236 Pa. 327 | Pa. | 1912
Lead Opinion
Opinion by
The plaintiff averred in his bill, filed June 3, 1911, that he was a citizen and resident of Allegheny county; that the defendants were directors of Mt. Washington Sub-School District, Pittsburgh, in which he owned real estate and paid taxes; that these defendants (elected under the old law) were about to expend $6,500 in the purchase of a site for a new school building; that they were expressly prohibited from so doing by the recent School Code; and prayed for an injunction. The defendants demurred upon several grounds all of which attacked the constitutionality of the act in question. The demurrer was overruled and the injunction granted; this is assigned for error.
The establishment, maintenance and support of a system of common schools having been imposed upon the legislative department of the government, it must employ agencies to accomplish that object, and the manner of their selection is peculiarly within its discretion. The school district is but an agency of the Commonwealth, and there is no inherent right in the electors of any particular locality to vote for directors; subject to constitutional restrictions the State may provide any method for the selection of its agents it may see fit, and the methods employed need not be alike in all instances. The Commonwealth has the power to designate its agencies in connection with school taxes, and the school districts are the agents in this respect
In the case at bar the only matters directly involved are the powers of and the limitations upon school authorities in districts of the first class to raise money and contract for the erection of school houses, and we shall not undertake to pass upon the constitutionality or construe all the various sections of this statute; that can be done from time to time as cases arise thereunder involving the validity of its different provisions. Here we are concerned with the general question of the validity of the code and with the particular provisions that relate to the facts of the case at bar, and it is not necessary nor would it be wise to determine unrelated questions. We have given heed not only to the principal reasons urged by the appellants against the act, but so far as they might affect its general validity we have considered all the minor grounds of attack; although Section 2819, relating to the kind of stone which shall be used in the erection of school houses in districts of the first class, etc., may well be condemned as local legislation because it covers matters in no conceivable way peculiar to such districts as distinguished from other districts, and while it with other sections and provisions may be justifiably open to criticism on this and other grounds, we are not called upon to decide any of these questions at the present time. In the words of our Brother Potter, in Gottschall v. Campbell, supra, “This feature, together with several other matters of detail to which reference has been made in the argument, is not essentially involved in the main purpose of the statute. Any such questions are of minor importance, and if they arise in the future course of business in the court, they can be more fully presented and argued in detail, and the precise questions involved can be more fully considered than at the present time.” Speight v. People, 87 Ill. 595, is strong in support of the views here taken, both as to classification and taxation;
In addition to the grounds of attack already referred to, the appellants raise the usual objection of insufficiency of title. A title need not be an index; it must not be misleading, but if it fairly gives notice of the subject and substance of an act, it is sufficient. A short general comprehensive title is more desirable than a long one which attempts to point out all the details of a statute. If there are provisions not covered by the title, they do not affect the validity of the act as a whole unless they are vital in character and it is apparent that without them the lawmakers would not have enacted the legislation; we are not convinced that any of the matters called to our attention by the appellant can be thus classed. The code is entitled, “An act to establish a public school system, etc.”; this is a most comprehensive expression, not restricted to or conveying the idea of a mere codification of existing laws, and thereunder the general assembly has, in accordance with the constitutional mandate, provided for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public schools.
The appellants also contend that Section 202 of the act, requiring the judges of the Common Pleas to appoint the school directors in districts of the first class, is a violation of Section 26, of Article Y, of the Constitution, which ordains that all laws relating to courts shall be general and of uniform operation. Time out of mind nonjudicial administrative duties have been put upon the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, particularly in the appointment of bodies to be used as public agencies, and the power of the legislature to do this was sustained in Com. v. Collier, 213 Pa. 138. We have never- considered such legislation to be within the constitutional restrictions relied upon by the appellant; a-s said by our Brother Brown, in Com. v. Collier, supra,
We have attempted to touch upon and dispose of all the points urged by the appellants which are directly involved in the case or which go to the validity of the code as a whole; but, as already indicated, we are not persuaded that any of them is of a nature which requires us to set aside the statute as unconstitutional legislation. Under the provisions of the Act of 1911 (Sec. 209), the defendants were to serve in office until the organization of their successors in November, 1911 (Sec. 202),' but they are expressly forbidden to contract for any new property (Sec. 2811), that power being reserved to the directors to be selected in accordance with the code; therefore, the learned court below committed no error in granting the injunction prayed for.
The assignments are overruled and the decree of the court below is affirmed at the cost of the appellants.
Dissenting Opinion
Dissenting Opinion by
May 6, 1912:
Though the Constitution has imposed upon the legislature the duty of providing for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public schools, and this duty must be discharged, the legisla
The demurrer to the bill filed in the court below sets forth a number of reasons why the Act of 1911 should be declared unconstitutional, but a consideration of only two of. them will suffice to show that the demurrer ought to have been sustained. The act divides the school districts of the State into four classes, as follows: Each school district having a population of five hundred thousand (500,000), or more, shall be a school district of the first class; each school district having a population of thirty thousand (30,000), or more, but of less than five hundred thousand (500,000) shall be a school district of the second class; each school district having a population of five thousand (5,000), or more, but of less than thirty thousand (30,000), shall be a school district of the third class; each school district having a population of less than five thousand (5,000) shall be a school district of the fourth class.
Classification of school districts is not forbidden by the Constitution: Sugar Notch Borough, 192 Pa. 349; Com. v. Gilligan, 195 Pa. 504; Com. v. Guthrie, 202 Pa. 209; and if the complaint of the appellants were only as to the classification of the school districts of the State, they could not be heard. But heed surely ought to be given to their contention that, under the guise of a general classification of the districts, the Act of 1911 produces, and was passed for the undoubted purpose of producing, local and special results. It constitutes the cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh districts of the first class; it makes the directors in. those districts ap
While school districts may be constitutionally classified — and their classification must also of necessity involve different conditions in the different classes — there cannot be a classification which is manifestly intended to have as its real purpose special legislation for certain districts. Classification based upon actual necessity is one thing; but when it is apparent that, under the plea of necessity, the ulterior object of the legislature is special legislation for certain .districts, the attempted classification is but a mere subterfuge to evade the Constitution; and courts will look at the substance and not the sum of legislation in determining whether a statute is local or special, repugnant to the fundamental law, though disguised as a general act: Sample v. Pittsburgh, 212 Pa. 533. If local results either are or may be produced by an act of assembly, it offends against the Constitution and is void: Scranton. School District’s Appeal, 113 Pa. 176. “The underlying principle of all the cases is that classification, with the view of legislating for either class separately, is essentially unconstitutional, unless a necessity therefor exists, — a •necessity springing from manifest peculiarities clearly distinguishing those of one class from each of the other classes, and imperatively demanding legislation for each class, separately, that would be useless and detrimental to the others”: Ayars’ Appeal, 122 Pa. 266. In the light of these unavoidable utterances by this court, and of many more like them, I confess my utter inability to follow any process of reasoning that attempts to sus
The people of the State have vested the taxing power absolutely in the legislature, and it cannot delegate that power wholly or in part to either of the other departments of government, to any individual or to any board or commission. Delegatus non potest delegare. An exception to this rule — more apparent than real, however — is the power which the legislature may give to municipal authorities to assess and collect taxes for local purposes: Durach’s Appeal, 62 Pa. 491; Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Pittsburgh, 104 Pa. 522. “There is an exception to the rule that the legislature cannot delegate the power of taxation, which has already been referred to. It is an exception as old as the rule itself; has its origin in the same causes; and is justified by the same governmental reasons. The local municipalities are, viewed in one aspect, the agents of the state for the purposes of local government; viewed in another aspect they are the local legislature, directly representative of and responsible to the people of their respective territories. The principle that taxation can only be by consent of the people to be taxed, acting through their representatives authorizes taxation by local authorities for local purposes, and discountenances interference in such matters by the representatives of other portions of the State. Long settled usage confirms this reasoning; and it is a firmly established doctrine that the power of local taxation for local purposes may be exercised by municipalities. In authorizing the local governmental bodies to exercise the power, the legislature may be regarded in theory, not really
While the legislature may authorize municipal authorities to levy taxes for local purposes, because municipalities are but the agents of the State, and their authorities are elected directly by the people from whom the taxes are to be collected, the Act of 1911 goes far beyond this. In school districts of the first class school directors are not to be elected by the people. They are not even to be appointed by the legislature, but are to be appointees of the judges of the courts of common pleas, who, strictly speaking, are not the representatives of the people. They represent only the law, chosen for that purpose at long intervals. In these appointees of an intervening branch of the State govern
In Schultes v. Eberly, 82 Ala. 242, the question before the court was the constitutionality of an act of the legislature investing trustees appointed by the act, eo nomine, and their successors, to be appointed by the state superintendent of education, with the power to levy taxes for school purposes, and, in holding that the act could not be upheld, it was said: “It is useless to waste discussion to show that the ‘Cullman school district’ is not a municipal corporation. Speaking of such districts as corporate bodies, Judge Dillon says: ‘Considered with respect to the limited number of their corporate powers, the bodies above named rank low down in the scale or grade of corporate existence; and
It is no answer to the contention that the legislature has delegated the power of taxation to school directors in school districts of the first class, that it has fixed the limit of the tax: to be levied and collected in those districts. It has not, as it might have, fixed definitely the rate of taxation in those districts but has delegated to boards to be appointed by the judiciary an absolute discretion and power to tax within certain limits, and the people who are to be taxed by such boards have no voice as to what the rate of taxation shall be. While a minimum below which and a maximum above which these appointed boards cannot go have been designated in the act, the authority to fix the rate of tax between the designated limits has been delegated to the boards and can be exercised according to their arbitrary discretion. Until they determine the rate of taxation to be levied within the districts for which they are appointed, no one in those communities can determine from the Act of 1911 what the tax is or will be. Until the boards act, the rate of tax is an unknown quantity. Indeed, until they do act, there, is no tax provided, for an undetermined tax is no tax in law. The determination of the amount or rate of a tax to be imposed is as essential in the exercise of taxing power as the designation of the property to be taxed, or the time for its collection or enforcement: State v. Ashbrook, 154 Mo. 375. All of the foregoing authorities, and many more that might
The court below should have declared the Act of May 18, 1911, to be local or special legislation, so far as it relates to school districts of the first class, and an unauthorized attempt on the part of the legislature to delegate its power of taxation. I would, therefore, reverse the decree and dismiss the bill at appellee’s costs.