PEARL B. COLLINS, on behalf of herself as an applicant, and on behalf and for the benefit of her six children, appellee, v. STATE BOARD OF SOCIAL WELFARE et al., appellants.
No. 49097.
Supreme Court of Iowa
FEBRUARY 5, 1957.
248 Iowa 369 | 81 N.W.2d 4
So in the case at bar, variоus statutory provisions, already referred to herein, authorize the council to impose upon members of the legal department of a municipality, duties in addition to those fixed by statute. Hence, there is no ground for the argument of appellant upon this point.
The interpretation placed upon the Soldiers Preference Law by decisions of this court requires the conclusion that the position of attorney in a municipal legal department is strictly confidential to the council and hence is within that exception to the Soldiers Preference Law. Hence, appellant was not entitled to such preference. This conclusion makes unnecessary the consideration of other grounds upon which the judgment was based. Affirmed.
All JUSTICES concur.
E. W. McNeil, of Montezuma, and Neill Garrett, of Des Moines, for appellee.
HAYS, J.-Two propositions are presented on this appeal: (1) Constitutionality of
Pearl B. Collins and her husband have six children, ages five to fifteen years. Both parents are physically incapacitated and unable to provide a reasonable subsistence for themselves and their children. For some time prior to July 1, 1955, Pearl Collins had been receiving monthly “Aid to Dependent Children” payments from the State Department of Social Welfare, State of Iowa, in accord with
In the district court, petitioner filed what is termed “Petition on appeal and for a Declaratory Judgment.” Count I asserts the limitation of award is unconstitutional; that the defendants’ action was arbitrary, legally fraudulent and an abuse of discretion. It asks that the State Board be required to pay recipient the sum of $277.89 per month. Count II further alleges that the amendment to
As to Count I, defendants filed, in effect, a genеral denial. As to Count II, they filed a Special Appearance questioning the jurisdiction of the court. This was overruled. An answer was filed and after a hearing the trial court entered a decree declaring the amendment unconstitutional. It retained jurisdiction for such further relief as is appropriate. The defendants have appealed to this court. Only Count II is involved here.
I. The overruling of the Special Appearance is assigned as error.
The defendants are the State Board of Social Welfare, the individual members of said Board, and the Board‘s secretary. The Special Appearance contains six propositions upon which lack of jurisdiction is based, however they all are predicated upon the claim that the action is against defendants in their official capacity; that they are employees of the State, and entitled to immunity from suit, the State never having consented thereto.
Assuming the question properly raised, we find no merit to the claimed error. The law is well settled, and conceded by appellee, that in the absence of specific consent by the State, it or its agencies may not be sued in an action to obtain money from the State or to interfere with its sovereignty or the administration of its affairs through proper agencies. 81 C.J.S.,
The fact that the suit is in the nature of a declaratory judgment does not alter the application of the foregoing rules. 81 C.J.S., States, sections 214 and 216; Offutt Housing Co. v. County of Sarpy, 160 Neb. 320, 70 N.W.2d 382 (1955); Meredith v. Ray, 292 Ky. 326, 166 S.W.2d 437 (1942); Division XI, R.C.P.
II. The assignment of еrror dealing with the constitutionality of the amendment in question presents the real question on appeal.
In 1943 the legislature enacted the “Aid to Dependent Children Act“, chapter 130, Acts 50th G. A. (
Appellee contends said amendment violates
That
In approaching the question it should be stated that as to paupers and indigent persons there is no common-law or constitutional duty resting upon the State to provide support, the obligation being a moral rather than a mandatory one. Thus whatever right appellee may have is purely statutory,
The books are replete with cases dealing with the above constitutional provision, both here and elsewhere. The general rule is that if there is any reasonable ground for the classifiсation and it operates equally upon all within the same class, there is uniformity in the constitutional sense. Knudson v. Linstrum, 233 Iowa 709, 8 N.W.2d 495 (1943); Steinberg-Baum & Co. v. Countryman, 247 Iowa 923, 77 N.W.2d 15 (1956). In Cook v. Hannah, 230 Iowa 249, 252, 297 N.W. 262, 264 (1941), it is said: “If the law operates upon every person within the relation or circumstances provided for in the Act, the requirement of uniformity is met.”
The general rule is well stated in Haynes v. Williams, Lapeer Circuit Judge, 201 Mich. 138, 141, 166 N.W. 938, 940, L.R.A. 1918D 233 (1918), as follows: “It is elementary that legislation which, in carrying out a public purpose for the common good, is limited by reasonable and justifiable differentiation to a distinct type or class of persons is not for that reason unconstitutional because class legislation, if germane to the object of the enactment and made uniform in its operation upon all persons of the class to which it nаturally applies; but if it fails to include and affect alike all persons of the same class, and extends immunities or privileges to one portion and denies them to
There is sharp conflict between the parties hereto as to the basic classification of the Act. Appellants contend it is the family; appellee says it is the dependent child.
We think it clear that under the provisions of said chapter the classification adopted by the legislature is the needy child which is diversified from all needy children by limiting it to the needy child who is residing in the home of a relative. It is a proper and reasonable classification. Meredith v. Ray, 292 Ky. 326, 166 S.W.2d 437 (1942).
Under the record it appears that the State Board in the administration of the Act and to insure a uniform statewide program for aid to dependent children (
The amendment on its face appears to be, and was, we think, intended as an economy measure. In effect it is a subclassification of the original classification, i.e., dependent children, based solely upon the number of children in the home, with no consideration as to need, a circumstance completely disconnected with the basic classification and the purpose and reason therefor. See Keefner v. Porter, 228 Iowa 844, 293 N.W. 501 (1940). We think the amendment is clearly discriminatory between dependent children as defined in
We are aware of the presumptions that are indulged in; the burden a petitioner must assume; and the rule that all reasonable grounds upon which a statute may be held valid must be overcome, which prevail in all questions involving the consti-
The decree of the trial court should be and is affirmed. - Affirmed.
WENNERSTRUM, SMITH, THOMPSON, LARSON, and PETERSON, JJ., concur.
GARFIELD, J., BLISS, C. J., and OLIVER, J., dissent.
GARFIELD, J. (dissenting) - I think the majority opinion disregards fundamental principles of constitutional law and is clearly unsound. No authority has been cited that supports it.
The first sentence of the majority оpinion correctly states: “Two propositions are presented on this appeal: (1) Constitutionality of
Incidentally there is nothing in Code chapter 239, either prior or subsequent to its amendment by the Fifty-sixth General Assembly, which provides that any stated sum shall be paid as aid to dependent children. The amount of assistance is to be fixed on the basis of actual need by the county board, subject tо approval of the state department, “with due regard to the necessary expenditures of the family and the conditions existing in each case” (
Chapter 6, Acts 56th General Assembly, is an appropriation
All presumptions are in favor of the constitutionality of chapter 239 as amended by the Fifty-sixth General Assembly. We have pointed out repeatedly the legislature has power to enact any law it sees fit provided it is not clearly prohibited by some constitutional provision. Within the zone of doubt and fair debate legislation is conclusive upon us. It is plaintiff‘s burden to negative every conceivable basis which may support this Act as amended. It is not our province to pass upon the policy, wisdom, advisability or justice of a statute. Steinberg-Baum & Co. v. Countryman, 247 Iowa 923, 929, 77 N.W.2d 15, 18 (1956), and citations (cited by the majority).
We should be particularly slow to hold a law invalid which limits the amount of public money that may be expended for a certain purpose. We have said that in the application of revenues the legislative conscience will not be interfered with by the courts and the legislature has plenary power as to public revenues. McSurely v. McGrew, 140 Iowa 163, 169, 170, 118 N.W. 415, 132 Am. St. Rep. 248 (1908). It appears the limitation chapter 6, Acts 56th General Assembly, places upon the amount payable to any family probably will reduce the total sum for such assistance in Iowa by more than a half million dollars annually.
The majority concedes “there is no common-law or constitutional duty resting upon the State to provide support” to indigent persons and “It is a right which may be *** diminished, conditioned or abrogatеd by the legislature * * *”
Courts that have considered the matter seem to hold uniformly there is no vested or constitutional right to relief or public assistance under existing statutes. The right is purely
Michel v. State Board of Social Welfare, 245 Iowa 961, 963, 964, 65 N.W.2d 89, 90 (1954), cited by the majority, points out the duty of public authorities to support needy persons “rests entirely on statute” and adds “it must be equally true that where the state * * * has assumed the duty of support, it may be limited by statute.” Nothing in the Michel opinion says the conditions under which support is furnished must be reasonable and nondiscriminatory as the majority asserts.
16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, section 245, page 1227 (published 1956), states: “Relief or public assistance is not a vested property right held by any person or group of persons. An unemployed workman has no vested right to benefits under existing statutes.” Decisions that support the quoted text include Sweeney v. State Board of Public Assistance, 36 F. Supp. 171, 174 (M.D. Pa. 1940), aff‘d, 119 F.2d 1023 (3d Cir. 1941), certiorari denied, 314 U.S. 611, 62 S. Ct. 74, 86 L. Ed. 491 (1941); Newland v. Child, 73 Idaho 530, 254 P.2d 1066, 1070 (1953), cited by the majority. See also Division of Aid v. Hogan, 143 Ohio St. 186, 54 N.E.2d 781, 782 (1944).
The Sweeney case, supra, rejects plaintiffs’ contention their rights under the
Volume 16A C.J.S., Constitutional Law, section 502, page 299 (also published 1956), squarely supports this dissent by stating “discrimination in the grant of mere favors is not a denial of equal protection.” This is the holding of Schlesinger v. City of Atlanta, 161 Ga. 148, 162, 129 S.E. 861, 868 (1925), and Bunn v. City of Atlanta, 67 Ga. App. 147, 19 S.E.2d 553, 554 (1942), certiorari denied, 317 U.S. 666, 63 S. Ct. 73, 87 L. Ed. 535 (1942). The Schlesinger opinion says, “The due-process аnd equal-protection clauses of our Federal and State Constitutions are applicable to rights alone, and have no reference to mere privileges which may be bestowed or withheld by the State or municipality. The individual cannot complain of discrimination in the grant of favors.”
We have repeatedly held the effect of
Plaintiff‘s right to public aid is surely no greater than the right of a pensioner or a retired worker to retirement payments. Decisions of this court and a majority of others hold prospective rights to such payments are not vested or contract rights which may not be adversely affected by subsequent legislation. Nelson v. Board of Directors, 246 Iowa 1079, 1084-5, 70 N.W.2d 555, 558, 559 (1955), and citations. The Nelson decision upholds, as against claimants whose rights were prospective only, the abolition of a local retirement system for schoolteachers and the substitution therefor of the Federal Social Security System.
Annotations on this subject are found in 54 A.L.R. 943, 98 A.L.R. 505, 112 A.L.R. 1009, 137 A.L.R. 249. They cite numerous decisions for the “unquestioned rule” that a gratuitous pension granted by the public authorities is not a contractual obligation in the continuance of which the pensioner has a vested right and the pension is accordingly terminable at will.
Talbott v. Independent School District, 230 Iowa 949, 963, 299 N.W. 556, 563, 137 A.L.R. 234 (1941), is a leading case which involved a school retirement system. Although we held the retirement payments there were not mere pensions or gratuities
Many precedents are cited and quoted from in our Talbott opinion. Among them is Phelps v. State Board of Education, 115 N.J.L. 310, 313, 180 A. 220, 222 (1935), affirmed, 300 U.S. 319, 57 S. Ct. 483, 81 L. Ed. 674 (1937), involving the reduction of teachers’ salaries. A law enacted in 1909 provided that teachers’ salaries should not be reduced except for certain causes after charges and trial. In 1933 the legislature passed an economic emergency act under whiсh teachers’ salaries were reduced without compliance with the earlier law. The quotation from the Phelps case in the Talbott opinion includes the following (page 969 of 230 Iowa, page 566 of 299 N.W.): “That [Act of 1909] established a legislative status for teachers, but we fail to see that it established a contractual one that the Legislature may not modify. * * * The status of tenure teachers, while in one sense perhaps contractual, is in essence dependent on a statute, like that of the incumbent of a statutory office, which the Legislature at will may abolish, or whose emoluments it may change.”
Plaintiff‘s statutory right to aid for her children is no greater than the right of a taxpayer to tax exemption. It is uniformly held such an exemption, unless based on contract, is a mere bounty which may be repealed or limited in amount by a subsequent legislature. Shiner v. Jacobs, 62 Iowa 392, 17 N.W. 613 (1883); Miller v. Hageman, 114 Iowa 195, 86 N.W. 281 (1901); In re Estate of Ragan, 237 Iowa 619, 623, 23 N.W.2d 521, 523 (1946) (“The homestead exemption *** is a statutory privilege depending upon the will of the state.“); annotation 173 A.L.R. 15, 83.
Kemp v. Day & Zimmerman, 239 Iowa 829, 861, 33 N.W.2d 569, 586 (1948), was an action to recover overtime pay under the Fair
Our Kemp opinion is replete with citations from other jurisdictions, and quotations from them, which sustain the above views. See especially National Carloading Corp. v. Phoenix-El Paso Express, Inc., 142 Tex. 141, 150, 151, 176 S.W.2d 564, 569, 570, 178 S.W.2d 133 (1943), certiorari denied, 322 U.S. 747, 64 S. Ct. 1156, 88 L. Ed. 1578 (1944). Many other decisions in line with
See also Leach v. Commercial Savings Bank, 205 Iowa 1154, 1165, 213 N.W. 517, 521 (1927), which rejects the contention that appellants had a vested right to be subrogated to an existing statutory preference against the receiver of a closed bank of which they could not be deprived “by subsequent legislation without doing violence to well-established constitutional provisions.” We quote this with approval from Sutherland on Statutory Construction, section 164: “If, before rights become vested in particular individuals, the convenience of the state induces amendment or repeal of the laws, these individuals have no cause to complain.”
In State ex rel. Folsom v. New Orleans, 109 U.S. 285, 287, 289, 3 S. Ct. 211, 212, 27 L. Ed. 936, 937, 938 (1883), relators held judgments against the city for damages caused by a mob. Subsequently the city‘s power to levy taxes was so limited as to render the judgments uncollectible. It was held this limitation did not impair the obligation of contracts or deprive relators of property without due process. The opinion states: “The right to reimbursement for damages caused by a mob *** is not founded upon any contract between the city and the sufferers. Its liability for the damages is created by a law of the legislature and can be withdrawn or limited at its pleasure. * * * the relators have no such vested right in the taxing power оf the city as to render its diminution by the State, to a degree affecting the present collection of their judgments, a deprivation of their property in the sense of the constitutional prohibition.”
The precedent last cited is quoted from with approval in Leach v. Commercial Savings Bank, supra, 205 Iowa 1154, 1168-9, 213 N.W. 517, and is cited with approval in Kemp v. Day & Zimmerman, supra, 239 Iowa 829, 862, 33 N.W.2d 569, 587.
Able counsel for plaintiff, who without compensation have pressed her claim with commendable zeal, virtually conceded in oral argument plaintiff could not legally complain if the legislature saw fit to repeal chapter 239 and that her right to any
Counsel for plaintiff further conceded in oral argument that thе legislature could in the first instance have provided for distribution of aid on a family basis with such a limitation as was later added by the Fifty-sixth General Assembly. They contend, however, that because the limitation was added to the law by amendment the amended Act is nonuniform in the constitutional sense. And the majority seems to have accepted this view.
I think this position is entirely unsound. By her claim of unconstitutionality plaintiff has challenged the power of the legislature, not merely the procedure it has followed. If, as seems to be conceded, the lawmakers could in the first instance have limited the distribution of aid to dependent children to $175 per family, there is no constitutional obstacle to accomplishing the same result by way of amendment. This is the effect of our holding in one of our leading precedents in the field of constitutional law - McGuire v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 131 Iowa 340, 378-380, 108 N.W. 902, 915, 33 L.R.A., N.S., 706 (1906).
The McGuire case involved the constitutionality of an amended statute which, as originally passed, provided that any contract with a railway company which limited its liability for negligence of a fellow servant should be void. The railroad then contracted with its employees for the payment to those who should be injured of benefits the acceptance of which would operate as a release of all claims for damages. Two decisions of this court upheld such contracts as not in violаtion of the Act and as barring the recovery of damages thereunder. The legislature subsequently amended the law by providing that no contract for relief should constitute any bar to an action thereunder. The railroad assailed the amended Act on various constitutional grounds including claimed violation of
“The first of these propositions, that a provision which could have been constitutionally embodied in the original act cannot be constitutionally added by amendment, is one for which we can find neither authority nor precedent, and is in our judgment indefensible in principle. Indeed, it would seem that the very statement of the doctrine is its own sufficient refutation. To adopt such a rule is to say that by the creation of any statutory right or liability the state exhausts its constitutional power to legislate upon the subject, save perhaps to repeal the statute. Most assuredly this cannot be correct. * * * In the very nature of governmental and legislative power, the authority to create a statutory liability or right of action implies of necessity the right of amendment. The only conceivable exception to this rule is a case where the original statute is in the nature of a grant or contract, within the rule of the Dartmouth College case. * * * If this be so, by what specious method of reasoning shall we justify ourselves in holding that this constitutional power may not be exercised in amendment, as well as in original legislation? It violates no contract right. It disturbs no vested right. * * * Says the Supreme Court of Wisconsin: ‘No principle of law is better settled than that whatever is given by statute may be taken away by statute, except vested rights acquired under it, and except, also, that the statute must not be in the nature of a contract on part of the Legislature.’ State ex rel. v. Hoeflinger, 31 Wis. 263.”
“If the рower to abolish or to take away a statutory right is an essential attribute of the legislative authority, is not the power to modify or amend equally broad and equally clear? Under the reserve power of the state to regulate and control corporations and to amend charters, it has often been held that whatever regulation or restriction might lawfully have been included in the original charter may be imposed by subsequent legislation. [Citations] For still stronger reasons must we hold that, as respects a statute which contains no grant of franchise or other element of contract, and on which no claim of vested rights can be grounded, the power of amendmеnt is no less broad and universal than is the power to create and repeal.” (Emphasis added.)
“* * * And with respect to subsequent transactions the amendment must be regarded as having the same validity as it would have had if it had formed a part of the earlier enactment. No criticism on the ground of discrimination can successfully be addressed to the amendatory act which would not likewise impeach the statute in its earlier form.”
In our approach to the problem of the validity of the statutory amendment our McGuire opinion very properly observes (at page 345 of 131 Iowa, page 904 of 108 N.W.): “*** unless the contrary intent is clearly indicated, the amended statute is to be construed as if the original statute had been repealed and a new and independent act in the amended form had been adopted.” We have repeatedly applied this familiar rule. State ex rel. Iowa State Board v. Local Board, 225 Iowa 855, 866, 283 N.W. 87 (1938), and citations; Disbrow v. Deering Implement Co., 233 Iowa 380, 387, 9 N.W.2d 378, 382 (1943); Neidermyer v. Neidermyer, 237 Iowa 685, 693, 22 N.W.2d 346, 350 (1946); Chappell v. Board of Directors, 241 Iowa 230, 235, 39 N.W.2d 628, 630 (1949). See also 50 Am. Jur., Statutes, section 468.
See too 82 C.J.S., Statutes, section 384b (1), page 902, which states: “The amendment becomes a part of the original statute as if it had always been contained therein, unless such amendment involves the abrogation of contractual relations between the state and others.”
So here, there can be little doubt the legislature which enacted what is now Code chapter 239 could have included therein the provision later added by way of amendment. Clearly such provision abrogates no contractual or other vested rights. It is also clear the Fifty-sixth General Assembly, without violating any constitutional provision plaintiff invokes, could have repealed chapter 239 as originally enacted and then passed a
I would reverse.
BLISS, C. J., and OLIVER, J., join in this dissent.