43 Pa. Super. 456 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1910
Opinion by
The proceeding resulting in the decree appealed from was begun under the Act of April 17, 1905, P. L. 183. The borough of Braddock takes this appeal and complains in the first place that the said act of assembly is unconstitutional. The act has been twice before this court for construction: Delaware & Atlantic Telegraph & Telephone Company’s License, 37 Pa. Superior Ct. 151; West Chester Borough v. Postal Telegraph Cable Co., 38 Pa. Superior Ct. 603. In the last-mentioned case the constitutionality of the act was directly assailed, but this court held it to be a valid exercise of - legislative power. In the present case it is argued that the title of the act is defective in that it fails to give notice of the legislation to be found in the body of the act and thus offends against the constitutional provision on that subject. This is not the ground on which the legislation was attacked in the case already decided.
The act is entitled, “An Act providing for the determination by the Court of Common Pleas of the proper county of all disputes as to the reasonableness of the amount of
The decisions construing and applying the constitutional provision referred to have been so numerous and so recent that it would be but a useless parade of learning to cite or refer to them here. We deem it sufficient to say that we regard the title to the act as a sufficient compliance with the constitutional requirement on that subject.
Nor is it necessary to more than mention the argument advanced to prove that by the operation of this act the borough of Braddock has been denied the benefit of art. I, sec. 6, of the constitution which provides “trial by jury shall be ,as heretofore and the right thereto remain inviolate.” In the Borough of Dunmore’s Appeal, 52 Pa. 374, it was determined that a municipality does not belong to the class whose rights are guaranteed by the
It is further alleged that by this act the legislature has attempted to delegate legislative power to the courts. A study of the act clearly enough shows, we think, that the court, in entering the decree contemplated by the act, in no sense exercises legislative power. It merely ascertains and defines the boundary line which separates the reasonable from the unreasonable. The legislature, whose creature the appellant is, has declared that in the exercise of the police powers delegated to it, it must keep within that boundary line. With that’ limitation defined, the municipality, keeping within it, has the exclusive right as before to determine the exact amount of license fees which the corporations mentioned in the act must pay. The municipality -is but an agency created by the legislature to do its part in maintaining the public policy of the state and accomplishing the ends for which the state itself exists. Public service corporations are like agencies. They spring from the same creator and are brought into existence for the same purposes as the municipality itself. The act under consideration is but the expression of the legislative will that these two agencies must live in harmony and but provides the methods by which that harmony, if threatened or disrupted, may be maintained or restored. On no one of the grounds urged can we declare the act of assembly invalid, and the assignments of error on this subject must be overruled.
A number of assignments attack the findings of fact of the court below. It must be apparent that in making up such findings in cases like the present,, local conditions as described by the witnesses, as well as the opinions of qualified persons, would be factors of considerable importance. The presiding judge of the county wherein such a
Finally, it is argued that the decree should be set aside because the reasonableness of the ordinance of the appellant borough, out of which this litigation arises, is res adjudicata. This contention is based on the fact that after this ordinance had been passed; but prior to the act of 1905, the appellant borough brought an action against the predecessor of the appellee company to recover license fees for certain years which had become due under the provisions of that ordinance. The company filed an affidavit of defense setting up that the ordinance was unreasonable and oppressive, and therefore invalid. Judgment was entered against the company for want of a sufficient affidavit of defense, and on appeal that judgment was affirmed by this court: Braddock Borough v. Allegheny County Telephone Co., 25 Pa. Superior Ct. 544. It ought to be apparent that the reasonableness of an ordinance must depend upon many conditions which, in their nature, are shifting and subject to change. From this it would seem to follow that an ordinance might well be deemed to be reasonable, in the light of the conditions existing at the time of its adoption, and yet might become unreasonable and oppressive when those conditions had changed or disappeared. It would be illogical, therefore, to hold that because license fees had been collected during certain years past, that no citizen could thereafter be heard to complain that the provisions of the ordinance had become unreasonable.
After an attentive consideration of all the arguments urged upon us in the careful brief of the learned counsel for the appellant we are all of the opinion that the record discloses no reversible error.
Decree affirmed.