Coal Township permitted to continue appeal of lawsuit decision

Justin Strawser, The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa.
·2 min read

May 3—The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted Coal Township an opportunity to continue its appeal of a lower court's opinion to uphold a Northumberland County judge's ruling that forces Coal Township to pay back more than $267,000 in disputed prison permit fees to Northumberland County.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a three-paragraph filing saying the "Petition for Allowance of Appeal is granted, limited to the issues set forth below. Allocatur (permission to appeal) is DENIED as to all remaining issues."

The following are the issues the court will allow for appeal:

"(1) Is compliance with the Refund Act's unambiguous, statutorily-dictated procedures both mandatory and the exclusive means of pursuing refunds of allegedly "excessive fees" charged by political subdivisions, or can refunds be obtained by a claimant's employing alternative "procedures" not legislatively authorized by the General Assembly?

"(2) Did the Commonwealth Court's unreported decision below implicitly "overrule" case law holding the Refund Act's statutory procedures are mandatory and should be "narrowly construed," see Stranahan v. County of Mercer, 697 A.2d 1049, 1053 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1997), and create alternative procedures which were previously unavailable under the Refund Act?"

The county paid two sets of third-party inspection fees — $161,724 and $220,801, the second under protest in 2017 — for the new county jail in Coal Township. The county filed a lawsuit in January 2018 to recoup the money. County officials claimed the fees were unreasonable, not enforceable by law, unconstitutional and invalid as a matter of law.

The original prison in Sunbury was heavily damaged in a January 2015 fire. The original plan was to build a new prison on the former Knight-Celotex site in Sunbury, but the county commissioners in 2016 abandoned that plan in favor of buying and renovating the closing Northwestern Academy as its new location. The new Northumberland County Jail in Coal Township opened when inmates were moved into the correctional facility in October 2017.

In a court decision filed in October, commonwealth Judge Anne E. Covey affirmed the August 2021 decision of Lycoming County Senior Judge Dudley Anderson who ordered the township to pay back the county a sum of $267,320.98, with statutory interests and costs. The Commonwealth Court on Dec. 16 denied a request from the township to reconsider its decision.