15 Pa. 166 | Pa. | 1850
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The act of 13th April, 1843, [Pam. Laws 235,) is a law of general application, though doubtless suggested by the exigencies of a particular litigation, which for some time occupied the courts of this and the adjoining counties. With the power exerted in its enactment the people have been made familiar, by many public statutes authorizing a change of venue in whole classes of cases, and by private acts directing it in particular instances. Though it may have been occasionally misapplied, observation attests the necessity of its existence, and experience proves it is usually called into action by conditions of public policy, or by motives which seek the promotion of private right. Borrowed from the country whence we derive most of our ideas of civil polity and municipal regulations, it has there and here been sanctioned by long usage and confirmed by general approval. Indeed, the ordinary right of the legislature so to interfere with private litigation has never been seriously questioned, and the propriety of its action, in the instance before us, even considered only in reference to the disputes that are supposed to have given birth to the act, is not challenged. Under its provisions, a series of questions, springing from the settlement and distribution of a large estate, situate in the three counties of Lycoming, Northumberland, and Union, have been adjudicated by the courts of the latter county, and thus a wide-spread litigation, which threatened inconveniently to engage the time and attention of three distinct tribunals, at increased costs and trouble, have been concentrated, and confined within a single
That the legislature might have made provision by the original act, for the payment of costs by each of the counties interested, will not admit of cavil. Ingenuity the most astute, though sharpened by interest, fails to suggest any plausible foundation for such a- cavil. We are then reduced to the simple inquiry, whether, after the work is done, the services rendered, and the benefit enjoyed, the legislature may provide for its compensation, and furnish a means for enforcing it. Listening simply to the suggestions of legal propriety, springing from moral obligations founded bn valuable services rendered by one to another, there would seem to be room but for an affirmative response. Is there any thing in the constitution which may compel a different answer ? Regarded in this connection, it is a simple question of power, though greatly modified by considerations of natural equity. In solving it, we must remember that the legislative branch of our government, unlike that of the federal system, is limited in its remedial jurisdiction, only by express prohibition, or implication equally imperative, flowing from positive provision or deduced from the'nature of our political structure. It must be recollected, too, that though it is the duty of our courts, supreme and subordinate, to denounce every invasion of the paramount law, it lies upon him who would impeach legislative action to point out wherein it infracts that superior law; and it has often been declared that it is only when the inconsistency is palpable, the interposition of judicial re-probation becomes admissible. It was, indeed, thought in Menges v. Wertman, 1 Barr 218, that this principle had been carried so far as, practically, almost to be equivalent to a relinquishment of the authority itself. But since then a more reasonable sentiment has prevailed, and the right of our courts to declare the nullity of an act of unconstitutional legislation has not only been distinctly recognised, but their duty to do so emphatically asserted and firmly executed. Still, the salutary rule that inquires for certainty of infraction remains, and it is only by its due application the line of separation between legislative and judicial authority is preserved. When it comes to be disregarded, and questions of constitutional
Decree affirmed.