OHIO TRUCKING ASSOCIATION ET AL., APPELLEES, v. CHARLES, DIR., ET AL., APPELLANTS.
No. 2011-1757
Supreme Court of Ohio
Submitted July 11, 2012—Decided December 6, 2012.
134 Ohio St.3d 502, 2012-Ohio-5679
PFEIFER, J.
{11} The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed on the authority of State v. Billiter, 134 Ohio St.3d 103, 2012-Ohio-5144, 980 N.E.2d 960, and the cause is remanded to the court of appeals for further proceedings consistent with this court‘s opinion in State v. Billiter.
O‘CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O‘DONNELL, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur.
LUNDBERG STRATTON and LANZINGER, JJ., dissent for the reasons stated in their separate opinions in State v. Billiter.
John D. Ferrero, Stark County Prosecuting Attorney, and Renee M. Watson, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and E. Kelly Mihocik, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.
[Cite as Ohio Trucking Assn. v. Charles, 134 Ohio St.3d 502, 2012-Ohio-5679.]
(No. 2011-1757—Submitted July 11, 2012—Decided December 6, 2012.)
{11} The court of appeals concluded that fees charged for the production of certified abstracts of driving records are related to the “registration, operation, or use of vehicles on public highways” within the meaning of the
Background
{12} Plaintiffs/appellees, the Ohio Trucking Association, the Ohio Newspaper Association, the Ohio Coalition for Open Government, the Professional Insurance Agents of Ohio, and the Ohio Insurance Institute, filed a complaint for injunctive relief and declaratory judgment, challenging the constitutionality of
(A) Upon request, the registrar of motor vehicles shall search and furnish a certified abstract of the following information with respect to any person:
(1) An enumeration of the motor vehicle accidents in which such person has been involved * * *;
(2) Such person‘s record of convictions for violation of the motor vehicle laws.
(B) The registrar shall collect for each abstract a fee of five dollars.
(C) * * *
Of each five-dollar fee the registrar collects under this division, the registrar shall pay two dollars into the state treasury to the credit of the state bureau of motor vehicles fund * * *, sixty cents into the state treasury to the credit of the trauma and emergency medical services fund * * *, sixty cents into the state treasury to the credit of the homeland security fund * * *, thirty cents into the state treasury to the credit of the investigations fund * * *, one dollar and twenty-five cents into the state treasury to the credit of the emergency management agency service and reimbursement fund * * *, and twenty-five cents into the state treasury to the credit of the justice program services fund * * *.
{13} The plaintiffs asserted that the amended statute violates
No moneys derived from fees, excises, or license taxes relating to registration, operation, or use of vehicles on public highways * * * shall be
expended for other than costs of administering such laws, statutory refunds and adjustments provided therein, payment of highway obligations, costs for construction, reconstruction, maintenance and repair of public highways and bridges and other statutory highway purposes, expense of state enforcement of traffic laws, and expenditures authorized for hospitalization of indigent persons injured in motor vehicle accidents on the public highways.
{14} The trial court agreed and granted injunctive relief and declaratory judgment. It concluded that “$3 or 60% of the $5 fee collected under
{15} We granted the discretionary appeal of appellants, Thomas P. Charles, director of public safety, and Mike Rankin, registrar of motor vehicles.
Analysis
Standing
In order to have standing to attack the constitutionality of a legislative enactment, the private litigant must generally show that he or she has suffered or is threatened with direct and concrete injury in a manner or degree different from that suffered by the public in general, that the law in question has caused the injury, and that the relief requested will redress the injury.
State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers v. Sheward, 86 Ohio St.3d 451, 469-470, 715 N.E.2d 1062 (1999). The director and registrar argue that the plaintiffs lack standing because they have not suffered harm and because any injury to them is no different from that shared by the general public. The trial court and court of appeals concluded to the contrary, and so do we.
{16} The plaintiffs do not lack standing merely because they are associations that are suing on behalf of their members. Ohio Contractors Assn. v. Bicking, 71 Ohio St.3d 318, 320, 643 N.E.2d 1088 (1994), citing Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm., 432 U.S. 333, 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977).
{17} The parties stipulated to many facts, among them that the plaintiffs purchase in excess of five million certified abstracts annually. The amended
Are the abstract fees related to the registration, operation, or use of vehicles on public highways?
{18}
{19} Our standard rules of constitutional construction are instructive but not particularly helpful. For example, Section 5a is an exception to the General Assembly‘s broad constitutional authority to raise and spend revenue (
{110} Even the Supreme Court of the United States has essentially punted on defining “relate to.” In discussing whether a state law was related to an employee pension plan, it stated:
[O]ne might be excused for wondering, at first blush, whether the words of limitation * * * do much limiting. If “relate to” were taken to extend to the furthest stretch of its indeterminacy, then for all practical purposes pre-emption would never run its course, for “[r]eally, universally, relations stop nowhere,” H. James, Roderick Hudson xli (New York ed., World‘s Classics 1980). * * * That said, we have to recognize that our prior attempt to construe the phrase “relate to” does not give us much help drawing the line here.
{111} The Supreme Court considered “relate to” to be expansive and was concerned that a broad interpretation would “read Congress‘s words of limitation as mere sham * * * whenever Congress speaks to the matter with generality.” Id. The court concluded, with respect to “relate to,” that the court “simply must go beyond the unhelpful text and the frustrating difficulty of defining its key term, and look instead to the objectives of the * * * statute.” Id. at 656.
{12} Having found dictionaries and our rules of constitutional construction unhelpful regarding defining “relating to,” like the Supreme Court of the United States, we will resort to examining the objectives of
“This Amendment simply says you want your automobile license and gas tax money to go for better roads and streets. * * *
“Ohio originally promised that automobile license and gas tax funds would go for roads, streets, and related purposes. But temptation was too great and millions of these special tax dollars have been and are being spent for other purposes.”
“This amendment places the Legislature in a strait-jacket and severely handicaps it in applying the revenue of the state to the needs of the state. The Legislature could not use highway revenues for emergency purposes and the revenues from such taxes will have to be spent for roads and streets and for no other purpose.”
Id. at ¶ 32.
{13} Next, we look at the report of the Ohio Constitutional Revision Committee from 1972 as quoted by the court of appeals. The report concluded that Section 5a requires that “‘all of the revenues derived from the registration of motor vehicles and from the taxes imposed on the purchase of fuels for motor vehicles be expended on the requirements of the state‘s highway system.’ 4 Ohio Constitutional Revision Commission Finance and Taxation Committee at 1755 (Sept. 22, 1972).” 2011-Ohio-4361, 2011 WL 3843923, ¶ 33.
{14} Having reviewed these same statements, the court of appeals concluded that “the objective of Section 5a was and is to prevent taxes and fees collected from the motoring public from being diverted to non-highway purposes. * * * The effect of Section 5a is for those people who use the roads to bear the burden and expense of constructing and maintaining the roads.” 2011-Ohio-4361, 2011 WL 3843923, ¶ 34. We agree with this characterization by the court of appeals of the objectives of the voters who approved the addition of Section 5a to the Ohio Constitution.
{15} At an extreme level, at “the furthest stretch of its indeterminacy,” there is no doubt that fees for certified abstracts are related to the registration of vehicles on public highways. We are not convinced that this extreme view of “relating to” is logical; we know that it is not compelled by the language of Section 5a or the objectives of the amendment.
{16} The information maintained by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is largely available for free pursuant to a public-records request. Based on this, we are persuaded that the fee for a certified abstract is less related to the “registration, operation, or use of vehicles” than to the process of certification. The process of certification is useful, perhaps even necessary, to certain of the plaintiffs, but it is not necessary to the general motoring public. The production of certified abstracts cannot happen without the registration information maintained by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. But we conclude that the fees for certified abstracts
{17} We decline to define “relating to.” The term is elastic enough for the General Assembly to use in many different situations. When it does, we will do our best to discern how loosely or strictly the term should be interpreted. In this case, we are convinced that the money derived from certified abstracts is related to the process of certification, not to the “registration, operation, or use of vehicles on public highways.” Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals, which concluded otherwise.
Conclusion
{18} For the foregoing reasons, we agree with the court of appeals with respect to standing, but we reverse the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.
Judgment reversed.
O‘CONNOR, C.J., and LUNDBERG STRATTON, O‘DONNELL, LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur.
Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, L.L.P., Lisa Pierce Reisz, Kenneth J. Rubin, and Thomas E. Szykowny, for appellees.
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, Elisabeth A. Long, Stephen P. Carney, and Matthew P. Hampton, Deputy Solicitors, and Hilary R. Damaser, Assistant Attorney General, for appellants.
Chad A. Endsley and Leah F. Curtis, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.
Maurice A. Thompson, urging affirmance for amicus curiae 1851 Center for Constitutional Law.
Greg Saul, urging affirmance for amicus curiae National Federation of Independent Business/Ohio.
Linda Woggon, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Chamber of Commerce.