Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Luzerne County
| Decision Date | 30 September 1957 |
| Docket Number | 3021 |
| Citation | 134 A.2d 657,390 Pa. 143 |
| Parties | PENNSYLVANIA COAL COMPANY, Heidelberg Coal Company and The Russell Mining Company v. COUNTY OF LUZERNE, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 15, 1957
Appeal, No. 223, Jan.T., 1957, from order of Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County, March T., 1954, No. 8, in case of Pennsylvania Coal Company et al. v. County of Luzerne. Appeal quashed.
Equity.
Order entered dismissing defendant's preliminary J. Defendant county appealed. J. Defendant county appealed.
Appeal quashed.
Thomas E. Brislin, Assistant County Solicitor, with him John E. Morris, Jr., County Solicitor, and Philip V. Mattes, Associate Counsel, for appellant.
James P. Harris, Jr., with him James P. Harris, J. Frank Connolly, Morris Gelb and Warren, Hill, Henkelman & McMenamin, for appellees.
Before JONES, C.J., BELL, CHIDSEY, MUSMANNO, ARNOLD, JONES and COHEN, JJ.
This appeal, which was taken under the Act of March 5, 1925, P.L 23, 12 PS § 672, to obtain review of the lower court's assumption of jurisdiction of the subject matter must be quashed as having been taken out of time.
The Act of 1925, supra, expressly ordains that "The appeal here provided for must be taken and perfected within fifteen days from the date when the decision is rendered." This requirement is mandatory and admits of no exceptions: Thomas v. McLean, 365 Pa. 526, 528, 76 A.2d 413; Jones, Admrx. v. Unguriet, 364 Pa. 200, 202, 71 A.2d 240; Schmehl v. Mellinger, 325 Pa. 487, 489, 191 A. 62; fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Berkin, 299 Pa. 196, 198, 149 A. 470; Specktor v. Hanover Fire Ins. Co., 295 Pa. 390, 392, 145 A. 430; Polakoff v. Marchand College of Chiropractic et al., 287 Pa. 28, 30, 134 A. 529.
The undisputed facts show that the decision on jurisdiction, whereof the appellant now complains, was rendered well over a year before this appeal was taken. Indeed, the jurisdictional question urged for review on this appeal was not even raised in the court below when the preliminary objections, which subsequently evoked the adjudication from which this appeal purports to have been taken, were heard and disposed of.
On February 9, 1954, the plaintiff coal companies filed their joint complaint in the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County against that county and the County of Lackawanna seeking injunctive relief or, in the alternative, damages against the defendant counties on the ground that the defendants, in constructing and maintaining a common airport, collected and discharged surface waters in such a manner as to flood the plaintiffs' coal mines. The airport had been constructed in 1945 and 1946 on land lying athwart a common boundary of the defendant counties which had been acquired by the counties in 1945 in an exercise of their power of eminent domain. Since the construction of the airport, it has been operated by the defendant counties jointly under a contract between them.
Both defendants filed preliminary objections to the plaintiffs' complaint. However, before a decision thereon was had, the plaintiffs, with permission of the court, filed an amended complaint, the principal effect of which was to eliminate the County of Lackawanna as a party defendant. To the amended complaint, Luzerne County, the remaining defendant, filed preliminary objections interposing the following contentions: (1) equity was without jurisdiction of the subject matter inasmuch as jurisdiction of the claim for property damages was exclusively at law in a condemnation proceeding; (2) the action was outlawed by the statute of limitations; (3) the plaintiffs were barred by laches; and (4) the complaint was defective in failing to set forth the dates of the grievances averred therein. By opinion filed and order entered on September 22, 1955, the court dismissed the objections relative to the first three of the above-specified contentions but sustained the fourth and granted the plaintiffs twenty days within which to file an amended complaint. It is to be noted that no appeal was taken from this order rejecting the defendant's objection to equity's jurisdiction of the subject matter.
On the contrary, the plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint to which the defendant again lodged preliminary objections. These objections fell into three general headings, viz., (1) a motion to strike off the complaint for defects therein, (2) a petition raising questions of jurisdiction and (3) a petition raising the defense of misjoinder of causes of action. The jurisdictional questions were specifically limited, however, to the following contentions: (a) the court lacked jurisdiction over so much of the subject matter as involved real estate lying in and owned by the County of Lackawanna, (b) the court lacked jurisdiction over so much of the lands of the plaintiffs as were located within the County of Lackawanna and (c) the court lacked jurisdiction over so much of the subject matter as related to injury to ...
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