active, and 16,760 as delinquent since November 1, 1935. The report states that during the year, $1,354,260.66 was collected on support orders and distributed to the parties to whom the court had ordered payment; 2,848 cases of attachment for nonsupport, and 463 applications for modification and revocation of support orders, were disposed of, not including uncontested petitions of that character. Orders for support have the effect of a judgment. In Henry's Estate, 28 Pa.Super. 541, 543 (1905), HENDERSON, J., said: "The court of quarter sessions is a court of record, and the order of maintenance in such a proceeding is in the nature of a judgment. It is described in the Act of 1857 as a decree. It is binding upon all the parties, and is not subject to collateral attack in a subsequent proceeding. Judgments are the sentence of the law pronounced by the court upon the matter contained in the record: 3 Bl. Comm. 395. . . ." See also Com. ex rel. v. Shecter, 250 Pa. 282, 95 A. 468; Shetter's Case, 277 Pa. 273, 276, 121 A. 59.

In 1935, the report states, more than 10,000 civil suits were brought and over 4,000 were "disposed of at bar of court"; jury trials were demanded in 1,362 cases. We shall assume, for present purposes, that the business of the court continued without much change, either more or less, from the end of 1935 to date and, without referring to the business of other divisions ^[2] of the court, take notice that at the time the Act to abolish the court was passed, litigation of all classes mentioned was pending; that there were thousands of judgments for maintenance some of which were in default, and therefore in need of the remedial process of the court, and that there were judgments in civil actions in which the judgment creditor would need the aid of execution. With this brief account of the character and status of the work of the court, necessarily a factor in the problem before the legislature, as well as in this court, we come to the challenged statutes.

Five Acts are involved; in his petition the Attorney General grouped them together as a unit of legislation; as they deal with the same subject, they must be considered together: Com. v. Provident Trust Co., 287 Pa. 251, 134 A. 377.

The first Act, the Family Court Act, approved April 28, 1937, P.L. 460, has been held unconstitutional: Commonwealth ex rel. Margiotti v. Sutton et al., 327 Pa. 337.

The second Act was approved May 7, 1937, P.L. 603, nine days after the Family Court Act was approved. It repealed Section 10 of the Municipal Court Act which had conferred certain jurisdiction in civil actions. It also amended Section 11 of the Municipal Court Act which had conferred jurisdiction in certain prosecutions and suits for penalties, and provided that, thereafter, the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court should be exclusive in proceedings which, for present purposes, may be grouped generally as follows: (a) Desertion and nonsupport cases; (b) proceedings concerning dependent, delinquent and neglected children; (c) proceedings against persons, whether adults or minors, accused of disorderly street walking; (d and e) charges of various forms against disorderly children; (f) dealing with deserted and neglected children or children suffering from mental defects. This Act also contained a provision transferring to the Municipal Court from the Quarter Sessions desertion and nonsupport proceedings instituted in that court, pending and undisposed of, with authority in the Municipal Court to complete them and to enforce the judgments entered, though this transfer was mere reenactment of the prior law: see Com. ex rel. v. Shecter, 250 Pa. 282, 95 A. 468, and the subsequent Act of July 17, 1917, P.L. 1015, 17 PS section 694. Unless these Acts are all construed together, this Act, conferring exclusive jurisdiction on the Municipal Court as stated, would have repealed important provisions of the Family Court Act, if valid, approved nine days before, conferring on it jurisdiction in the same subjects as to which the later Act made the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court exclusive.

The third Act was approved May 13, 1937, P.L. 621. It purported to transfer to the Family Court, the jurisdiction theretofore exercised by the Municipal Court over houses of detention used in Philadelphia for the care of children who are delinquent, etc.

The fourth Act, approved May 19, 1937, P.L. 724, stated in its title that it was an Act amending the Municipal Court Act and also "defining the Family Court of Philadelphia as a court having jurisdiction with respect to the care, guidance, control, placement and commitment of delinquent, neglected and dependent children under 16 years of age and eliminating the Municipal Court in the County of Philadelphia as a court having such jurisdiction."

The fifth Act, also approved May 19, 1937, P.L. 721, is entitled "An Act abolishing the Municipal Court of Philadelphia and transferring actions, books, records, documents and papers in the possession of said court to other courts of the County of Philadelphia."

The legislative purpose, which was to abolish the Municipal Court, could be accomplished, if at all, by providing litigants with a tribunal in which their rights vested by litigation,...