Plymouth v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 15 July 1850
• Citation: 15 Pa. 44
• Parties: Plymouth <I>versus</I> Jackson.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

15 Pa. 44

Plymouth versus Jackson.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

July 15, 1850.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Luzerne county.

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The case was argued by H. B. Wright, for plaintiffs in error.

The creation of a new corporation, the proprietors of land in Jackson, thus giving the seceders a part of the old fund, was an ex-parte proceeding, and void in law: Brown v. Hummel, 6 Barr 86.

In the case at bar, the legislature cuts the fund in two, and erects a new corporation upon the dismembered fragments of the old one.

There are residents and landholders, even in municipal Plymouth, who have no right to participate in this fund, because they are not within its certified lines: within the lines of Jackson, whether certified or not, all claim to participate. See section 6th, of act of 10th April, 1848, Pam. Laws 480.

This is a violation of the original trust.

It is not denied but the landholders in certified Plymouth, now within the municipal lines of Jackson, may participate in the fund: but not in the way proposed by the act of 10th April, 1848. They cannot take away any part of it.

The judge below assumed that, if the question of the division of the fund had been submitted, he would have had no difficulty in adapting a scale to its necessities.

The resident landholders in each, he would let in for an equal share. Now, although landholders must be trustees, still the fund is for common-school purposes — all the children share in the benefits of the school, whether their fathers are resident landholders or not. Plymouth is a heavy mining district, and densely populated — Jackson, altogether agricultural. Such a rule would operate oppressively.

H. Wright, and Nicholson, for defendants in error.

The division of municipal Plymouth, by the court, in nowise affected the corporation of the proprietors' trustees, established by act of 1831.

Apart from this question, the legislature had the controlling power over this charity for educational objects: if it was considered important for the better management of the fund, and attaining its original object, they might divide; they might submit its control to different classes of officers, or trustees, provided they did not divert it from its original purpose.

This was an original reservation, not a grant or devise to a corporation. When the legislature, in 1831, undertook to place its control under a corporation, they might have divided it between two, or they might have provided for the case of setting off new townships. What is there to prevent this now, the fund being kept to its original use? The legislature "may exercise an equity jurisdiction of a remedial character, a kind of mixed power; partly legislative, partly judicial." "It may act in the character of an appellate tribunal of justice:" 2 W. & Ser. 278. This is...