182 Pa. 581 | Pa. | 1897
Opinion by
This action of assumpsit, to recover the cost of repairing defendant company’s turnpike within the limits of plaintiff borough, is grounded solely on the Act of May 24, 1871, P. L. 1096, the constitutionality of which is assailed by the defendant. If it is successful in that contention, which is its main ground of defense, this action fails and other questions raised by the record become unimportant.
The defendant company, incorporated by the Act of March 5, 1804, P. L. 131, owns and operates a turnpike road extending westerly from Lancaster through Elizabethtown to Middletown, a distance of over twenty miles. That act of incorporation, after providing, among other things, for the location and construction of the turnpike between the points designated, contains elaborate provisions, involving the forfeiture of tolls and the imposition of fines and penalties designed to compel the company to keep its road in good repair. By Act of February 10, 1851, P. L. 44, the plaintiff borough was incorporated out of territory extending along both sides of the defendant turnpike within the limits of the borough. By the Act of March 24,
The fundamental question is whether the act of 1871 is a valid statute authorizing a recovery in this case. Its title is : “An act entitled ‘A supplement.to an act erecting the villages of Mount Joy and Richland and their vicinity, in the county of Lancaster, into a borough to be called the borough of Mount Joy ’ passed the tenth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.”
As was said by this Court in Phoenixville Road, 109 Pa. 44, “While it may be difficult to formulate a rule by which to determine the extent to which the title of a bill must specialize its objects, it may be safely assumed that the title must not only embrace the subject of proposed legislation, but also express the same so clearty and fully as to give notice of the legislative
The decisions relating to the titles of supplemental legislation do not depart from the foregoing rule. They can be sustained only on the ground that they give notice of the legislative purpose, to those specially interested, by reference to the original act. Accordingly, in Pottstown Borough, 117 Pa. 538, Mr. Justice Clark said: “ In the case of a supplement, where the subject of the original act is sufficiently expressed in its title, and where the provisions of the supplement are germane to the original, the true rule is that the subject of the supplement is covered by a title which contains a specific reference to the original by its title, and declares it to be a supplement thereto.”
In the supplemental act of 1871, under consideration, the title of the original act is quoted, verbatim, but this title, as well as the body of the original act will be searched in vain for any reference to the lights or duties of the defendant corporation, or any intimation that they are to be affected in the slightest degree. The supplemental act does in fact impose serious burdens upon the defendant corporation which did not theretofore exist. Not the least of these is the provision as to evidence, above quoted. It also provides a new mode of collecting the cost of repairs. While the act itself provides for notice to the defendant corporation before the borough shall undertake repairs (and the same would be required of any ordinance which might affect the rights of the property owners), the legislature undertook to pass the act, seriously affecting the rights of defendant corporation without notice or opportunity to be heard. This the constitution does not permit. This conclusion is warranted not only by the reason and application of the rule above cited, but also by the authority of several carefully considered cases. In Ridge Avenue Pass. Ry. Co. v. Philadelphia, 124 Pa. 219, the title of the act under consideration was, “ An act relating to the Ridge Avenue Passenger Railway Company.” After providing for the use and maintenance of the lines of railway as they were then laid, constructed and used, that act, by its repealing clause, in effect, relieved the company from its original charter obligations to repair and repave the streets occupied by it in the city of Philadelphia. In an opinion by the then learned president of common pleas No. 2 of Philadel
In Philadelphia v. Ridge Avenue Passenger Railway Co., 142 Pa. 484, the same act was again considered, and it was held that the title gave no notice of an intention expressed iii the act to reduce the tax on dividends of the company payable to the city; and as to such tax the act was held unconstitutional.
In Phcenixville road, supra, an act entitled “ An Act relating to Boroughs in Chester county,” repealing certain provisions of a general act respecting the proceedings for laying out and opening roads within the boroughs of Chester county, the effect of which was to relieve the property owners in the boroughs and to shift the burden upon the county, was held to be unconstitutional because the title failed to give notice of the legislative purpose, so far as the county was concerned.
On principle as well as authority we think the act in question is clearly unconstitutional, and no action can be maintained thereunder. In this view, as already observed, the subordinate questions require no further notice. It follows that the judgment cannot be sustained.
Judgment reversed, and judgment in favor of the defendant for costs.