Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board Can Be Forced to Pay: Supreme Court Opens Door to Damages Claims

Daniel C. Conlon, dconlon@tuckerlaw.com, (412) 594-3951

When a government agency refuses to follow the law, most businesses assume there’s little they can do beyond waiting, appealing, or absorbing the loss. A recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision changes that calculus in a meaningful way. In MFW Wine Co., LLC v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, No. 75 MAP 2022, 318 A.3d 100 (Pa. July 2, 2024), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) could be held financially accountable because it failed to perform duties required by law. Specifically, the Court confirmed that wine and spirit vendors could pursue mandamus damages under Section 8303 of the Judicial Code (42 Pa.C.S. § 8303). Further, the Court’s decision makes clear that sovereign immunity cannot bar recovery in this case. The legal doctrine, derived from the ancient maxim “the King can do no wrong,” generally shields state government agencies, such as PLCB, from lawsuits.

FACTS OF THE CASE

In 2016, the Pennsylvania legislature adopted Act 39 of 2016, which, among other things, authorized licensed vendors and importers to deliver special orders directly to customers and prohibited the PLCB from charging handling fees on those deliveries. The PLCB’s chairman described Act 39 of 2016 as the most expansive change to Pennsylvania liquor law since the end of Prohibition.

Before Act 39, if a customer wanted a wine or spirit that was not stocked at a PLCB Fine Wine and Good Spirits store, they placed a special order with a licensed importer or vendor. The vendor delivered the product to a PLCB store, and the customer had to travel to the store to pick up and pay the PLCB a per-bottle handling fee for the inconvenience. Act 39 was meant to provide another option to this cumbersome delivery process.

Act 39 set a deadline of June 1, 2017, for the PLCB to implement the new procedure for special order deliveries. This deadline came and went. In August 2017, the PLCB issued a new advisory opinion declaring that it had decided “not to implement a procedure to allow for the direct shipment of special orders” and that, until it chose otherwise, “importers cannot ship directly to consumers.”

In other words, the PLCB unilaterally decided it had discretion over whether to comply with Act 39 at all, not just how to comply. The consequences were manageable so long as PLCB stores stayed open; customers could still pick up their special orders in person. But in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the PLCB to close all its stores. For the first time, there was no lawful way for that wine and spirit to deliver special orders or for retailers to receive them. For example, during this period, plaintiff MFW’s Pennsylvania revenue fell from approximately $67,000 per month to zero.

On April 15, 2020, plaintiff’s MFW, A6, and Bloomsday Café filed a mandamus action in the Commonwealth Court, seeking a court order compelling the PLCB to implement the direct-delivery procedure it had been obligated to create since 2017. The Commonwealth Court granted the writ, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed.  With that victory secured, the vendors returned to court demanding a refund on handling fees they had paid to the PLCB.

The PLCB raised two defenses against the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. It argued that the PLCB was not a “person” who could be sued under Section 8303. The PLCB argued the doctrine of sovereign immunity barred damages regardless.

COURT DECISION

A.      Mandamus  

Mandamus, which translated from Latin means “we command,” is a court order directing a government official or agency to perform a specific, non-discretionary duty imposed by law. Pennsylvania Courts will only issue a writ of mandamus when three conditions are met: the petitioner has a clear legal right to the performance of the duty, the government has a corresponding mandatory obligation to perform it, and there is no other adequate legal remedy available.

This case fits the mandamus mold precisely. Section 305(a) of the Liquor Code did not give the PLCB discretion over whether to create a direct-delivery system. When the PLCB refused to comply, wine vendors had a clear legal right, the PLCB had a clear legal duty, and no other mechanism existed to force the agency’s hand. That is why the Commonwealth Court, in a prior case, issued the writ of mandamus against the PLCB directing it to follow the requirements of Act 39. MFW Wine Co., LLC v. Pa. Liquor Control Board, 231 A.3d 50, 57, 57 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2020). 

The Court focused on a simple but critical question: Does the PLCB count as a “person” under the law that allows damages in a mandamus case? Section 8303 provides:

A person who is adjudged in an action in the nature of mandamus to have failed or refused without lawful justification to perform a duty required by law shall be liable in damages to the person aggrieved by such failure or refusal.

42 Pa.C.S. § 8303.

First, the Court applied the definition of a “person” in Section 1991 of the Statutory Construction Act of 1972 (“SCA”), 1 Pa.C.S. § 1991. Section 1991 expressly includes “a government entity (other than the Commonwealth)” within the definition of “person.” Because the PLCB is an executive-branch agency legally distinct from “the Commonwealth” as a whole, it falls squarely within that definition. The PLCB pointed to Commonwealth v. Runion, 662 A.2d 617 (Pa. 1995), which had stated that Commonwealth agencies were excluded from that definition. The Supreme Court overruled Runion outright: the 1992 amendment to the SCA did not exclude government entities, it added them, while separately carving out the Commonwealth itself.

Second, the PLCB pointed to another case Meyer v. Community College of Beaver County, 93 A.3d 806 (Pa. 2014), to argue that government agencies usually aren’t treated as “persons” in lawsuits. The Court distinguished the Meyer case because it dealt with a different statute that was unclear and ambiguous. In contrast, the Court explained that Act 39 is clear and explicitly includes government entities, so there’s no need to interpret or limit it.

Finally, the court looked at the purpose of mandamus actions. These cases are specifically designed to force government bodies to do what the law requires. Since mandamus almost always targets government actors, the Court explained that it was logical that the law would allow damages to apply against them.

B.       Sovereign Immunity

The PLCB argued that because the Sovereign Immunity Act, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 8521–8528, lists only specific categories of waived immunity—vehicle accidents, dangerous property conditions, medical malpractice, and a handful of others—and mandamus damages are not among them, sovereign immunity must apply by default. The Court rejected this argument decisively.

Tracing Pennsylvania mandamus law to 1836, the Court observed that the ability to recover damages in a successful mandamus action has coexisted with sovereign immunity for more than 140 years without conflict. It placed this history in the context of Mayle v. Pennsylvania Department of Highways, 388 A.2d 709 (Pa. 1978), in which the Supreme Court temporarily abolished sovereign immunity altogether. The legislature responded by enacting the Sovereign Immunity Act in 1980 to restore immunity, but only to the extent it existed before Mayle—not to create new protections beyond the historical baseline.

Because mandamus damages were never barred prior to Mayle, the legislature had no occasion—and gave no indication of any intent—to eliminate them when reinstating sovereign immunity. The Court also noted that the Sovereign Immunity Act’s waiver categories focus on negligence-based torts, which are fundamentally different from mandamus claims arising from an agency’s willful failure or refusal to perform a mandatory statutory duty. Article I, Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which guarantees open courts and a remedy for legal injuries, further supported this conclusion.

PRACTICAL ADVICE

For Pennsylvania wine vendors, hospitality operators, liquor license holders, and any business that interacts with the PLCB or another state agency, this decision matters. If your client’s business paid PLCB handling fees for special-order products after June 1, 2017, or suffered lost profits because the PLCB failed to implement the direct-shipment program, you may want to recommend that your client consult with a Pennsylvania liquor law attorney to evaluate potential claims. The scope of recoverable damages under Section 8303 is not unlimited; damages must flow directly from the agency’s failure to perform its mandatory duty and may not include consequential losses from third-party transactions.

For more information, contact Daniel Conlon at (412) 594-3951 or at dconlon@tuckerlaw.com.

Reprinted with permission from the April 24, 2026, issue of The Legal Intelligencer. © 2026 ALM Media Properties, LLC. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.  All rights reserved.