Article I, Section 1:
Commonwealth Charter Academy Charter Sch. v. Spicka, 2025 WL 763419 (Pa. Commw. Ct. March 11, 2025), per Jubelirer, J., the Commonwealth Court held that disclosure of redacted community class registration forms did not violate students’ or parents’ rights to informational privacy under Article I, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The court found that the parents’ handwriting on the forms did not qualify for constitutional protection because handwriting, like a person’s voice or appearance, is regularly exposed to the public.
Article I, Section 7:
Armslist LLC v. Facebook, Inc., — A.3d –, 2025 WL 996712 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2025), per McLaughlin, J., the Superior Court held that Facebook and Instagram’s removal of Armslist’s accounts did not violate the Pennsylvania Constitution because the platforms are private actors and the plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient government coercion to convert their conduct into state action. The court rejected Armslist’s argument that either entity deleted its accounts due to political pressure from members of Congress and found that pressure from federal legislators did not transform the platforms’ private decisions into Commonwealth action.
Article I, Section 8:
United States v. Skouras, 2025 WL 19818 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 2, 2025), per Conner, J., the Middle District of Pennsylvania held that a search warrant for the defendant’s property was supported by probable cause and thus constitutional under both the federal and Pennsylvania constitutions where there were multiple citizen complaints and police observations of drug-related activity. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Act invalidated the use of marijuana odor as a basis for probable cause, emphasizing that federal precedent still permitted reliance on such observations.
Article I, Section 10:
Commonwealth v. Kujawa, 332 A.3d 835 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2025), per Beck, J., the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that the prosecutor’s failure to property prepare a state trooper did not amount to prosecutorial overreach sufficient to bar retrial under the Pennsylvania Constitution. The court explained that although Article I, Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides broader double jeopardy protections than the federal Constitution, retrial is barred only where prosecutorial misconduct either intends to provoke a mistrial or is undertaken so recklessly that it demonstrates a conscious disregard for a substantial risk of depriving the defendant of a fair trial. Because the court found that the prosecutor’s carelessness in preparing the witness did not evidence intent to prejudice or reckless disregard tantamount to overreaching, double jeopardy did not bar a retrial.
Article I, Section 17:
City of Pittsburgh v. Fraternal Order of Police, — A.3d –, 2025 WL 826274 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2025), per Jubelirer, J., the Commonwealth Court held that an arbitration award reducing a police officer’s discipline was not a violation of the Contracts Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The court found that the award was not a legislative act that would trigger protections under Article I, Section 17, but rather an administrative decision resolving a private contractual dispute between the city and the police union and the arbitrators acted within the authority granted to them by the parties’ collective bargaining agreement.
Article II, Section 1:
East Coast Vapor LLC v. Dept. of Revenue, — A.3d –, 2025 WL 24357 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2025), per Wolf, J., the Commonwealth Court held that provisions of the Tobacco Products Tax Act (TPTA) that allowed the Department of Revenue to request information from applicants for a manufacturer’s license was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. The court found that the TPTA’s licensing provisions failed to provide sufficient standards to limit the Department’s discretion and therefore violated Article II, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which vests legislative power solely in the General Assembly.
Article II, Section 15:
Hommich v. Boscola, — A.3d –, 2025 WL 24368 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2025), per Jubelirer, J., the Commonwealth Court held that Senator Lisa Boscola was protected by legislative privilege under Article II, Section 15 of the Pennsylvania Constitution when she used the plaintiff’s name to refer to a legal loophole in a memorandum. The plaintiff, a solar energy developer, sued for defamation after Senator Boscola circulated a memorandum to fellow legislators advocating for a bill to close the so-called “Hommrich loophole.” The Commonwealth Court found that the memorandum was part of Senator Boscola’s core legislative function and thus protected under legislative privilege.
Article III, Section 18:
Herold v. University of Pittsburgh, — A.3d –, 2025 WL 258783 (Pa. 2025), per Todd, C.J., the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the interpretation of the Occupational Disease Act (“ODA”) must align with Article III, Section 18 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which requires reasonable compensation for workplace injuries. The court acknowledged that the constitutional history of workers’ compensation in Pennsylvania reflects an intent to ensure workers receive compensation while allowing for an exclusive statutory remedy system. Thus, the court found that claims for occupational diseases, such as mesothelioma, which manifest beyond four years after the last employment are not barred by the ODA’s exclusivity provision and that the ODA’s four-year statute of limitations does not preclude an employee from pursuing common-law claims against an employer.
Article IV, Section 20:
Lara v. Commissioner Pa. State Police, 125 F.4th 428 (3d Cir. 2025), per Jordan, J., the Third Circuit held that Pennsylvania laws prohibiting 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying firearms in public during a state of emergency violated the Second Amendment. The court also considered Article IV, Section 20 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which was amended to limit the governor’s authority to issue emergency declarations to 21 days. The court noted that while this amendment reduced the likelihood of prolonged emergencies, the historical pattern of frequent emergency declarations in Pennsylvania made it likely that similar constitutional challenges would arise.
Article V, Section 5:
Carr v. First Commonwealth Bank, — A.3d –, 2025 WL 912542 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2025), per Kunselman, J., the Superior Court held that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to grant nunc pro tunc relief allowing an untimely appeal from a common-law arbitration award because it violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s separation of powers by exceeding the jurisdictional boundaries set by the legislature. The Court held that Article V, Section 5 of the Constitution gives the legislature, not the judiciary, the authority to limit the jurisdiction of the courts and the statute clearly imposes a 30-day deadline to appeal arbitration awards. The court held that once that deadline expired, the trial court lost jurisdiction and could not revive it, even for equitable reasons like personal tragedy.