Gottschall v. Campbell

Citations

• 234 Pa. 347
• 83 A. 286
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 653

Syllabus

<p>Constitutional law — Courts—Allegheny County Court — Act of May 6, 1911, P. L. 198 — Uniformity—Procedure—Trial by Jury.</p> <p>1. Under Article V, Sec. 1, of the Constitution, providing that “the judicial power of this Commonwealth shall he vested in a Supreme Court, in Courts of Common Pleas, Courts of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery, Courts of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Orphans’ Courts, Magistrates Courts, and in such other courts as the General Assembly may from time to time establish,” the legislature may not only establish courts similar to those enumerated, but also courts of a grade and character different from those expressly set forth.</p> <p>2. It is a cardinal principle in the construction of constitutions that the language is to be interpreted in a plain and natural sense as understood by the people who adopted it.</p> <p>3. The Act of May 5, 1911, P. L. 198, establishing a county court in Allegheny County is constitutional. It does not violate Section 7, Article III of the Constitution, which forbids local or special legislation, nor Sec. 26 of Art. Y, which requires that all law relating to courts shall be general and of uniform operation, and prohibits the legislature from creating other courts to exercise the powers vested by the Constitution in the judges of the courts of Common Pleas.</p> <p>4. The Act of May 5, 1911, would be local and special, were it not for the fact that the Constitution itself has made a classification with reference to the creation, regulation and powers of the courts, in which the County of Allegheny is treated as a distinct division, and the County of Philadelphia as another, and in each of which counties the courts as to their needs and requirements are distinguished from the remaining counties in the state.</p> <p>5. As the Act of May 5, 1911, provides for a new court of a different class or grade from any before created, and as it provides for only one court of this grade, tbe law regulating it is uni