Commonwealth v. Barnhardt

12 Pa. D. & C.2d 255, 1957 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 292
CourtBucks County Court of Quarter Sessions
DecidedJune 7, 1957
Docketno. 293
StatusPublished

This text of 12 Pa. D. & C.2d 255 (Commonwealth v. Barnhardt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Bucks County Court of Quarter Sessions primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Barnhardt, 12 Pa. D. & C.2d 255, 1957 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 292 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1957).

Opinion

Satterthwaite, J.,

— This appeal involves the validity of portions of the disorderly con[256]*256duct ordinance enacted January 16, 1956, by the supervisors of Lower Southampton Township, a township of the second class, insofar as it purports to be applicable to the facts here presented. Although we believe that the better practice would have been to bring this action in the name of the township under section 702 of the Second. Class Township Code of May 1, 1933, P. L. 103, as amended, 53 PS §65702, and although it would seem that an appeal from the judgment of the justice of the peace in this type of case should be taken to the court of common pleas, rather than the court of quarter sessions as it was here (see Pleasant Hills Borough v. Carroll, 182 Pa. Superior Ct. 102), nevertheless, these and other possible questions of procedure have not been raised by either side. Since the township was represented by its solicitor at both the hearing and the argument on the appeal, we shall dispose of the case on the merits, disregarding the . caption in the name of the Commonwealth and treating it as an action brought on behalf of the township in the form of a summary proceeding to recover the fine or penalty proposed to be authorized by the ordinance in question.

The “information” upon which the within proceedings were based was sworn to by the “prosecutor”, Salvatore J. Mirabello, and averred that defendant, at the time and place in question, violated section 1 (a) and (6) of the ordinance in that he “did commit loud, boisterous, profane, vulgar, indecent language and unlawful acts tending to imperil the personal security of Salvatore Mirabello and said defendant did use blasphemous utterances and in a manner so as to annoy the peaceable residents nearby and disturb the peace and tranquility of the neighborhood, said defendant did commit disorderly conduct and breach of the peace by his actions causing alarm, terror, fear, [257]*257and by acts likely to produce violence, disturbing the peace and quiet of the public.”

The portions of the ordinance so referred to are as follows:

“Section 1. That it shall be unlawful and shall constitute disorderly conduct for any person wilfully:
(a) To be guilty of a breach of the peace, vagrance, disorderly conduct, or to engage in fighting, or to incite others to fight or to engage in any unlawful act tending to imperil the personal security of any person or to endanger or injure property within the Township of Lower Southampton.
(b) To use loud, boisterous, profane, blasphemous, indecent or immoral language upon or near any of the public highways or public places or in a manner so as to annoy residents in the neighborhood, or to make any unseemly noise or disturbance to the annoyance of the residents nearby.”

The evidence, both before the justice of the peace as disclosed by his transcript and before the court at the hearing on the appeal, disclosed that the incident in question arose as an aftermath of a conference at the office of a real estate broker between the “prosecutor” and defendant concerning certain problems that had arisen in the proposed construction of a house by the former for the latter. The matters in dispute were not adjusted to defendant’s satisfaction, causing him to lose his temper and to heap verbal abuse of a particularly vulgar, obscene and blasphemous nature upon Mirabello, commencing inside the office and continuing outside the same when Mirabello walked out and across the road to his parked car. Defendant followed him outside but remained on the office side of the highway while still persisting in his vituperations in such a loud tone as to be heard by those still inside the office as well as by the “prosecutor” across the [258]*258road near a drive-in custard stand at which patrons were also present. Mirabello drove away, but later called the police, returned to the scene, and instituted these proceedings when the police officer answered the call.

There would seem to be no question under this evidence but that defendant’s vile language and the loud and public manner in which he hurled these vilifications at Mirabello across the highway were by their very nature annoying and disturbing to the public peace. As such, they constituted a literal violation of section 406 of the Penal Code of June 24, 1939, P. L. 872, 18 PS §4406, which makes it a summary offense, prohibited by the Commonwealth and subject to a fine of $10, to make “any loud, boisterous and unseemly noise or disturbance to the annoyance of the peaceable residents near by, or near ,to any public highway, . . . whereby the public peace is broken or disturbed or the traveling public annoyed. . . .” The within factual situation is quite similar to that considered and held sufficient to justify a conviction under this provision of The Penal Code in Commonwealth ex rel. Jenkins v. Costello, 141 Pa. Superior Ct. 183. Compare Commonwealth v. Brenneman, 172 Pa. Superior Ct. 198, 199.

Defendant, however, was not prosecuted under this section, and contends that the ordinance, providing for a penalty in favor of the township not to exceed $100 (which maximum was here assessed against him), was beyond the power of the township to enact. It is undoubtedly true, as he argues, that any municipal corporation has only such powers as have been expressly granted it by the legislature, or those necessarily or fairly implicit in or incidental thereto, or those essential to its declared objects and purposes,, and also that second class townships, - having no general grant of police powers as do other types of munici[259]*259palities, are particularly limited in their legislative authority: In re Falls Township Trailer Ordinance, 84 D. & C. 199, 202-203, and the precedents therein cited. It is also undoubtedly true, as a specific application of these principles, that a municipality does not have any power to define and punish disorderly conduct in its own right, whether or not such definition goes beyond the scope of The Penal Code, unless the authority to do so has been clearly conferred upon it by the legislature: Borough of New Wilmington v. Boyd, 10 Mun. L. R. 202; Commonwealth v. Zima, 31 Northamp. 333; City of Johnstown v. Troutman, 60 D. & C. 1; Commonwealth ex rel. v. Klein, 73 D. & C. 470; Commonwealth v. Bilek, 45 Berks 147.

The township solicitor contends, however, that there is specific and express authority for the within ordinance under section 702 of the Second Class Township Code, as added by the Act of May 24, 1951, P. L. 370, and amended by the Act of July 2,1953, P. L. 354, sec. 10, 53 PS §65747 which provides as follows:

“XLVII. Public Safety. — To take all needful means for securing the safety of persons or property within the township, including the control of disorderly practices.” (Italicized phrase added by the 1953 amendment.)

The problem thus narrows down to a determination of the effect and construction of this statutory provision.

The various types of municipalities have had statutory powers relative to disorderly conduct for varying periods of time. No reference to the subject was made insofar as townships of the second class were concerned until the act of 1953, supra. Boroughs, on the other hand, have had authority since 1921 “To adopt ordinances defining disorderly conduct within the limits of a borough, and to provide in such ordinances [260]

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Related

Pleasant Hills Borough v. Carroll
125 A.2d 466 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1956)
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Jenkins v. Costello
14 A.2d 567 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1940)
Warren v. Philadelphia
115 A.2d 218 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1955)
Commonwealth v. Brenneman
92 A.2d 894 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1952)

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Bluebook (online)
12 Pa. D. & C.2d 255, 1957 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 292, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-barnhardt-paqtrsessbucks-1957.