This case concerned the validity of a referendum petition under the Act of July 2, 1935, to place the question of Sunday motion picture exhibitions on the ballot in Pottsville, which required signatures equal to 20% of the highest vote in the prior election. After the petition was filed, certified by city council, and placed on the ballot by the county election board, objections were filed 31 days later alleging invalid signatures, forgeries, and other defects. The Court of Common Pleas sustained the objections and set the petition aside, but the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the objections were untimely under the election laws and that no sufficient grounds existed to allow them nunc pro tunc. The court further reasoned that the election board's certification duties and the statutory timeline precluded late challenges, rendering the referendum and the favorable vote legally effective.
The case involved two defendants convicted after a bench trial of taking a 13-year-old girl for the purpose of sexual intercourse under Section 508 of the Penal Code, with one defendant also convicted of attempted rape; the facts showed the defendants brought the lost minor into a warehouse shack where police found one on top of her and evidence of assault. The court held that the taking offense merged into the attempted rape charge because the taking was necessarily included in the attempt to commit the greater offense arising from the same transaction, so separate sentences could not stand. It therefore vacated McCusker's conviction and sentence on the taking indictment but affirmed his attempted rape conviction and McClain's conviction on the taking charge, applying merger principles from prior cases like Commonwealth ex rel. Russo v. Ashe.
This case involved a lawsuit by a family injured in a collision between their automobile and a streetcar operated by the defendant Pittsburgh Railways Company. The jury awarded damages to each family member against the company, finding the company negligent, while exonerating the driver (the husband and father) as an additional defendant. The defendant appealed the denial of a new trial, arguing issues including excessive verdicts, the weight of the evidence, and errors in the trial court's jury instructions regarding the credibility of testimony and contributory negligence. The court affirmed the judgments, holding that the conflicting evidence was properly submitted to the jury and that the trial judge's charge adequately covered the relevant legal issues without needing to argue the improbability of certain testimony, which was the role of counsel.
The case involved the Alpha Club of West Philadelphia challenging a citation from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board alleging violations of liquor licensing rules, including operation by a single individual, improper governance, inadequate membership processes, and falsified records; the club sought more specific charges and limits on a subpoena for decades-old documents, claiming a lack of due process. The lower court dismissed the equity bill, and the Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the citation adequately notified the club of the charges, that the club's own records addressed the record-keeping allegations, and that the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Act's procedures, including a de novo appeal to the Court of Quarter Sessions, satisfied due process requirements. The court also upheld the subpoena's validity under the Administrative Code, noting that judicial review remained available to address any overreach. The appeal was dismissed at the appellant's cost.
The case concerned Pennsylvania's corporate net income tax for 1942, which used the federal net income figure as its base and thereby included interest from certain United States securities while excluding interest from state and municipal securities. The Court of Common Pleas held that Curtis Publishing Company was entitled to a refund of $3,818.66 as an overpayment, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. The court reasoned that this differential treatment created unconstitutional discrimination against federal securities under the Supremacy Clause and Congress's borrowing power, because the state could conform its tax to constitutional requirements only by also deducting interest on United States securities from the tax base.
The case involved a Pennsylvania milk distributor, Otto Milk Co., challenging enforcement actions by the City of Washington and its Board of Health after the company switched to single-service paper containers for milk delivery. The city had adopted resolutions requiring transparent containers and mechanical capping, and threatened prosecution under a 1925 Milk Ordinance that mandated delivery 'in bottles only,' leading to the revocation of the company's permit and loss of customers. The court held that the challenged resolutions were invalid as ultra vires changes to the ordinance rather than mere enforcement measures. It further reasoned that the ordinance did not prohibit paper containers, noting state and federal health approvals for such packaging, the ordinance's own recognition of paper containers in certain health contexts, and the lack of evidence that glass bottles provided superior sanitation compared to approved paper alternatives.