# Rose Tree Media School District v. Department of Public Instruction

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · August 13, 1968 · 431 Pa. 233

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9755819

## Case

- **Full name:** Rose Tree Media School District, Appellant, v. Department of Public Instruction
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** August 13, 1968
- **Citations:** 431 Pa. 233; 244 A.2d 754; 1968 Pa. LEXIS 613
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Roberts
- **Judges:** Bell, Musmanno, Jones, Cohen, Eagen, O'Brien, Roberts
- **Cited by:** 37 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/9755819

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- reversing the trial court’s dismissal of a mandamus complaint on preliminary objections and explaining that once the Department of Education approved reimbursable transportation costs payable to a school district, there was no discretion remaining to be exercised, and the depa…

## Opinion text

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
The decision of the majority is bottomed on the proposition that once appellees have approved appellant’s pupil transportation costs, there is nothing further for the Department of Public Instruction to do except plug these costs into a pre-set formula and disburse the funds. I agree that these last two acts are ministerial only, and a failure to perform them would support an action of mandamus.
Of course, since approval of the costs themselves is discretionary, mandamus would not lie to compel the Department to approve the exact figures submitted by the school district. Accordingly, to withstand preliminary objections in this case it was necessary for appellants to allege in their complaint that the figures submitted to the Department by the school district had been approved. In .my view, paragraph 6 of appellant’s complaint, containing this allegation, is somewhat ambiguous. The complaint merely says that the Department "approved the reimbursable pupil transportation.” However, it never appears whether the •figures eventually approved were those originally submitted by the school district or were, in fact, altered figures ascertained by the Department.
Since the thrust of appellant’s complaint is that they have received less than they would have gotten *240 had the formula been applied to their own submitted figures, relief in mandamus must eventually depend on whether this lesser amount actually resulted from an arbitrary misapplication of the formula to appellant’s figures, or from a correct application of the formula but to some other set of figures, approved only after the Department, in its discretion, had changed appellant’s original submitted costs. If the latter situation should prove true, in my view mandamus would not be proper.
I therefore concur in the majority’s holding that preliminary objections should not have been sustained simply because the language in paragraph 6 is broad enough to be read as an allegation that the figures approved were indeed those submitted by the school district. If the Department, however, should allege that appellant’s figures were not the ones approved, then of course an issue will have been joined, the proper resolution of which may determine the eventual outcome of this litigation.
Mr. Chief Justice Bell and Mr, Justice Eagen join in this concurring opinion.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9755819. Public record. Not legal advice.