Opinion by
This ease comes to us on certiorari from the Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, acting on an appeal from a decision of the Pennsylvаnia State Board of Censors. The board directed the elimination of certain portions of a film entitled “Virtue”; the court below reversed the censors, and they have appealed.
The Act of May 15, 1915, P. L. 534, (Sec. 3), creates a board to consist of three citizens, “well qualified by education and experience,” to perform the duties of motion picture censors; it directs that, before assuming office, they shall take the oath prescribed by the Constitution ; that they “shall examine or supervise the examination of all films, reels, or views to be exhibited or used in Pennsylvania......, and shall disapprove suсh ' as are sacrilegious, obscene, indecent, or immoral, or such as tend, in the judgment of the board, to debase or corrupt morals”; that they shall kеep a record of all examinations and state therein the reason for any disap-'' proval'; finally, that, whenever an elimination is ordered, the persons submitting the film may demand an exami- j nation by a majority of the board of censors, “with the right of appeal from the decision of the board to thе Court of Common Pleas of the proper county.”
The phrase last quoted is all that is said upon the subject of appeal, and there is room fоr a fair difference of opinion concerning the power and authority intended to be conferred upon the Common Pleas by the act under сonsideration. The learned president judge of the court below evidently realized this, and so phrased his final de
Since there is nothing said in the Act of 1915, supra, upon the subject of an appeal from the Common Pleas, we are met at the threshold of this inquiry with the question of our own jurisdiction. It is well estаblished, however, .that when a new power is conferred upon a court of nisi prius, to be exercised in a summary method or in a way different from the common law, the right of review by this court, on certiorari, follows as a matter of course: Buckmyer v. Dubs, 5 Binney 28; Northampton County Commissioners’ App.,
At the present time, in our law, the word “appeal” has no conclusive meaning, for, sinсe the Act of May 9,1889, P. L. 158, a writ of error and a certiorari, as well as an appeal proper, are all designated “appeals” (Diamоnd St., supra); therefore, it is necessary in each instance to look at the particular act of assembly giving the right of appeal to determinе just what powers are to be exercised by the appellate court. In this connection, a careful reading of the statute here in question сonvinces us it was never contemplated that the Courts of Common Pleas were to be constantly called upon to permit moving picture reеls to be reproduced before them, and sit as supercensors thereof, in order to review the decisions of the administrative body created by thе act. The evident intent was to grant a right of appeal to the Common Pleas so that tribunal could correct any arbitrary or oppressive orders which the board of censors might make, and nothing more; in other words, that the court might reverse the censors when the latter were guilty of an abuse of disсretion. This is the ordinary rule to which, on appeal, even this court restricts itself in reviewing an exercise of discretion, particularly of administrative оfficials.
We do not mean to say that the Common Pleas may not view eliminated pictures, when necessary so to do in
It is now established beyond controversy that the legislature may create an administrative body with discretion and authority to determine facts (Buffalo Branch, Mutual Film Corporation, v. Breitinger,
The several assignments of error are sustained, and the order is reversed.