PENNSYLVANIA - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

See encyclopedia: Medical Device Product Liability -- Design Defect, Preemption, and the Riegel Decision →

PENNSYLVANIAAuthored

The Law Mind • 683 words

Definition

Pennsylvania is one of the thirteen original states of the United States of America, admitted to the Union upon ratification of the Constitution on December 12, 1787, making it the second state to ratify. It is a commonwealth by formal designation, a distinction shared with Virginia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts. In legal contexts, "Pennsylvania" refers to the sovereign state and its government as a party to litigation, a source of positive law, a constitutional actor, and a jurisdictional framework within which rights, duties, and obligations are determined under state law.

Why It Matters in Research

Pennsylvania presents several research challenges that are easy to underestimate.

First, the commonwealth designation matters procedurally. Pennsylvania styles its criminal and many civil actions as "Commonwealth v. [Defendant]" rather than "State v. [Defendant]." Researchers searching case law databases using state-party conventions from other jurisdictions will miss Pennsylvania cases if they search only "State v." formulations.

Second, Pennsylvania's legal history is unusually layered. The original proprietorship under William Penn established a legal culture drawing heavily from English equity and Quaker principles of conscience. This produced early Pennsylvania jurisprudence that diverges noticeably from contemporaneous common law practice in other colonies. Researchers in colonial-era or early-republic legal history should not assume Pennsylvania sources map cleanly onto general common law frameworks of the period.

Third, Pennsylvania courts maintained a distinct equity tradition longer than many states before merging law and equity. Historical Pennsylvania cases may require understanding the procedural divide between common pleas courts and equity courts to interpret correctly.

Fourth, Pennsylvania's constitution has been revised multiple times (1776, 1790, 1838, 1874, 1968), and each version substantially altered the structure of courts, rights provisions, and governmental authority. A constitutional provision cited in a nineteenth-century Pennsylvania case may derive from a constitutional text no longer in force and with no direct successor provision in the current 1968 constitution. Dating the operative constitutional text is essential.

Fifth, Pennsylvania's intermediate appellate structure — including the Commonwealth Court, which handles cases involving governmental entities — is unusual nationally. A case against a state agency goes to Commonwealth Court, not Superior Court. Researchers unfamiliar with this division may look in the wrong court's reports.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's entry on Pennsylvania is brief and largely historical, tracing the province's origin to the royal charter of March 4, 1681, granted by Charles II to William Penn, which constituted Penn as proprietary and governor with authority to enact laws with the consent of the freemen, execute laws, appoint judges, and incorporate towns. Bouvier does not extend the entry into substantive state law treatment — it functions as an identifier entry rather than a doctrinal one.

The Bouvier entry reflects the standard nineteenth-century legal dictionary approach to state entries: establish origin, sovereignty lineage, and governmental structure, then leave substantive law to topical entries. Researchers should not expect Bouvier's Pennsylvania entry to address the state's distinctive legal doctrines; those are scattered across topical entries throughout the dictionary.

What Bouvier omits is significant: no mention of Pennsylvania's repeated constitutional revisions, its equity court tradition, its civil law influences in certain domains, or its commonwealth designation and its procedural consequences. These gaps are consistent across historical dictionaries of the era and reflect an assumption that state-specific law was the province of state practice manuals, not general legal dictionaries.

Jurisdictional Note

Pennsylvania courts interpret the Pennsylvania Constitution independently of federal constitutional doctrine in some rights areas, and the state Supreme Court has on occasion afforded broader protections under the state constitution than the federal floor. Researchers should not assume that a federal constitutional ruling forecloses a Pennsylvania state constitutional claim. The Commonwealth Court's jurisdiction over government-party matters also means that Pennsylvania appellate authority is divided in ways that require careful attention to which court issued a given opinion.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Pennsylvania; Colonial Charters and Proprietary Grants; Original Thirteen States; Commonwealth Courts.

PENNSYLVANIAmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

One of the thir- teen original states of the United States of America. It received its name from a royal charter granted March 4, 1681, by Charles II. to William Penni. By that charter, Penn was constituted the proprietary and governor of the province, and vested with power to enact laws, with the consent of the freemen, to execute the laws, to appoint judges and other offi- cers, incorporate towns, establish ports, levy cus- toms, import and export goods, sell lands creating a tenure, levy troops, make war, and exercise other attributes of sovereign power. Appeals in judicial matters lay to the crown, and all laws could be annulled by the Crown within five years after their passage. The first frame of government was adopted and promulgated on April 25, 1682. The government was to be by the governor and freemen in a provin- cial council and general assembly. Both of the latter were chosen annually by the people. All laws were to originate with the council. A gover- nor, judges, and other officers were to be appointed, during good behavior, by the governor from a double list presented by the council or assembly. On April 2, 1683, a new frame was adopted, reduc- ing the numbers both of the council and assembly. In 1693 the proprietary was deprived of his govern- ment and the province placed under the govern- ment of New York. But in 1694 Penn was duly rein- stated. A new frame of government adopted on October 26, 1696, made some material alterations in the exist- ing order of things. The power of originating laws was thereby first conferred on the assembly. The charter of privileges granted by the proprie- tary and accepted by the assembly on October 28, 1701, confirming the foregoing provisions and mak- ing numerous others, continued the supreme law of the province during the residue of the proprietary government. In 1776, after the declaration of American inde- pendence, a constitution was formed adapted to the altered circumstances of the country, which con- tinued in force until 1790, when a new one was sub- stituted. This was amended in 1837 by the intro- duction of some very radical changes. Other amendments were made in 1850, in 1857, and in 1864. In 1874 a new constitution was adopted.

Pennsylvanianame

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A state of the United States. Capital: Harrisburg. Largest city: Philadelphia. | A former colony of England, from 1681 to 1707, and of Great Britain, from 1707 to 1776, which grew progressively larger before becoming the present state. | The first, and historically largest, now defunct US railroad, a hallmark of the industrial age. | An unincorporated community in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. | A suburb of Exeter, Devon, England (OS grid ref SX9294). | A hamlet in Cold Ashton parish, South Gloucestershire district, Gloucestershire, England (OS grid ref ST7473).

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In