Del. River Joint Toll Bridge Comm'n v. Oleksiak
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 19-2978 |
| Decision Date | 26 March 2020 |
| Citation | 612 F.Supp.3d 428 |
| Parties | DELAWARE RIVER JOINT TOLL BRIDGE COMMISSION v. W. Gerald OLEKSIAK |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Shelley R. Smith, Thomas Nardi, Archer & Greiner, P.C., Philadephia, PA, for Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.
Marsha Anne Sajer, Darryl J. Liguori, PA Dept. of Labor & Industry, Office of Chief Counsel, Harrisburg, PA, for W. Gerald Oleksiak.
Faced with balancing competing interests of thirteen sovereign states in forming a national government, our Framers negotiated and the states ratified the Compact Clause to the Constitution. The Compact Clause authorized the sovereign states to reach agreements, or "compacts," for their common welfare such as setting boundaries or forming independent bi-state entities governed by the compact terms to manage common interests. A compact creating bi-state entities requires the states' elected representatives agreeing to surrender certain of their citizens' sovereign authority to this bi-state entity to further their common welfare. The compact terms are not federal law until approved by Congress. Over 230 years later, we today affirm the meaning of the Compact Clause applied to a 1934 Compact approved by Congress in 1935 after being negotiated by Pennsylvania's and New Jersey's elected representatives forming and defining the powers of a bi-state commission to manage several bridge properties between the states north of Philadelphia. The elected representatives agreed, and have not changed their mind since, to grant the bi-state commission the power to operate, improve, and maintain its property including the structures relating to the bridges.
In 2019, Pennsylvania asserted the bi-state commission must pass its elevator inspections and comply with its fuel storage law compliant with Pennsylvania's sovereign police power to ensure the safety of her citizens as to a new administration building for one of the bridges. The bi-state commission disagreed. Both now move for summary judgment representing there is no question of material fact. They each ask we declare their rights under the compact relating to the elevator inspections and fuel storage at a newly constructed administration building complex for the Scudder Falls Bridge over the Delaware River connecting Bucks County, Pennsylvania and Mercer County, New Jersey.
We interpret the compact to unambiguously grant the bi-state commission the authority to operate and maintain its real property. Pennsylvania fails to identify compact language where the elected representatives retained sovereign police power over the bi-state commission's building improvements and maintenance, or language where Pennsylvania's retention may be found ambiguous and we could examine the parties' course of dealing.
Pennsylvania agreed to create a bi-state commission free from its unilateral control unless both states agreed to regulate certain aspects of the ongoing activities of the bi-state commission. They did not agree to do so as to elevator inspections or fuel storage regulations; they instead surrendered each state's sovereign power to compel the bi-state commission to subject its buildings to one state's inspection and building operation regulations. In today's Order, we declare Pennsylvania may not impose its elevator inspection and fuel storage regulations upon the administration building complex for the Scudder Falls Bridge owned by the bi-state commission.
The Delaware River forms the entire border between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey. The two states share a natural interest in safe and reliable river crossings to facilitate national and regional trade and transportation. During the 1800s, the states assigned bridge building and maintenance responsibilities to private companies.2 These companies charged tolls to bridge travelers to finance bridge operations while profiting the excess.3 In the 1910s, the states—motivated by the public's increased use of cars—changed course and formed the Joint Commission for Elimination of Toll Bridges to acquire bridges for joint state ownership.4 The states granted this Joint Commission the power to use eminent domain to acquire the land necessary to manage the bridges.5 By the mid-1930s, the Joint Commission had successfully purchased sixteen bridges from private owners.6
The states form the Commission governed by Compact.
Over eighty-six years ago, the states then agreed to create the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission to jointly own and operate their purchased bridges.7 The states carried forward powers they granted to the earlier Joint Commission to the new Commission, including the power to acquire new bridges and use eminent domain.8 The elected representatives of both states passed laws surrendering certain of their sovereign powers first recognized by our Framers in the Tenth Amendment to the new Commission through an interstate compact.9 Congress approved the states' compact in 1935.10 The Commission has continually owned, constructed, operated, and maintained bridges between the two states under the Compact since then.11 The Commission today controls seven toll bridges and thirteen toll-supported bridges along the northern 140 miles of the states' shared border.12
The Commission's long-planned Scudder Falls Bridge project.
One of the Commission's toll bridges is the Scudder Falls Bridge carrying Interstate 295 over the Delaware River connecting Lower Makefield Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with Ewing Township in Mercer County, New Jersey.13 In 2002, the Commission began discussing a project to replace the Scudder Falls Bridge.14 Fifteen years later in 2017, the Commission began a four-and-a-half-year project to replace the Scudder Falls Bridge.15
As a part of the project, the Commission purchased a ten-acre parcel of land in Pennsylvania near the Scudder Falls Bridge to construct a new administration building to consolidate its executive and administrative staff at a single location.16 The Commission purchased the parcel from Lower Makefield Township, Pennsylvania in 2016.17 The Commission began constructing the facility the next year.18 The Commission hired a contractor and various subcontractors to finish the project.19
Pennsylvania demands compliance with its regulations leading to this lawsuit.
After years of planning and after the Commission purchased and began construction on its property, the Commission's project caught the eye of Pennsylvania's Department of Labor & Industry, an agency charged with enforcing the Commonwealth's Uniform Construction Code.20 In November 2018, two Department inspectors drove past the Scudder Falls administration building construction site and "observed that building construction had begun, despite the [Commission's] failure to apply for a building permit" as required under Department regulations.21 The two inspectors notified the Department's Uniform Construction Code Field Operations Manager Jeffrey Criss.22 Manager Criss advised the Commission he intended to send a building inspector to the administration building to issue a stop work order under the Department regulations because the Commission did not have a valid building permit.23 On November 30, 2018, the Commission responded by stating it "is not subject to the regulatory authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" including the Department's Uniform Construction Code.24
On February 8, 2019, the Department's Secretary, W. Gerard Oleksiak, confirmed his disagreement with the Commission asserting the Department "does not concur with the [Commission's] position" about not being subject to the Uniform Construction Code.25 The Secretary explained the Department "has not surrendered its sovereignty, especially as it extends to its sovereign police power to protect the safety, health and welfare of its citizens."26 The Secretary stated: "[t]o carry out that police power and to protect life, health, property and environment and to ensure the safety and welfare of the general public and the owners, occupants and users of buildings and structures, the [Uniform Construction Code] mandates plans review and inspections of all building construction projects."27 The Secretary offered to excuse the Commission from obtaining a building permit "on this occasion only" if the Commission agreed to submit to the Department's regulations in other areas, including allowing the Department to "enforce the [Uniform Construction Code] with regard to the elevators in the administration building at Scudder Falls Bridge, and the Combustible and Flammable Liquids Act with regard to any fuel-pumping station that may be constructed."28
The Commission did not agree with the Secretary. It pushed forward with its long-planned administration building. The Secretary began threatening to regulate Commission's elevator subcontractor. Facing this involvement, the Commission sued the Secretary seeking declaratory relief as to the parties' rights under the Compact and to enjoin him from imposing the Commonwealth's building regulations on the Commission.29 We enjoined the Secretary from enforcing the elevator inspection.30 The Secretary defended his earlier position and counterclaimed for declaratory judgment arguing the Department may unilaterally regulate the Commission's buildings.31 The Commission completed construction with its elevators in place. The parties do not have present dispute with either the elevator inspection or fuel-pumping regulations. At oral argument both parties represented these are recurring as periodic licensing and inspection.
New Jersey did not take a position before us.
After extensive discovery and agreeing there are no genuine issues of material fact, the Commission and Secretary Oleksiak cross move for a declaratory judgment: the Commission argues the Compact precludes the Secretary from unilaterally imposing the...
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