136 A. 526 | Pa. | 1927
The application at bar, for a writ of error to remove the record to the Supreme Court of the United States, rests on the point covered by the third paragraph from the end of the opinion [
We refuse this application because, among other reasons, so far as petitioners are concerned, there is no constitutional question involved. The rule is well established that an act of assembly is always to be accounted constitutional, in all respects and as to everyone, until challenged by some one who is directly affected by a part or feature of the statute claimed to be unconstitutional. In deciding constitutional attacks upon acts of assembly, the courts do not heed abstract propositions; they deal with actual conditions alone, which must not only *420 affect the one complaining of the alleged unconstitutionality but also must affect him by reason of the particular defect that it is claimed makes the act unconstitutional. The only one who could be so affected here would be a company incorporated in the short period before mentioned, and not persons in the position of the present appellants; both as to them and the water companies here involved, the legislation now before us is exempt from attack on the particular ground relied upon.
The prayer of the petition is refused.