Commonwealth v. Gilligan

• Decision Date: 30 April 1900
• Docket Number: 240
• Citation: 195 Pa. 504,46 A. 124
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Gilligan
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

46 A. 124

195 Pa. 504

Commonwealth v. Gilligan

No. 240

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

April 30, 1900

Argued April 11, 1898

Reargued January 24, 1899 and again January 30, 1900

Appeal, No. 240, Jan. T., 1897, by defendants, from judgment of C.P. Luzerne Co., Feb. T., 1897, No. 101, on quo warranto in case of D.A. Fell, Jr., District Attorney, v. Thomas J Gilligan et al., School Controllers of the Pittston City School District. Reversed.

Quo warranto to determine the title to office of school controllers of the city of Pittston.

From the record it appeared that the board of school controllers of the city of Pittston, consisted of two members from each of the eleven wards of the city, and was elected under section 41 of the Act of May 23, 1874, and the supplemental act of June 16, 1891. The plaintiff claimed that these acts were unconstitutional.

The court entered judgment of ouster.

Error assigned was the judgment of the court.

Judgment reversed and judgment entered for defendants (appellants) with costs.

P. A. O'Boyle and David J. Reedy, with them E. C. Newcomb, for appellants. -- An act defining the territorial limits of a school district is constitutional: Com. v. Reynolds, 137 Pa. 406; Darby v. Sharon Hill, 112 Pa. 66; In re Greenwood Township, 3 Grant, 261; In re School District in Sewickley Township, 33 Pa. 297; In re Division Line of Clay, 33 Pa. 366.

The title as amended meets the requirements of the constitution: Art. 3, sec. 3 of the Constitution; Art. 3, sec. 6, Constitution of 1874; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 172; Com. v. Taylor, 159 Pa. 451; In re Pottstown Boro., 117 Pa. 538; Allegheny County Home's App., 77 Pa. 77; Com. v. Green, 58 Pa. 226; Yeager v. Weaver, 64 Pa. 425; Millvale Boro. v. Evergreen Ry. Co., 131 Pa. 1; Craig v. First Presbyterian Church, 88 Pa. 42; Smith v. Howell, 60 N.J. Law, 384; State v. Corbett, 61 Ark. 226; State v. Cincinnati, 40 N.E. Repr. 508.

An act classifying school districts with relation to population for the purpose of electing trustees and providing different methods of election in the different classes is not unconstitutional since the classification is reasonable on all districts: State v. Long, 52 Pac. Repr. 645; Trustees of Public Schools v. Sherman, 42 S.W. Repr. 546; State v. Enos, 72 N.W. 222; State v. Miller, 100 Mo. 439; State v. MacKlin, 13 S.W. Repr. 680; State v. Ridgeway, 25 A. Repr. 936; People v. Westchester County, 69 Hun, 143; Holmes & Bull Furniture Co. v. Hedges, 13 Wash. 696; Landis v. Ashworth, 31 A. Repr. 1017.

The Act of May 23, 1874, P.L. 254, has been before this court in all its phases and in many cases and almost every section of the act has been passed upon, including the 41st section, and its constitutionality has been sustained: Com. ex rel. v. Smoulter, 126 Pa. 137, sec. 1; Com. ex rel. v. Fitler, 136 Pa. 129, sec. 4; Interstate, etc., Paving Co. v. Philadelphia, 164 Pa. 477, sec. 6; Appeal of Wilkes-Barre, 116 Pa. 246, sec. 11; Vacation Henry Street, 123 Pa. 346, sec. 13; Com. ex rel. v. Macferron, 152 Pa. 244, sec. 13; Allentown v. Gross, 132 Pa. 319, sec. 20; Oil City v. Trust Co., 151 Pa. 454, sec. 20; Appeal of Allentown, 109 Pa. 75, sec. 33; Arnt v. Scranton, 148 Pa. 211, secs. 36, 37, 47; Com. v. Evans, 102 Pa. 396, sec. 41; Scranton School Dist. v. Simpson, 133 Pa. 202, sec. 42; McCauley v. Easton School Dist., 133 Pa. 493, sec. 42; Wilson v. Scranton, 141 Pa. 621, secs. 53, 55; Savage v. Reading, 124 Pa. 328, sec. 57; Wheeler v. Philadelphia, 77 Pa. 338, sec. 57.

An act which is merely declaratory of a former law is constitutional: Bush v. McKeesport, 166 Pa. 57; Forbes Street, 70 Pa. 125; Clearfield Co. v. Cameron Township, 135 Pa. 86.

A designation of the representation in boards of school controllers is not a regulation of the affairs of a school district: State v. Miller, 100 Mo. 439; State v. MacKlin, 13 S.W. Repr. 680; People v. Westchester County, 69 Hun, 143; State v. Enos, 72 N.W. 222; Com. v. Evans, 102 Pa. 396; Com. v. Taylor, 159 Pa. 451.

Courts will look to the effect of a law in order to influence their construction of it: Reading v. Savage, 124 Pa. 328; Dudley v. Reynolds, 1 Kansas, 270.

When an unconstitutional effect would be the result of a strict or narrow construction, a broad or liberal one is commanded: Com. v. Butler, 99 Pa. 535; Farmers & Mechanics Bank v. Smith, 3 S. & R. 63; Monongahela Nav. Co. v. Coons, 6 W. & S. 101.

H. W. Palmer and I. H. Burns, with them M. N. Donnelly and James L. Morris, for appellee. -- The act of May 23, 1874, violates in a twofold manner the provisions of section 7 of article 3 of the constitution. 1. The act contains two separate distinct subjects of legislation, viz: (a) All cities of the third class. (b) All school districts in cities of the third class. 2. The subject of the legislation contained in the act is not clearly expressed in the title.

Section 41 of the act of 1874 and the act of 1891 is local legislation.

Classification may be made for municipal purposes only: Ayars's App., 122 Pa. 266; Frost v. Cherry, 122 Pa. 417; Meadville v. Dickson, 129 Pa. 1; Ruan St., 132 Pa. 257; Chalfant v. Edwards, 173 Pa. 246.

No necessity can be found to justify a classification of school districts and legislation therefor for separate classes: Sugar Notch Borough, 192 Pa. 349.

The words of the title of the act of 1874 give notice of legislation as to cities of the third class not to school districts: Gackenbach v. Lehigh Co., 166 Pa. 448.

What the title to an act must contain is decided in Mt. Joy Boro. v. Lancaster Turnpike, 182 Pa. 581.

Before GREEN, C.J., McCOLLUM, MITCHELL, DEAN, FELL, BROWN and MESTREZAT, JJ., on final argument.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE MITCHELL:

It is conceded that the respondents were duly elected school controllers in accordance with the Act of May 23, 1874, P.L. 254, sec. 41, and that they are properly qualified and entitled to hold the office, if the act is valid. But it is said that the act being one for the classification and regulation of cities of the third class, section 41 and those parts of the act which relate to school districts are void as local or special legislation on a subject prohibited by section 7 of article 3 of the constitution. The learned court below so held.

Section 41 which is in question provides that "each of said cities of the third class shall constitute one school district." There is nothing new or peculiar in this, so far as it makes the district coterminous in territory with the city, for the legislature has always constituted school districts of territory embraced in some of the municipal or political divisions of the state. Thus the Act of May 8, 1854, P.L. 617, sec. 1, which is the foundation of the existing statute law on the general subject, provides that "every township, borough and city . . . shall constitute a school district." Section 41 then provides that "all the property therein shall be the common property of said district; and the members of the board of school controllers for the time being shall have power to levy and collect taxes and the same rights and powers in relation to real and personal property as is now by law conferred upon the school directors of the several districts of this commonwealth, and they shall govern and manage the public schools in the manner now provided by law for the maintenance of a system of education by common schools;" but further proceeds to fix the number of school controllers according to the number of wards in the city, and their separate election by the electors of the several wards. These latter provisions apply in terms only to cities of the third class, and herein lies the substance of the objection made.

The most cursory examination of this act discloses that it is pro tanto a classification of school districts which by the previous law as well as by its own provisions were coterminous with the cities being legislated for. At the date of the act, the constitution was just adopted, and its restrictions on the forms of expression of legislative meaning were not so prominent in the minds of legislators as they have since become. Hence the necessity for express classification was not specially apparent. But the legislative intent is clear, and there is nothing unconstitutional in it. In Lloyd v. Smith, 176 Pa 213, it was said that the principle was established "that a law which does not exclude any one from a class, and applies to all the members of the class equally is general. The same principle must make classification constitutional as to the other political and municipal divisions of the state when considered in their governmental capacity. Classification of counties is therefore as permissible as classification of cities, and the legislature may determine what differences in situation circumstances and needs call for a difference in class, subject to the supervision of the courts as the final interpreters of the constitution, to see that it is actual classification, and not special legislation under that guise." And the test in this respect is not wisdom but good faith, in the classification: Seabolt v. Comrs. of Northumberland County, 187 Pa. 318. It has already been held in In re Sugar Notch Borough, 192 Pa. 349, that "there is no constitutional objection to the classification of school districts any more than of cities. Both are included in the same clause of the constitution prohibitory of local or special legislation, and there is no argument against classification of one that is not equally forcible against the other." What is classification? With reference to the present subject it is the grouping together for purposes of legislation of communities or public bodies which by reason of similarity of situation,...