By Zack Needles
Of the Legal Staff
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection have appealed to the state Supreme Court from a Commonwealth Court judge’s order that placed a temporary injunction on the zoning portions of Act 13 as well as from a subsequent order in which the judge refused to modify the terms of the injunction.
The PUC had filed a petition on April 25 asking Keith Quigley, a visiting judge on the Commonwealth Court, to modify his April 11 injunction order to clarify whether the delay enjoins the agency from reviewing existing zoning ordinances to determine whether they violate either the Municipalities Planning Code or Act 13.
The plaintiff municipalities, however, had responded that the order clearly prohibits such review until the injunction is lifted.
Quigley filed a one-page order on April 27 denying the PUC’s petition.
On Thursday, the PUC and DEP filed a notice of appeal and a jurisdictional statement, asking the Supreme Court to determine whether the plaintiff municipalities had established both a likelihood that they would succeed on the merits and that they had suffered “irreparable harm” sufficient for a preliminary injunction to be granted.
The PUC and DEP have also asked the justices to determine whether Quigley should have modified his April 11 order “where the reach and scope of the preliminary jurisdiction is unclear and has created uncertainties as to the state of Act 13.”
You can read more about the April 11 injunction order, the PUC’s subsequent request to modify the order and the underlying suit here.
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