Commonwealth v. James

Decided June 2, 1890

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1890-06-02

No. 385 January Term 1890, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. 68 March Term 189o' C. P. On February 15, 1890, the board of directors of the Third… Held: “ The questions raised in this case might not have been raised until years after the act had gone into operation. Suppose that in that ease the court should declare the sections relating to school controllers and taxation unconstitutional, would it necessarily follow that the consolidation of the several districts must also fall?

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1890-06-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently September 2013

9 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Per Curiam:

¶1It is too plain for argument that the appellant, who is the clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Luzerne county, had no right to decline to receive and record the resolutions of the school boards of Wilkes-Barre accepting the provisions of the act of May 23, 1889, P. L. 274. The act referred to requires him to receive and record these papers; his duties were purely ministerial, and the court below properly awarded the per*483emptory mandamus. It is but just to say that his act in refusing does not appear to have been one of insubordination, but was intended to test tbe constitutionality of the said act of 1889. We are of opinion that the constitutional question cannot be raised in this way. We really have no case before us, beyond the mere refusal of the clerk to file the papers. This does not require discussion.

¶2The order of the court below awarding the peremptory mandamus is affirmed.