50 A.2d 706 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1946
Argued November 19, 1946. On the trial of this case, the court refused appellant's point for binding instructions and directed a verdict in favor of plaintiff and against the Borough of Yeadon, in the sum of $1,688.55. On undisputed facts, appellant contends that the court erred in refusing to enter judgment in its favor n.o.v.
Plaintiff paid taxes for the years 1934, 1935, and 1936 which had been assessed by the Borough of Yeadon against its real estate, in the total sum of $1,558.42. For each of the years, plaintiff's real estate was exempt from local taxation. Immediately upon discovery that *254 these taxes had been paid upon a mistake of law, plaintiff wrote appellant borough, on September 28, 1937, requesting a refund of the taxes so paid in error. The claim was ignored by the borough. After the passage of the Act of May 21, 1943, P.L. 349, 72 PS 5566b, c, d, plaintiff renewed its demand for a refund on three occasions, the last of them on October 2, 1944. On the final refusal of the borough to make repayment, plaintiff brought this suit in assumpsit on April 30, 1945, to recover the amount of the taxes erroneously paid to the borough.
Section 1 of the 1943 Act did more than to authorize, merely, the refund of taxes so paid in error; it required repayment by the municipal subdivision, but provided that "no such refund shall be made sooner" than September 1, 1944. Although immaterial, the date to which payment was deferred, in the act, accounts for plaintiff's delay in bringing this suit. Section 2 of the act provides the remedy of an action in assumpsit on the refusal by the municipality to refund taxes, paid in error, upon demand. The controversy in this appeal is focused on § 3 of the act which provides: "The provisions of this act shall be retroactive and effective as to any and all taxes and fees heretofore erroneously or inadvertently paid into the treasury of any political subdivision for a period of not exceeding three years prior to the discovery of such erroneously paid taxes and fees." Appellant contends that the act in the retroactive effect intended by this language is "so uncertain, indefinite and ambiguous as to be meaningless, ineffective and inoperative."
Well established and familiar principles were restated and codified in the Statutory Construction Act of May 28, 1937, P.L. 1019, 46 PS 551. Section 51 provides: "The object of all interpretation and construction of laws is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the *255
Legislature. Every law shall be construed if possible to give effect to all its provisions . . . When the words of a law are not explicit, the intention of the Legislature may be ascertained by considering, among other matters — (1) the occasion and necessity for the law . . . (3) the mischief to be remedied; (4) the object to be attained; (5) the former law, if any . . . upon the same or similar subjects . . ." The law prior to the Act of 1943 sanctioned the unmoral practice under which municipalities, in general, kept and used for municipal purposes, funds however erroneously paid and unlawfully received by them. The former laws on the subject — the Act of May 8, 1929, P.L. 1656, and of June 2, 1937, P.L. 1211, did no more than to make the refund of taxes, erroneously paid, discretionary, first as to counties and then as to all municipal political subdivisions. Prior to the 1937 act the borough was powerless to grant refunds of taxes erroneously but voluntarily paid, without protest. Arrott v. AlleghenyCounty,
An Act of Assembly may create civil rights and impose dutiesretroactively if that legislative intent is clearly expressed in the act, as it is here. Statutory Construction Act, supra, § 56;Commonwealth v. Repplier Coal Co.,
Judgment affirmed. *257