Privol's Appeal

20 Pa. D. & C. 163, 1934 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 282
CourtBeaver County Court of Quarter Sessions
DecidedMarch 2, 1934
Docketno. 24
StatusPublished

This text of 20 Pa. D. & C. 163 (Privol's Appeal) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Beaver 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
Privol's Appeal, 20 Pa. D. & C. 163, 1934 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 282 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1934).

Opinion

McConnel, J.,

This- is an appeal by Anna Privol from the refusal of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to grant her a license for the sale of liquor at a restaurant called Privol’s Oyster House, at no. 290 Fourth Street in the Borough of Ambridge, in this county, and the appeal is taken by her under section 404 of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Act of November 29, 1933, P. L. —, which is as follows:

“Any person aggrieved by the refusal of the board to issue a hotel, restaurant or club liquor license may appeal to the court of quarter sessions of the county in which the hotel, restaurant or club is located. Such appeal shall be upon petition of the applicant, who shall serve a copy thereof upon the board, whereupon a hearing shall be held upon the petition by the court upon ten days’ notice to the board, which shall be represented in the proceeding by the Department of Justice. At such hearing testimony may be presented by the applicant and the board, after the consideration of which the court shall either sustain the refusal of the board or order the issuance of the license to the applicant. There shall be no further appeal.”

The appeal was filed in the court of quarter sessions of this county on January 26, 1934. The matter was heard before the court in bane on February 10, 1934, at which time a full hearing was had and testimony received on the part of the appellant and the Department of Justice of the Commonwealth.

At the time of the hearing, counsel for the Department of Justice took the position that under the Liquor Control Act of 1933 the court could not hear the case de novo but could only determine whether the Liquor Control Board had abused its discretion in refusing to grant the license to the appellant, and coun[164]*164sel for appellant contended that the court, under this act of assembly, was required to hear the case anew and decide it upon the evidence produced at the hearing. Counsel for the Department of Justice insisted also that the real applicant for the license was not Anna Privol but her husband, Sam Privol, and that no license ought to be granted to Privol’s Oyster House because it was reputed to have been a speakeasy for several years, and because Sam Privol himself had been convicted of a violation of the Snyder Act in 1929 and was an unfit person to have a restaurant license.

We really have two questions to determine: First, whether the court, under the Liquor Control Act, is required, upon an appeal, to hear the case de novo, or is limited merely to the record and the question of abuse of discretion by the Liquor Control Board; second, whether under the evidence produced at the hearing in court a restaurant license ought to be granted to Anna Privol, or whether it should be refused.

As to the first question, we are satisfied th'at the Liqúor Control Act contemplates a hearing by the court de novo upon all appeals from the refusal of the Liquor Control Board to grant licenses.

. It will be noticed that under section 404 of the act the judgment of the Liquor Control Board is to be reviewed upon appeal to the court of quarter sessions of the county in which the hotel, restaurant, or club is located; that after the filing of the appeal a hearing should be held by the court upon 10 days’ notice to the board; and that at such hearing testimony may be presented by the applicant and the board, and after consideration of the testimony the court shall either sustain the refusal of the board or order the issuance of the license applied for. The act, then, calls the writ by which the judgment of the Liquor Control Board is to be reviewed by the court of quarter sessions an appeal and also provides for a hearing, and it seems to us it necessarily follows from these provisions that the case must be heard, upon appeal, by the court de novo.

The word “appeal”, as distinguished from a certiorari or writ of error, has a well-defined meaning, and the difference between these writs is expressed in 3 C. J. 299, sec. 2, thus:

“By the English common law the judgments of the court of common pleas and of all inferior courts were brought under the review of the court of king’s bench, for revision and correction, by writ of error, writ of certiorari, or writ of false judgment. The remedy by appeal, which was unknown to the common law, was employed for the review of causes in equity, ecclesiastical, and admiralty jurisdictions.”

And in note 8 under this citation it is said that the writ of error was the remedy to review judgments of the common pleas or other inferior courts of record, when the proceedings were according to the course of common law; the writ of certiorari was the remedy to review judgments of inferior courts when the proceedings were summary or different from the course established by the common law; and the writ of false judgment was the remedy to review judgments of county courts, courts baron, and other inferior courts not of record. In 3 C. J. 314, sec. 28,, “appeal” is defined as follows:

“The term is sometimes used to denote the nature of the appellate-jurisdiction, without regard to the particular mode by which a cause is transmitted from one tribunal to another; but, in its original and strictly technical sense, an appeal was a proceeding, introduced into equity practice from the civil law, by which the whole cause was removed from a lower to an appellate court, and there tried de novo upon evidence newly introduced, being subjected to a new and final determination as if it had not been tried before, and without any reference to the conclusion of the inferior court.”

[165]*165See also 1 Words and Phrases 445, “Trial de novo authorized”. And with regard to the meaning of appeal, our Supreme Court, in Springer’s Admrs. v. Springer et al., 43 Pa. 518, 519, said:

“It is by appeal that equity remedies are reviewed in a higher court, and that brings up the whole case, and not merely the record of it.”

Originally and technically, then, when an appeal was allowed from one court to another the case was to be heard anew, as in appeals to the quarter sessions court under the Act of April 17,1876, P. L. 29, sec. 1, from summary convictions, and appeals to the common pleas under the Act of March 20,1810, 5 Sm. Laws 161, sec. 4, from the decision of a justice of the peace in civil cases. But in this Commonwealth the word “appeal” has to a great extent lost its technical meaning, especially since the passage of the Act of May 9,1889, P. L. 158, under the terms of which all appellate proceedings in the Supreme Court are taken by appeal instead of by writ of error, appeal, or certiorari, as theretofore. And now when an appeal is allowed from an inferior court to a superior one, whether the ease appealed is to be heard de novo or not is to be determined by an examination of the act of assembly allowing the appeal.

Thus the Act of May 15, 1915, P. L. 534, allowing an appeal to the court of common pleas from a decision of the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors of moving picture films was held by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia to require the court to hear the case de novo and examine the films rejected by the Board of Censors. But the Supreme Court, in the case of In re The Franklin Film Mfg. Corp., 253 Pa. 422, reversed the lower court and decided that the court of common pleas upon appeal is only to determine whether the censors have abused their discretion. Mr. Justice von Moschzisker, in delivering the opinion of the court, said (p. 426):

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Related

Springer's Administrators v. Springer
43 Pa. 518 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1862)
Diamond Street, Pittsburg
46 A. 428 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1900)
In re Franklin Film Manufacturing Corp.
98 A. 623 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1916)
McCauley v. Imperial Woolen Co.
104 A. 617 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1918)

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Bluebook (online)
20 Pa. D. & C. 163, 1934 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 282, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/privols-appeal-paqtrsessbeaver-1934.