The federal lawsuit seeks class action status to represent other Pennsylvania businesses and individuals "whose property and jobs were seized without compensation."

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A Montgomery County handbell manufacturer is the latest employer to file a legal challenge against Gov. Tom Wolf’s order that all nonessential businesses close as part of aggressive mitigation efforts to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Schulmerich Bells LLC, in Hatfield, which describes itself as the world’s largest handbell producer, filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, alleging the governor’s March 20 closure order is tantamount to an unconstitutional taking of private property and without just compensation.

The suit names Wolf and Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine as defendants. The suit also seeks class action status to represent other businesses and individuals "whose property and jobs were seized without compensation."

"Under threat of criminal penalties, denial of access to disaster funding and monetary fines, Governor Wolf shut our doors," Schulmerich chairman and owner Jonathan Goldstein said in a press release. "He denied us access to our equipment, our inventory, our tools and our real estate."

In a phone interview Friday, Goldstein said the closure order is hitting him right at the start of the critical repair season, which starts in March and ends in September, and represents a "substantial" portion of the company’s annual earnings.

He added he also has suppliers who need to be paid for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in parts he ordered in anticipation of the seasonal repair work.

The shutdown forced him to lay off nine employees, though at least four are now working in other businesses he owns that are allowed to operate as "essential," under the governor’s order.

The bell manufacturer is the only one of his businesses affected by the nonessential business closure order, said Goldstein, who is also an attorney in private practice and filed the lawsuit himself.

Goldstein said the suit does not challenge the governor’s ability to take aggressive action in the face of the mounting public health crisis that the coronavirus has become. Rather, he argues the way the governor did it is what violates his civil rights and those of his employees.

In his suit, Goldstein alleges the governor executed a "categorical regulatory taking" of Schulmerich’s property and its employees’ wages and right to earn a living, in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Additionally, Goldstein argues in the suit that the nonessential business shutdown order essentially is taking private property without paying for it.

"If you think you need to close a bunch of businesses that is fine, but much like if you took my house and leveled it to save the city, you can’t come back and say, ’Sorry, good luck,’" Goldstein said. "My business and their jobs have been seized, leveled in much the same way as that house."

Wolf’s press secretary declined comment Friday, saying that the governor has not been served with the suit.

Both Wolf and Levine have repeatedly emphasized closing the physical locations of nonessential businesses as part of dramatic social-distancing strategies necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19, which will buy time for hospitals and health systems to prepare and avoid a surge in seriously ill patients that will overwhelm them before critical infrastructure is in place.

Since issuing his unprecedented mandatory shutdown order for nonessential or "non-life sustaining" businesses on March 20, the Wolf administration has beaten back at least two court challenges of his authority to issue and enforce the orders.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed a suit filed by gun rights advocates challenging Wolf’s authority to close gun stores after the governor modified his order to allow some sales. It also denied as moot a challenge ordering the closure of attorney offices after the governor modified his order to allow lawyers to work in their own offices.