Wilkesbarre City Hospital v. County of Luzerne

• Decision Date: 19 March 1877
• Citation: 84 Pa. 55
• Parties: Wilkesbarre City Hospital <I>versus</I> County of Luzerne.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

84 Pa. 55

Wilkesbarre City Hospital versus County of Luzerne.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

March 5, 1877.

March 19, 1877.

March 5th 1877.

Before AGNEW, C. J., SHARSWOOD, MERCUR, GORDON, PAXSON and WOODWARD, JJ.

Error to the Common Pleas of Luzerne county: Of January Term 1877, No. 159.

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George R. Bedford and E. P. & J. Vaughan Darling, for plaintiff in error.—Nothing can be conceived more foreign to the purpose held in view by the section of the constitution referred to, than that its provisions should be held to prohibit the payment by counties, boroughs, &c., of debts actually incurred for legitimate purposes, by the public authorities, within their respective limits. A similar construction of the sixth section of the same article of the constitution would most effectually prevent any loan by the Commonwealth even for the purpose of paying its own debts. "The credit of the Commonwealth shall not be pledged or loaned to any individual, company, corporation or association." * * *

Nobody would contend that, under this provision, the legislature might not authorize a valid loan of the Commonwealth's credit, either to meet an existing debt or to provide for any legitimate and proper legislative or governmental expense.

Is it not equally certain that, in the same way, the legislature may provide for the expenses incurred within the several counties of the state, "for the support, out of the county treasury, of the sick and injured poor?"

The power of the legislature in this respect was unlimited until the amendment of 1857. That amendment is identical with the 7th section of article 9 of the present constitution, excepting only the introduction, in the latter, of the words "or appropriate," after the word "obtain," and the substitution of the word "individual" for the word "party," and the omission of the words "by virtue of a vote of its citizens or otherwise."

Under this clause, as it then stood, in the great case of Speer v. School Directors, &c., of Blairsville, 14 Wright 150, the distinction was clearly pointed out in the opinion of the present chief justice, between the apparent and broad sense of the words and their real and necessarily restricted meaning: "The prohibition of the clause is clearly not against obtaining money for individuals in the sense of those appropriations which involve the public interests; otherwise this would overthrow the whole power to borrow money to perform ordinary municipal functions. The true question is whether the money is borrowed for a public purpose, and paid bonâ fide to a proper person for this purpose, or whether it is money obtained as a loan or advance to the use in all respects of private parties."

In Hilbish v. Catherman, 14 P. F. Smith 154, this principle was affirmed. See also Wheeler v. City of Philadelphia, 27 P. F. Smith 338; Weister v. Hade, 2 Id. 474; Booth v. Town of Woodbury, 5 Am. Law Reg. N. S. 202.

Is the use for which the money is appropriated a public one, for a purpose within the proper operation of municipal authority? is the proper question here.

George B. Kulp, for defendant in error.—The vice of the act is that it transfers the care of the sick and injured poor from the officers of the municipality, properly chargeable therewith, to a private corporation in no way responsible to or under the control of the county. Speer v. School Directors, supra, supports this contention.

Neither the language nor the principle of Wheeler v. Philadelphia, supra, warrant the application given to it here.

Chief Justice AGNEW delivered the opinion of the court, March 19th 1877.

The seventh section of the ninth article of the new constitution of 1874, declares that "The General Assembly shall not authorize any county, city, borough, township or incorporated district to become a stockholder in any company, association, institution or corporation; or to obtain or appropriate money for, or to loan its credit to any corporation, association, institution or individual." This section is a substantial re-enactment of the seventh section of the amendments to the constitution of 1857. The latter clause of the amendment of 1857 omitted the word "appropriate." The convention of 1873 inserted this word to give the clause a wider effect. In the case of Speer v. The...