# Hamilton Appeal

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · April 24, 1962 · 407 Pa. 366

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9699222

## Case

- **Full name:** Hamilton Appeal
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** April 24, 1962
- **Citations:** 407 Pa. 366; 180 A.2d 782; 1962 Pa. LEXIS 594
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Benjamin
- **Judges:** Bell, Musmanno, Jones, Cohen, Eagen, O'Brien
- **Cited by:** 9 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9699222

## Opinion text

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Benjamin R. Jones :
On occasion a judge encounters a situation wherein he must yield his belief and opinion on the merits Of a controversy in deference to a long settled and well established rule of procedure, a rule to which adherence is requisite if the administration of justice is to be orderly and certain. The case at bar presents such a situation.
A careful scrutiny of the instant record convinces me that the court below should have directed an investigation by a grand jury of the matters set forth in the petition presented to it. Had I been a member of the court below to which this- petition was presented, *369 without hesitation I would have granted the prayer of the petition and directed a grand jury investigation. Thus, in many respects, I am in full accord with the views expressed and the conclusions reached in the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Bell.
However, I believe that, under our decisions and well established practice, the present appellants lack the requisite legal standing to take this appeal. The right of appeal is not universal but confined to parties who are “aggrieved” in the legal sense by an order, decree or judgment of a lower court. Such has been the rationale of our decisions over the years. In my opinion, the present appellants are not “parties aggrieved” in the legal sense and, hence, had no right of appeal. It is, therefore, with reluctance that I conclude that this appeal must be quashed.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9699222. Public record. Not legal advice.