Van Bennett Food Co. v. City of Reading

486 A.2d 1025, 87 Pa. Commw. 30, 1985 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 766
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 9, 1985
DocketAppeal, No. 3478 C.D. 1983
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 486 A.2d 1025 (Van Bennett Food Co. v. City of Reading) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Van Bennett Food Co. v. City of Reading, 486 A.2d 1025, 87 Pa. Commw. 30, 1985 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 766 (Pa. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

Opinion by

Judge Palladino,

The City of Beading (City) filed a complaint on June 24,1982, in the Court of Common Pleas of Berks County (trial court) seeking a declaratory judgment that the revenue which Yan Bennett Food Co., Inc. (Appellant) receives from its production of certain food products is subject to the City’s Business Privilege Tax which was enacted pursuant to the authority of The Local Tax Enabling Act, Act of December 31, 1965, P.L. 1257, as amended, 53 P.S. §§6901-6922.

The articles produced by Appellant which are at issue include: potato salad, macaroni salad, cole slaw, pepper cabbage, baked lima beans, rice pudding, tapioca pudding, health salad, egg salad, tuna salad,[32]*32cranberry relish, potato filling, bread filling, corn pies, clam corn pies, oyster pies, clam chowder, macaroni and cheese and red beet eggs. The City argued before the trial court that these articles do not constitute manufactured goods and therefore do not fall within the manufacturing exemption found in Section IIIc(5) of the City’s ordinance, which is similar to the exemption in Section 2(4) of the Enabling Act, 53 P.S. §6902(4).

At the nonjury trial the City offered evidence showing that since 1980, Appellant had not included in its gross receipts the income derived from the production and .sale of the nineteen different food products listed above. The City also introduced into evidence Appellant’s answers to the City’s interrogatories detailing the method of preparation for each of these food products. Based on this evidence, the Chancellor concluded that Appellant’s corn pies, clam corn pies and oyster pies are manufactured goods and are therefore not subject to the tax. The Chancellor further concluded that the remaining sixteen products are not manufactured and are subject to the City’s tax. Appellant appealed this adjudication of the Chancellor which, after consideration of Appellant’s exceptions, was adopted by the trial court en banc. This appeal followed.1 For the reasons that follow, we affirm the trial court.

Section 2 of the Enabling Act, 53 P.S. §6902(4), provides that local authorities shall not have the authority :

(4) To levy, assess, and collect a tax on goods and articles manufactured in such political subdivision or on the by-products of manufacture [33]*33... or on any privilege, act or transaction related to the business of manufacturing . . . with respect to the goods, articles and products of their own manufacture____2

Thus, the issue presented for our consideration is whether Appellant’s production of any or all of the ■sixteen different food products at issue constitutes “manufacturing” under the provisions of the Enabling Act and the City’s ordinance so as to exempt the revenue derived from their sale from the City’s Business Privilege Tax.

Inasmuch as the term “manufacturing” is not defined in either the Enabling Act or the City’s ordinance, we are guided by numerous decisions of our Supreme Court from which has emerged the following definition:

“Manufacturing” as used in a legislative enactment is given its ordinary and general meaning. It consists in the application of labor or skill to material whereby the original article is changed into a new, different and useful article : Commonwealth v. Weiland Packing Company, 292 Pa. 447, 449, 141 Atl. 148 (1928); Pittsburgh v. Electric Welding Company, 394 Pa. 60, 145 A.2d 528 (1958). “Whether or not an article is a manufactured product depends upon whether or not it has gone through a substantial transformation in form, qualities and adaptability in use from the original material, so that a new article or creation has emerged: General Foods Corp. v. Pittsburgh, 383 Pa. 244, 118 A.2d 572 (1955). If there is merely a superficial change in the original [34]*34materials, without any substantial and well signalized transformation in form, qualities, and adaptability in use, it is not a new article or new production: Commonwealth v. Weiland, supra. Pittsburgh Electric Welding Co., supra.

Commonwealth v. Deitch Co., 449 Pa. 88, 93-94, 295 A.2d 834, 837 (1972) (quoting Commonwealth v. Berlo Vending Co., 415 Pa. 101, 104, 202 A.2d 94, 96 (1964)). “The process of manufacture brings about the production of some new article by the application of skill and labor to the original substance or material out of which such new product emerges.” Commonwealth v. Weiland Packing Co., 292 Pa. 447, 450, 141 A. 148, 149 (1928).

Several cases involving the production or processing of articles of food illustrate that “manufacturing” involves more than “merely a superficial change.” For example, in Weiland Packing Co. our Supreme Court denied the “manufacturing” exemption to a corporation which cut, cured and smoked “hams” from the carcasses of slaughtered animals. The Court reasoned that “the purpose and use for which [the ham] was originally cut from the carcass ... is exactly the same — to be used as food.” Id. at 452-453, 141 A. at 150. Similarly, the Court in Armour S Co. v. Pittsburgh, 363 Pa. 109, 69 A.2d 405 (1949) held that the pickling, smoking, boiling, etc., of meat did not constitute “manufacturing” because a new and different substance did not emerge from the processing. In Berlo Vending Co., mixing “popcorn” kernels, coconut oil, and salt and heating the mixture until the kernels “popped” was also held not to constitute “manufacturing”. Although the kernels expanded to many times their original size, this change in form was deemed by the Court to be merely superficial. Moreover, the Court noted:

[35]*35The popping of corn does not require any specific skill or elaborate machinery. It can be done in the home by a child in a smaller scope in the same manner as appellant accomplishes in its plant. There is no application of labor, skill, art or science to provide a well signalized change as those terms are known. There can be little doubt that the courts have required a certain degree of skill, art or science be employed.

Id. at 105, 202 A.2d at 96.

In Commonwealth v. Lowry-Rodgers Co., 279 Pa. 361, 123 A. 855 (1924), our Supreme Court held that roasting coffee beans does not constitute “manufacturing” for mercantile license tax purposes. In response to the argument that the chemical change resulting from the roasting of beans brings that process within the definition of “manufacturing” the Court stated: “If this supposed distinction furnished the test, then frying eggs, etc., etc., would be manufacturing, for the application of heat to them requires skill, and effects a chemical change also; ... [I]t is probable that few, if any, people would say that the process of cooking is in fact manufacturing. ...” Id. at 367, 123 A. at 856. In General Foods Corp. v. Pittsburgh, 383 Pa. 244, 118 A.2d 572

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
486 A.2d 1025, 87 Pa. Commw. 30, 1985 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 766, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/van-bennett-food-co-v-city-of-reading-pacommwct-1985.