Commonwealth v. One Studebaker Sedan

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Writing for the Court: KELLER, President Judge
• Citation: 14 A.2d 198
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. ONE STUDEBAKER SEDAN (METAR, Reputed Owner).
• Decision Date: 24 June 1940

14 A.2d 198

COMMONWEALTH
v.
ONE STUDEBAKER SEDAN (METAR, Reputed Owner).

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

June 24, 1940.

14 A.2d 199

Appeal No. 48, February term, 1940, from order of Court of Quarter Sessions, Luzerne County, No. 627, September Sessions, 1939; Benj. R. Jones, President Judge.

Proceedings by the Commonwealth to forfeit one Studebaker sedan in the possession of John S. Metar, reputed owner thereof, in which the Associates Discount Corporation intervened. From a judgment ordering the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to surrender the vehicle to intervener, the Commonwealth appeals.

Reversed, and record remitted with directions.

Argued before KELLER, P. J., and CUNNINGHAM, BALDRIGE, STADTFELD, PARKER, RHODES, and HIRT, JJ.

Peter P. Jurchak, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen, Horace A. Segelbaum, Deputy Atty. Gen, and Claude T. Reno, Atty. Gen, for appellant.

Louis Shaffer, of Wilkes-Barre, for appellee.

KELLER, President Judge.

On July 11, 1939, enforcement officers of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board seized the automobile involved in this case, while it was in the possession of one John S. Metar. At the time of the seizure, the vehicle contained four five-gallon cans of illegal alcohol. These facts are admitted by the appellee.

Proceedings for forfeiture of the automobile were begun by the Board under section 611 of the Act of June 16, 1937, P.L. 1762, 47 P.S. § 744—611, and service on John S. Metar was had on September 21, 1939. The Associates Discount Corporation filed a petition asking leave to intervene and alleging, inter alia, that it was the owner of the vehicle; that John S. Metar had possession of the tar under a bailment lease; and that the unlawful use was without its knowledge or consent. After a hearing before the court without a jury, the Board was ordered to surrender the vehicle to the Associates Discount Corporation, for the reason that the vehicle's illegal use was without its knowledge or consent, and forfeiture would therefore be "an unfair and unjust deprivation of an innocent claimant's property." The Board appealed. The judgment must be reversed.

The statute now in force relative to the forfeiture of vehicles used in the illegal transportation of liquor, alcohol, and malt or brewed beverages—Act of June 16, 1937, P.L. 1762, sec. 611—is much stricter and more stringent in the forfeiture of property so unlawfully used than were the statutes which it amended and succeeded.¹ It now provides, inter alia, in paragraph (d): "(5) At the time of said hearing, if the Commonwealth shall produce evidence that the property in question was unlawfully possessed or used, the burden shall be upon the claimant to show (I) that he is the owner of said property, (II) that he lawfully acquired the same, and (III)...