44 A.2d 566 | Pa. | 1945
Argued October 30, 1945. This is an appeal under the Act of March 5, 1925, P. L. 23, from a decree of the Court of Common Pleas of Northumberland County refusing to dismiss a bill in equity for alleged want of jurisdiction.
The bill was brought by the School District of Zerbe Township and the Township of Zerbe against the County, the County Commissioners, the County Solicitor, the County Mining Engineer, a former County Commissioner, and a number of corporations and other individuals. It alleged that nearly half a million dollars of delinquent taxes are due — the larger portion to plaintiffs — upon certain coal lands described in the bill, that these lands were purchased by the County at County Treasurer's sales in 1943 and 1945, that coal is being mined therefrom by defendant coal companies, that timber is being cut and removed by some of the defendants, that the County Solicitor, the County Mining Engineer and the former County Commissioner have secret interests in these coal companies and are obtaining profits and royalties from their operations, that none of the income is being paid to the County Commissioners or any of the taxing districts, and that this situation has been called to the attention of the County Commissioners but they have refused to take action to protect the public interests. Accordingly the bill prayed for an injunction to restrain the alleged waste, for the appointment of a receiver, and for an accounting. The court, upon affidavits, issued a preliminary injunction against the defendants (other than the County and the County Commissioners) and appointed a temporary receiver to take possession of the mines and to manage and conduct them. Defendants took a rule to show cause why the bill should not be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The Court, after hearing argument, discharged the rule, accompanying its decision by a comprehensive and well-reasoned opinion. *165
Appellants misconceive the scope and purpose of the Act of 1925. Even if a plaintiff have no standing to bring his action, even if his statement of claim or bill in equity be demurrable, even if he fail to establish the allegations in his complaint, even if the court ultimately conclude that the relief he seeks should not be granted in whole or in part, not any or all of these circumstances would enter into, much less determine, the question whether the court has jurisdiction of the litigation.
"Whether or not a plaintiff has averred sufficient facts in his statement of claim to entitle him to recover, is not a matter open for consideration under the statute. His failure so to do would not raise a question of jurisdiction of the cause of action, as those words are used in the statute, since they relate solely to the competency of the particular court to determine controversies of the general class to which the case then presented for its consideration belongs.": Skelton v.Lower Merion Township,
"A court may have jurisdiction over the subject-matter of litigation even though the statement of claim or the bill of complaint be obviously demurrable as not setting forth a good cause of action. The test of jurisdiction is whether the court has power to enter upon the inquiry, not whether it may ultimately decide that it is unable to grant the relief sought in the particular case.": *166 Main Cleaners Dyers, Inc. v. Columbia Super Cleaners, Inc.,
"It [the Act of 1925] was not intended to furnish a short cut to a determination of the issues of law or fact raised by the pleadings, however certain their ultimate determination may appear to be.": Lackawanna County v. James,
"The matters . . . raised as a preliminary question in the court below went to the right of the plaintiff to recover on his cause of action rather than to his right to have his cause of action heard and determined. With the former the Act of March 5, 1925, . . . is not concerned.": Squire v. Fridenberg,
"The matters . . . going to the alleged incompetency of plaintiff to invoke the jurisdiction of the court below are not of a character to be raised preliminarily under the Act of 1925.": Staryeu v. Midouhas,
In the light of these pronouncements it is obvious that the questions which defendants are now attempting to raise are not within the range of an appeal under *167
the Act of 1925. The argument that plaintiffs do not have a "contingent interest" in these coal mines and therefore do not come within the Act of June 8, 1891, P. L. 208, so as to entitle them to an injunction to restrain waste, and the argument that they are not "purchasers" within the meaning of the Act of July 2, 1937, P. L. 2790, so as to entitle them to a writ of estrepement, merely go to the question whether the court should grant them the relief they seek and have nothing to do with the question of the court's jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the action. Likewise defendants' protest against the appointment of a temporary receiver and the vesting in him of the extensive powers enumerated in the court's decree is not a subject for present consideration. The same observation applies to the contention that plaintiffs, if they have any standing at all, must pursue their remedy on the law side of the court either under statutory provisions or in mandamus proceedings. The question with which we are now concerned is merely whether the Court of Common Pleas of Northumberland County has jurisdiction, not whether it can grant equitable as opposed to legal relief. There are nottwo courts in Northumberland County, one of law and one of chancery, but, as was said by Judge LOWRIE in Adams v. Beech, 1 Phila. Rep. 99, 101, only "one court, having power to administer redress under the common law or chancery forms, according as the same are appropriate." Section 4 of the Act of 1925 provides that "The right of appeal here conferred is not intended to cover questions of jurisdiction which go to the form of the action alone as between law and equity, such as provided for in the Act of June seven, one thousand nine hundred and seven, (Pamphlet Laws, four hundred and forty)." The procedural principle underlying this provision had been asserted even before the passage of the act. "Whether a case may be brought in the chancery form is only a question of form [of action] and not of jurisdiction. . . It *168
must be taken advantage of by demurrer and not by objection to the jurisdiction of the court." Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v.Bogert,
Can it be doubted that a Court of Common Pleas has jurisdiction to prevent, either by injunctions in equity or by writs of estrepement at law, the commission of waste? It not only has such jurisdiction, but it has also the general power and jurisdiction granted by the Act of June 16, 1836, P. L. 784, § 13, to prevent or restrain "the commission or continuance of acts contrary to law, and prejudicial to the interests of the community, or the rights of individuals."6
Defendants insist that the object back of plaintiffs desire to prevent waste is the collection of taxes and that therefore a court of equity is powerless to interfere. As previously pointed out, this contention goes only to the form of remedy, not the jurisdiction of the court; it may not be amiss, however, to state that equity is not deprived of its jurisdiction to restrain waste merely because these coal lands were originally acquired in the course of the collection of taxes by the County of Northumberland. The sale of the lands by the County Treasurer and their purchase by the Commissioners ended the collection proceedings so far as the taxpayers were concerned; there was left to the latter merely a right of redemption; with the County's acquisition of the title new problems arose with regard to the management of the mines and the distribution among the interested taxing authorities of the proceeds realized therefrom, and to that new phase of the *169
situation there is not applicable the conventional and dogmatic proposition that equity will not interfere in proceedings for the collection of taxes. In Derry Township School District v.Barnett Coal Co.,
This brings us to the consideration of another ground on which the court clearly had jurisdiction of the cause of action set forth in the bill. The County held the lands which the Commissioners had purchased at the County Treasurer's sales as trustee for the benefit of all the taxing authorities concerned. In Andrews Land Corporation's Appeal,
The North Line Coal Company has filed a special assignment of error arising from the alleged fact that it entered into an agreement with the County to redeem *171 its lands by the immediate payment of the costs incident to the tax sale, the current taxes, and one-fifth of the accrued taxes due, including penalties and interest, by subsequent installment payments of the balance over a period of four years, and by the payment of the taxes assessed each year during that period, in accordance with the provisions of the Redemption Act of July 28, 1941, P. L. 535. When this record is remanded the court below will consider and determine the right of the North Line Coal Company to have the injunction against it dissolved because of the making of such agreement and initial payment.
The decree discharging the rule to show cause why the bill in equity should not be dismissed for want of jurisdiction is affirmed; costs to abide the event.
