Sears v. Wolf

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Consolidated direct appeals to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court centered on appellees' efforts to resurrect a defunct state-run health insurance program. Appellees were recipients of state-subsidized, low-cost health insurance via the "adultBasic" program, which was previously administered by the Department of Insurance and made available to certain qualifying adults in Pennsylvania. The program received the bulk of its funding from the proceeds of a 1998 multi-state master settlement agreement between forty-seven states and several major U.S. tobacco product manufacturers. The allocation and distribution of funds received annually by the Commonwealth under this settlement was initially administered outside of the Fiscal Code, via the Tobacco Settlement Act (TSA). As relevant here, for purposes of fiscal years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, the General Assembly used modifications to the Fiscal Code to override the TSA’s requirements for tobacco settlement monies. One effect of the amendments was to divert tobacco settlement funds more generally to other fiscal priorities of the Commonwealth. In March 2011, Appellees Cheryl Sears and seventy-four other former recipients of adultBasic filed an original-jurisdiction petition for review at the Commonwealth Court, styled as a class action. As amended, the petition contended, inter alia, that the redirection of tobacco settlement monies under Acts 46 and 26 violated the TSA’s requirements for appropriation and allocation of tobacco settlement funds. The petition also asserted that these enactments offended various provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution governing legislative processes, including the general requirement that no bill shall be passed containing more than a single subject. Appellees sought declaratory, mandamus, and injunctive relief retroactively reestablishing the adultBasic program and reimbursing the program over two hundred million dollars. Appellee Eric Weisblatt commenced a separate action, also styled as a class action, proffering materially similar allegations and claims for relief, in the relevant respects, only naming executive-branch officials and agencies as defendants. Appellees in both proceedings moved for a preliminary injunction to preclude the Treasury from disbursing the tobacco settlement monies which were due to be received that month as appropriated per Act 46. Relief was denied by the court, however, upon its finding that the harm asserted by Appellees was neither immediate nor irreparable. Several weeks after the Commonwealth Court’s issuance of its opinion in Sears, the court issued a divided decision in "Weisblatt." During the pendency of the appeals, additional omnibus amendments to the Fiscal Code were enacted into law, which, inter alia, effectuated a repeal of the allocation formula provided in the TSA; the result formally displaced adultBasic funding within the terms of the TSA itself. In light of these amendments, Appellees renewed their request for relief from the supersedeas, which was again denied. Upon review of both sides' arguments appealing the Commonwealth Court's decision, the Supreme Court held that Appellees lacked standing to pursue the relief requested in their petitions for review. View "Sears v. Wolf" on Justia Law