166 S.W.2d 437 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1942
Affirming.
On this appeal the validity of Chapter 158 of the Acts of the General Assembly of 1940, now KRS
The appellee, Mamie Ray, an infant 14 years of age, resides with her mother in Franklin county. Her father was adjudged a person of unsound mind by the Franklin circuit court in 1937, and was committed to the Eastern State Hospital for the Insane. He is now an inmate of the Central State Hospital for the Insane at Lakeland, Kentucky. Her mother, because of physical infirmities, is unable to support herself and daughter. Application was made to the Department of Welfare of Kentucky for aid under the act providing for aid to dependent children, and the Commissioner of Welfare refused to approve the application because the Attorney General of Kentucky had advised him that there was serious doubt as to the constitutionality of Chapter 158 of the Acts of 1940. Thereupon Mamie Ray, suing by her next friend, Viola Ray, brought an action under the Declaratory Judgment Act to have the questions in controversy *328 determined and the rights of the parties declared. The Attorney General, Commissioner of Finance, Commissioner of Welfare, and Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Kentucky were made defendants. The circuit court overruled a demurrer to the petition, and adjudged that Chapter 158 of the Acts of 1940 and subsection (b), Section 17, of Part One of Chapter 1, of the Acts of 1942 are valid and constitutional, and directed the Commissioner of Welfare to take the necessary steps to put the Aid to Dependent Children Act into operation. The defendants have appealed.
In appellants' brief there is a lengthy discussion of the Legislature's power to authorize cash payments to dependent children in view of Section 3 of the Constitution which provides that no grant of exclusive, separate public emoluments or privileges shall be made to any man or set of men, except in consideration of public services. In Bowman v. Frost,
"Section 3 of the Constitution provides that no grant of exclusive privileges shall be made to any man or set of men, except in consideration of public services, and Section 59 prohibits special or local legislation. In addition to these provisions the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution declares that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The purpose of these provisions was to place all persons similarly situated upon a plane of equality and to render it impossible for any class to obtain preferred treatment, or for those in power to grant favors for political support. However, it has been uniformly recognized that the foregoing provisions do not forbid a classification based on reasonable and natural distinctions, and an Act making a classification will only be voided where the classification is manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable so as to exclude one or more of a class without reasonable basis in fact."
In Williams v. City of Bowling Green,
"The fact that a statute discriminates in favor of certain classes does not make it arbitrary, if the discrimination is founded upon a reasonable distinction, or if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived to sustain it."
It is not necessary that the Legislature state its reasons for making the classification. As said in Markendorf v. Friedman, "if any possible reasonable basis can be conceived to justify the classification, then it should be upheld." Many reasons may have motivated the Legislature in making the classification found in *330
Chapter 158 of the Acts of 1940. It may have been its purpose to preserve and encourage the unity of the family. The relatives named in the act are persons who would naturally feel some obligation to the child and who would treat it as a member of the family. If strangers were permitted to take dependent children into their homes and collect aid granted to the children by the state, abuses, no doubt, would result such as have occurred under the Pauper Idiot Law, KRS
The plaintiff in her petition asked that Subsection (b) of Section 17 of Part One of Chapter 1 of the Acts of 1942, which makes a lump sum appropriation of $4,250,000 to be used for old age assistance, aid to dependent children, child welfare, and aid to the needy blind be declared valid. Counsel for appellants concede that the decision rendered by this court in the case of Commonwealth ex rel. Meredith, Atty. Gen., v. Johnson, Governor et al.,
The judgment is affirmed.
The whole court sitting.