[J-25-2025]
                     IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
                                WESTERN DISTRICT

TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY, JJ.


     NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYERS               :   No. 20 WAP 2024
     ASSOCIATION, MAJOR LEAGUE                    :
     BASEBALL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION,                :   Appeal from the Order of the
     NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE                     :   Commonwealth Court entered
     PLAYERS ASSOCIATION, JEFFERY B.              :   January 10, 2024, at No. 1150 CD
     FRANCOEUR, KYLE C. PALMIERI, AND             :   2022, Affirming the Order of the
     SCOTT WILSON,                                :   Court of Common Pleas of
                                                  :   Allegheny County entered
                       Appellees                  :   September 21, 2022, at No. GD-19-
                                                  :   015542.
                                                  :
                v.                                :   ARGUED: April 10, 2025
                                                  :
                                                  :
     CITY OF PITTSBURGH,                          :
                                                  :
                       Appellant                  :

OPINION

 JUSTICE WECHT                                          DECIDED: SEPTEMBER 25, 2025
         Since 2005, the City of Pittsburgh has collected a three percent tax on income that

 non-Pittsburgh residents earn while performing at one of the City’s publicly funded sports

 stadiums.    The courts below held that this so-called “jock tax” unconstitutionally

 discriminates against nonresidents in violation of the Uniformity Clause of the

 Pennsylvania Constitution.1 We agree.




 1     PA. CONST. art. VIII, § 1 (“All taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of
 subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax.”).
       Under the Local Tax Enabling Act (“LTEA”), a second-class city with a publicly

funded sports stadium or arena “may enact a publicly funded facility usage fee upon those

nonresident individuals who use such facility to engage in an athletic event or otherwise

render a performance for which they receive remuneration.”2 Under this enabling statue,

a second-class city can set the facility fee at a defined, flat-dollar amount, or it can tax a

percentage (up to three percent) of the income earned at the publicly funded stadium.3

       By ordinance, and as authorized by the LTEA, the City of Pittsburgh enacted a

Nonresident Sports Facility Usage Fee (the “facility fee”) of three percent on all income

earned while performing at any of Pittsburgh’s three publicly funded sports venues.4 One

might assume that the facility fee exists to offset public funds that the City spent to

construct the stadiums, but that is not the case. The General Assembly amended the

LTEA to allow for the imposition of a facility fee in the early 2000s because the City of

Pittsburgh was experiencing severe financial distress and needed to raise additional




2      53 P.S. § 6924.304. Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s only second-class city. See 11
Pa.C.S. § 201 (defining “cities of the second class” to mean those with “a population of at
least 250,000 inhabitants but less than 1,000,000 inhabitants”).
3      Id.
4    PITTSBURGH CODE OF ORDINANCES § 271.02. The three venues in question are
PNC Park, Acrisure Stadium, and the PPG Paints Arena, which host events for Major
League Baseball (“MLB”), the National Football League (“NFL”), and the National Hockey
League (“NHL”), as well as concerts and other performances.


                                       [J-25-2025] - 2
revenue.5 And while the three venues in question were built, at least partially, using public

funds, none of those funds came from the City.6

       The City’s ordinance imposing the facility fee states that the fee applies to “each

nonresident who uses a publicly funded facility to engage in an athletic event or otherwise

render a performance for which [] such nonresident receives remuneration.”7 The City’s

ordinance and the LTEA both provide that nonresident performers who are subject to the

facility fee shall be exempt from the City’s generally applicable one-percent earned

income tax.8 The LTEA also stipulates that, in the event that the enabling legislation is

ruled unconstitutional, nonresidents will no longer be exempt from the City’s earned

income tax.9 Meanwhile, Pittsburgh residents are not subject to the facility fee. Instead,




5      As Appellees explain in their brief, the City in 2003 was granted distressed
municipality status under the Municipalities Financial Recovery Act. Among other things,
that designation permitted the City (with court approval) to temporarily increase its earned
income tax rate above what is ordinarily allowed by law. Such an imposition, however,
was politically unpopular. In order to avoid increasing taxes on all Pittsburgh workers, the
General Assembly amended the LTEA to allow the City instead to impose an entirely new
tax: a “facility fee” of up to three percent on nonresident performers and entertainers.
See Brief for Appellees at 4-10 (detailing the origins and legislative history of the facility
fee).
6       See Regional Destination Financing Plan, SPORTS & EXHIB. AUTH.,
https://www.pgh-sea.com/index.php?path=about-sea-plan (“No City or County funds
were used to pay for these projects.”).
7      PITTSBURGH CODE OF ORDINANCES § 271.02.
8      Id. § 271.06; 53 P.S. § 6924.304.
9      53 P.S. § 6924.304 (“Should a court of competent jurisdiction determine this
provision to be invalid for any reason, persons subject to the publicly funded facility usage
fee shall not be exempt from any previously applicable earned income tax.”).


                                       [J-25-2025] - 3
they are subject to the City’s one percent earned income tax, plus a two-percent school

district tax.10

        The plaintiffs in this case (collectively, “the Athletes”) consist of: (1) active and

retired professional athletes who, as nonresidents of Pittsburgh, were subject to the City’s

facility fee while working at one of Pittsburgh’s publicly funded stadiums; and (2) unions

that represent the interests of professional athletes in the NHL, MLB, and NFL. 11 In

November 2019, the Athletes filed an action for declaratory and injunctive relief against

the City of Pittsburgh, challenging the facility fee under various provisions of the United

States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. Relevant to this appeal, the Athletes argued that

the facility fee violates the Uniformity Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution because it

treats nonresident athletes and performers (who pay the 3% facility fee) less favorably

than similarly situated resident athletes and performers (who pay only a 1% earned

income tax). The City, on the other hand, argued that both resident and nonresident

performers pay the same total effective tax rate of three percent, since residents are

additionally subject to a two percent school-district tax that does not apply to

nonresidents.

        The parties filed cross motions for summary judgement on a set of stipulated facts.

The trial court granted the Athletes’ motion for summary judgment, holding that the facility

fee violates the Uniformity Clause. The trial court rejected the City’s argument that the


10    Trial Court Opinion, 9/21/2021, at 7. Nonresidents are not subject to the two-
percent school district tax. The Public School Code of 1949 prohibits the imposition of
school taxes on nonresidents of a school district. 24 P.S. § 6-652.1(a)(4).
11      Pittsburgh’s facility fee is sometimes informally called a “jock tax,” see, e.g., Paul
Williams, Pa. Judge Strikes Down Pittsburgh’s Nonresident ‘Jock Tax,’ LAW360 (Sept. 22,
2022), https://www.law360.com/articles/1533067, but that moniker actually understates
the scope of the tax. While the plaintiffs before us happen to be professional athletes and
their representatives, the facility fee also applies to other types of nonresident entertainers
who “render a performance” at one of the City’s three publicly funded stadiums.


                                       [J-25-2025] - 4
total tax burden on residents and nonresidents is equal because the Pittsburgh School

District tax (which nonresidents do not pay) must be taken into account. The court stated

that the City “cannot find uniformity where a separate entity taxes residents for a separate

purpose.”12 In other words, the trial court considered the relevant question to be whether

the City’s nonresident facility fee is uniform with the City’s (resident) earned income tax,

which, as noted, it is not: “while Pittsburgh athletes pay a 1% tax on their income to the

City, other Pennsylvania athletes pay a 3% tax on their income due to the Facility Fee.”13

Finding “no permissible or rational basis for an unequal application of tax rates across

residents and nonresidents,” the trial court concluded that the facility fee violates the

Uniformity Clause.14

       The Commonwealth Court, sitting en banc, agreed with the trial court that the

facility fee violates the Uniformity Clause.15 Like the trial court, the panel believed that

the two percent school district tax paid by Pittsburgh residents is “not relevant to [the]

analysis” because state law prohibits the Pittsburgh School District from imposing school




12    Trial Court Opinion, 9/21/2021, at 7-8 (Danyluk v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 

 (Pa. 1962)).
13     Id. at 8.
14     Id. The City urged the trial court to save the facility fee by severing the word
“nonresident” from the ordinance, thus making the three percent facility fee applicable to
residents and nonresidents alike. The trial court declined this invitation, noting that the
LTEA allows the City to impose the facility fee only on “nonresident individuals.” See 53
P.S. § 6924.304 (authorizing the City of Pittsburgh to impose a facility fee on “nonresident
individuals who use such facility to engage in an athletic event or otherwise render a
performance for which they receive remuneration” (emphasis added)).

15   Nat’l Hockey League Players Ass’n v. City of Pittsburgh, 

 (Pa.
Cmwlth. 2024), appeal granted in part, 

 (Pa. 2024).


                                      [J-25-2025] - 5
taxes on nonresidents in the first place.16 Excluding the school district tax from the

analysis, the panel stated that the City “effectively imposed a 3% [earned income tax

(“EIT”)] on nonresidents who derive income from the City’s Facilities, while imposing a

1% EIT on residents who similarly derive income from the Facilities.”17 Because the City

“failed to provide the requisite concrete justification for treating residents and

nonresidents as distinguishable classes that may be subjected to different tax burdens,”

the panel affirmed the trial court’s decision finding the facility fee to be unconstitutional.18

       President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer authored a dissenting opinion in which she

opined that the facility fee does not violate the Uniformity Clause because, “in substance,

the City has treated residents and nonresidents alike with respect to their respective tax

burdens.”19 Judge Cohn Jubelirer explained that the Uniformity Clause “is primarily

concerned about equality of tax burden among members of a class.”20 Here, Judge Cohn

Jubelirer explained, the facility fee equalizes the tax burden so that both residents and

nonresidents pay three percent on their income attributable to the stadiums.                For

nonresidents, the entire three percent goes to the general fund whereas, for residents,

one percent goes to the general fund and two percent goes to the school district. In Judge

Cohn Jubelirer’s view, however, the “ultimate destination” of tax revenue does not matter




16      

 (“The 2% school tax paid by residents is not relevant to our analysis, as
the [Pittsburgh School] District is prohibited from imposing school taxes on nonresidents,
per Section 652.1(a)(4) of the School Code.”).
17     

18    

 (“Rough uniformity is not achieved where only one class of taxpayers–
nonresidents–is assessed a 2% tax on income derived from its use of the Facilities.”).
19     

 (Cohn Jubelirer, P.J., dissenting).
20     

 (Cohn Jubelirer, P.J., dissenting).


                                       [J-25-2025] - 6
under the Uniformity Clause so long as the “overall burden” on resident and nonresident

the taxpayers remains the same.21

       The City of Pittsburgh filed a petition for allowance of appeal, which we granted to

consider whether the facility fee violates the Uniformity Clause.22 As we have explained

in the past, the Uniformity Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution requires that every tax

“operate alike on the classes of things or property subject to it.”23 “While reasonable and

practical classifications in tax legislation are justifiable and often permissible, when a

method or formula for computing a tax will, in its operation or effect, produce arbitrary,

unjust, or unreasonably discriminatory results, the uniformity requirement is violated.”24

       The General Assembly nevertheless possesses wide discretion in matters of

taxation, and we must resolve any doubts as to the constitutionality of a particular tax in

favor of upholding it.25 We have stressed that the uniformity clause does not mandate

absolute equality or perfect uniformity in taxation.26 Rather, when faced with a challenge

to the validity of a tax classification, we ask whether the classification is based upon some

legitimate distinction between the classes such that it provides a non-arbitrary,

“reasonable and just” basis for the disparate treatment.27 In other words, we must

determine whether there exists “some concrete justification” for treating the relevant

21     

 (Cohn Jubelirer, P.J., dissenting).
22     Although we granted review of the Uniformity Clause issue, we declined to take up
the issue of whether the lower courts erred in striking the entire ordinance rather than
selectively severing it.
23     Commonwealth v. Overholt & Co., 

 (Pa. 1938).
24     Clifton v. Allegheny Cty., 

 (Pa. 2009).
25     Aldine Apartments v. Commonwealth, 

 (Pa. 1981); Leonard
v. Thornburgh, 

 (Pa. 1985).
26     Columbia Gas Corp. v. Commonwealth, 

 (Pa. 1976).
27     Aldine Apartments, 

.


                                      [J-25-2025] - 7
taxpayers as members of distinguishable classes.28 Absent such a legitimate distinction,

the imposition of unequal tax burdens upon similarly situated taxpayers is

unconstitutional.29

       Here, the City does not provide concrete reasons that would justify taxing

nonresident athletes and entertainers more than resident athletes and entertainers.

Instead, the City once again argues that the facility fee “does not impose an unequal tax

burden on nonresidents” because it actually equalizes the tax burdens of resident and

nonresident performers.30     Residents who perform at the stadiums are taxed three

percent of what they earn (one percent to the City and two percent to the School District),

and now—because of the facility fee—nonresidents also pay a three percent tax. The

City maintains that a tax which equalizes the burdens between two groups of taxpayers

cannot violate the Uniformity Clause.31

       Relevant to the City’s argument is Minich v. City of Sharon,32 which the City

believes controls the outcome of this case. Minich concerned an earned income tax of

ten mills that the City of Sharon imposed on both residents and nonresidents. In addition

to Sharon’s earned income tax, Sharon residents also had to pay an income tax of five

mills to the Sharon School District. Because state law at the time required that political

subdivisions credit their residents for “any other like tax” imposed by a separate taxing



28     Columbia Gas Corp., 

.
29     Amidon v. Kane, 

 (Pa. 1971).
30     Brief for 

.
31    Id. at 23 (“Because there is no ‘substantially unequal tax burden’ among the
taxpayers subject to the Facility Fee—regardless of any purported classifications—the
tax does not violate the Uniformity Clause.” (quoting Mount Airy #1, LLC v. Pa. Dep’t of
Revenue, 

 (Pa. 2016)).
32     

 (Pa. 1951).


                                       [J-25-2025] - 8
authority, Sharon residents who paid Sharon School District taxes were able to reduce

their ten mill City income tax burden to five mills.

       Nonresident taxpayers of the City of Sharon challenged this taxing scheme under

the Uniformity Clause, arguing that, because their own communities did not impose an

income tax—either at the city or school district level—they were unable to claim a credit

on their Sharon earned income tax. The taxpayers claimed that this state of affairs

violated the Uniformity Clause because taxpayers were being treated differently

depending upon where they lived, since the City of Sharon collected the full ten mills from

nonresidents while collecting only five mills from Sharon residents.

       We rejected the challengers’ argument, noting that the Sharon tax scheme’s

system of credits was neutral, as is required by the Uniformity Clause, because both

Sharon residents and nonresidents were entitled to a credit for taxes paid on the same

wages to a different political subdivision.33 The challengers received no credit because

their communities lacked an income tax, not because the Sharon scheme discriminated

against nonresidents.

       The City claims that Minich controls this case. According to the City, Minich applied

a “functional,” “rough uniformity” standard to uphold “an income tax scheme that was

closely analogous to Pittsburgh’s facility fee.”34 In the City’s telling, Minich embraced a

relaxed Uniformity Clause analysis that focuses on “the equality of the overall tax burden



33     

 (“If the residents of the School District of the City of Sharon were, instead,
residents of the Borough of Mercer, Greenville or Grove City, as these plaintiffs are, and
they were there taxed 5 mills on the wages earned by them in the City of Sharon, they
would be entitled to the same allowance in that amount as that now credited them by
reason of the tax imposed upon them by the School District of the City of Sharon. There
is therefore no such classification between residents and non-residents of the City of
Sharon as plaintiffs envisage.”).
34     Brief for the 

.


                                       [J-25-2025] - 9
on similarly situated taxpayers.”35 According to the City, this means that, “as long as

similarly situated taxpayers bear the same ‘entire burden,’ the Uniformity Clause is

satisfied.”36 The City stresses that, “under this functional analysis, it did not matter [in

Minich] that multiple taxing entities were involved.”37

       The City’s interpretation of Minich is unpersuasive. We upheld the challenged tax

scheme in Minich because we concluded that it did not treat residents and nonresidents

differently.38 The challengers in Minich lived in school districts that did not impose income

taxes, and their objection was that people who lived in the Sharon School District (and

therefore paid Sharon School District taxes) could get a credit on their Sharon city taxes.

The Uniformity Clause challenge in Minich failed because: (1) the Sharon tax scheme

did not actually discriminate based upon residency; and (2) ”[a]llowing a credit against the

payment of a tax for taxes paid to some other governmental authority is not a violation of

the constitutional requirement of uniformity.”39 The challengers in Minich, in other words,

took issue with how the City of Sharon’s uniform tax scheme interacted with the uniform

tax schemes of the challengers’ own local taxing authorities.

       We agree with the Athletes that Minich does not guide us here, and that the City’s

attempt to cast Minich as some sort of watershed Uniformity Clause decision is




35     Id. at 18-19.
36     Id. at 19.
37     

38    Minich, 

 (“There is . . . no such classification between residents and
non-residents of the City of Sharon as plaintiffs envisage.”).
39     

                                      [J-25-2025] - 10
unpersuasive.40 Minich did not embrace a “functional analysis”41 that permits taxing

authorities to manufacture uniformity by aggregating distinct taxes—imposed upon

distinct classes—into an “overall tax” that is roughly equal. Instead, the Minich Court

applied established Uniformity Clause principles and reached the conclusion that a

facially neutral tax and a facially neutral system of credits (available to both residents and

nonresidents alike) did not violate the Uniformity Clause. Simply put, Minich did not

embrace any of the broad legal principles that the City attempts to read into the decision.42

And it certainly did not “align Pennsylvania’s Uniformity [Clause] jurisprudence with the

national mainstream on uniformity of taxation.”43



40      Brief for Appellees at 34 (stating that “there was nothing revolutionary about
Minich’s holding”); id. at 31-32 (“Minich broke no new ground [and] introduced no new
‘principles.’ It also did not herald a new ‘functional’ analysis under the Uniformity Clause,
or permit aggregating disparate taxes into an ‘overall tax burden.’ Instead, Minich applied
the usual constitutional standards to conclude that a scheme of facially neutral taxes and
facially neutral tax credits, available to residents and nonresidents alike, did not violate
the Uniformity Clause.”).
41      Brief for the 

. As we have explained in prior cases, our
Uniformity Clause is “only sometimes in alignment” with the standards applicable to the
Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Mount Airy #1, LLC, 

(“[W]e have struck down numerous tax statutes that unquestionably would survive the
highly deferential rational basis review attendant to a federal Equal Protection
challenge.”); see, e.g., Downingtown Area Sch. Dist. v. Chester Cnty. Bd. of Assessment
Appeals, 

, 201 n.9 (Pa. 2006) (holding that, unlike the Uniformity Clause,
“the United States Constitution does not require equalization across all potential sub-
classifications of real property”); Amidon, 

 (holding that the Internal
Revenue Code’s personal exemptions, deductions, and other tax preferences violated
the Uniformity Clause); Kelley v. Kalodner, 

 (Pa. 1935) (holding that a
graduated-rate income tax violates the Uniformity Clause).
42      See id. at 20 (“Minich also makes clear that Pennsylvania taxes may distinguish
between residents and nonresidents, particularly when the tax equalizes the overall tax
burden among them.”); id. at 22 (“Under Minich and the principles discussed above, the
Facility Fee survives rational-basis review.”); id. at 28 (suggesting that Minich aligned our
Uniformity Clause case law with “national” jurisprudence).
43     Id. at 28.


                                      [J-25-2025] - 11
      We agree with the Athletes that the facility fee is unconstitutional for the same

reason that the tax we struck down in Danyluk v. Bethlehem Steel Co.44 was

unconstitutional. Danyluk involved a $10 “occupational tax” that the City of Johnstown

imposed upon nonresidents who engaged in an occupation within the city. Johnstown

residents were not subject to the occupational tax, although they did pay a $10 per capita

tax that nonresidents did not have to pay. Nonresidents challenged the occupational tax

on Uniformity Clause grounds, arguing that the tax unconstitutionally singled out

nonresidents.

      The Danyluk Court ultimately ruled the tax unconstitutional, although the extent to

which the Court’s holding rested on Uniformity Clause grounds is debated. Two thirds of

the Danyluk Court’s analysis are dedicated to establishing that the City of Johnstown’s

“occupational tax” was not really an occupational tax at all. The Court instead deemed

the tax a per capita (or “capitation”) tax, which it said cities cannot impose upon

nonresidents. Specifically, the Court stated that the challenged tax:

      bears none of the incidents of an occupation tax[,] which is a flat rate levy
      measured by the assessed value of a man’s occupation. Consequently, in
      a true occupation tax the amount of the levy varies with the assessed value
      of a particular mode of employment. Here, no distinctions among
      occupations are made, a fixed ten dollar levy falling upon all non-residents.
      Consequently, per capita, capitation[,] or head taxes can be imposed only
      upon residents of the particular political subdivision since residence alone
      furnishes the contact necessary to render a person amenable to the direct
      levy.

      Capitation or poll taxes are taxes of a fixed amount upon all persons, or
      upon all the persons of a certain class, within the jurisdiction of the taxing
      power, without regard to the amount of their property or the occupations or
      business in which they may be engaged. The tax is imposed because of
      the protection which a governmental unit affords to persons residing therein,
      and is designed primarily to require contribution from all residents for the
      services rendered them by the taxing authority. Consequently, per capita,

44    

 (Pa. 1962).


                                    [J-25-2025] - 12
        capitation or head taxes can be imposed only upon residents of the
        particular political subdivision since residence alone furnishes the contact
        necessary to render a person amenable to the direct levy.45

        The Danyluk Court perhaps could have ended its analysis there; if Johnstown’s

tax was a per capita tax on nonresidents—and if cities cannot impose per capita taxes on

nonresidents—then there is nothing more to be said. But the Court went on to explain

that:

        Residence cannot be made the basis of discrimination in taxation of persons
        engaged in the same occupation or profession. To permit such distinction
        would be contrary to the well-established principle that the test of the validity
        of a classification is whether it produces diversity in results or lack of
        uniformity in its operation either on the given subject of tax or the persons
        affected as payers. Biddle Appeal, 

 (Pa. 1957). Here the basis
        of the classification is unreasonable and is violative of [the Uniformity
        Clause] of the Pennsylvania Constitution.46

        This Court has suggested that Danyluk’s Uniformity Clause analysis was

“dictum.”47   While that is one possible interpretation of an admittedly hard-to-parse

decision, it would be a mistake to write Danyluk out of our Uniformity Clause jurisprudence

entirely.48   The Danyluk Court correctly recognized that the City of Johnstown was

attempting to impose a discriminatory tax on nonresidents, which it justified by pointing to

a tax on residents that, by its very nature, did not apply to nonresidents. Danyluk, in other

45      Id. at 610.
46      Id. at 610-11.
47      Leonard, 

 (describing Danyluk as holding that a capitation tax
on non-residents is “unauthorized and invalid, with dictum indicating that an occupation
tax levied only against non-residents would violate constitutional uniformity standards”);
accord Brief for 

 (“Any reference in Danyluk to the residency
distinction violating the Uniformity Clause was dicta[.]”).
48     We note that the only issue raised in Danyluk was a Uniformity Clause challenge,
and the Danyluk Court’s bottom-line conclusion was that “[t]he present tax . . . violates
the provisions of the uniformity provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution and must be
invalidated.” Danyluk, 

. This suggests that Danyluk’s Uniformity Clause
analysis was essential to the Court’s holding and not mere dictum.


                                       [J-25-2025] - 13
words, correctly held that a per capita tax that could only be imposed upon residents could

not be used to justify a disuniform occupational tax on nonresidents. Danyluk should be

understood for the proposition that a city cannot use a tax which, of necessity, only applies

to residents to cover up the discriminatory effect of a separate, disuniform tax on

nonresidents.    In such circumstances, it cannot be said that the disuniform tax on

nonresidents is necessary “to equalize tax treatment between classes”49 because no

underlying disuniformity exists in the first place.

       Because the two percent Pittsburgh School District tax cannot be used to justify

the facility fee in our Uniformity Clause analysis, and because the City of Pittsburgh has

not supplied a “concrete justification”50 for treating resident athletes and entertainers

differently from nonresident athletes and entertainers, we agree with the lower courts that

the facility fee is unconstitutional.

       We affirm.

       Justices Dougherty, Mundy, Brobson and McCaffery join the opinion.

       Justice Donohue files a concurring opinion in which Chief Justice Todd joins.

       Justice Mundy files a concurring opinion.




49    Brief for 

 (quoting Nat’l Hockey League Players Ass’n, 308
A.3d at 328 (Cohn Jubelirer, P.J., dissenting)).
50     See Leonard, 

 (“[T]the focus of judicial review is upon whether
there can be discerned ‘some concrete justification’ for treating the relevant group of
taxpayers as members of distinguishable classes subject to different tax burdens.”
(quoting Columbia Gas Corp., 

)).


                                        [J-25-2025] - 14