Commonwealth v. George W. Kerns & Bro.

Citations

• 2 Pa. Super. 59
• 1896 Pa. Super. LEXIS 12

Syllabus

<p>Liquor law — Refusal of license — Presumption of legal reason.</p> <p>It is not essential that the license court should set out on the record its reasons for refusing a license. In its investigations it is not limited nor confined to the objections stated in the remonstrance. Under the license system the legislature has imposed on the courts of quarter sessions the duty of hearing and acting upon license applications, and the power judicially to grant or refuse is lodged there. The legal presumption is that the matter was considered and decided within the statutory provisions; and that after a hearing resulting in a refusal of the license, there was a legal reason for the decree.</p> <p>Liquor law — Appellate jurisdiction of Superior Oowrt — Mandamus refused.</p> <p>A petition for a bottler’s license was refused in the following decree: “On motion of petitioner and after hearing in open court, it is ordered that the prayer of the petitioner be refused.” Held, that a mandamus requiring the judges of the quarter sessions to grant the license cannot be awarded. The appellate court has many times held that where the individual opinion of the license judge is the basis of the refusal such opinion cannot be ‘reviewed, and that when judicial action has been had, a mandamus does not lie to control such judicial discretion although the appellate court may reverse where an illegal reason is actually assigned of record. Where no such reason is assigned the presumption is that the judicial action was based on a compliance with the statutory provisions.</p>