delivered the opinion of the court.
On Sеptember 10, 1930, William Kent Howlett, trial justice of Carroll county, at the instance of A. J. Hull, issued a civil warrant against the petitioner, Isaac Quesinberry. On that warrant the justice gave judgment against Quesinberry in the sum of $4.00. After a cоntroversy, not relative to the issue here, it was on appeal heard by the Circuit Court of Carroll county, without the intervention of a jury. That court was of opinion that the justice was a duly elected officer undеr a valid constitutional provision, and confirmed his judgment.
This act of the General Assembly was approved March 21, 1928, Acts 1928, chapter 311, page 849:
“Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That paragraph оne of section forty-nine hundred and eighty-eight of the Code of Virginia, as amended, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:
“Section 4988. (1) In counties having, a population of six thousand inhabitants or more, as shown by the last
It amends an act approved March 25, 1926, Acts 1926, page 862, chapter 511, Code, section 4988. That act is a general act dealing with the appointment of trial justices, and defines their powers and duties. Its first section reads as follows:
“Trial justices in counties having a population greater than six thousand inhabitants as shown by the last preceding United States census.— (1) In counties having a population of six thousand inhabitants or more, as shown by the last preceding United States census, there may in his discretiоn be appointed by the judge of the circuit court for such county, for a period of four years, and every four years thereafter, a trial justice for such county, who shall be a resident of said county, or аny town or city within the geographical limits of said county. Any vacancy occurring in the office of trial justices shall be filled by the judge of the circuit court of said county.”
From this it appears that the general act of 1926 was amended so as to provide for a trial justice of Carroll county who was to be elected by the people and not appointed by the judge. In all other respects the act of 1926 stood unchanged.
Section 63 of the Constitution provides that the General Assembly shall not enact local or special lаws for conducting elections. It is contended that the act in judgment violates these constitutional provisions.
That we are to uphold the constitutionality of statutes whenever possible is horn-book law, not questioned at this late date. The legislature functions under no grant of power. It can do those things which are not forbidden by the State or Federal Constitutions, or which are not repugnant to those elementary social rights upon which society, as we know it, rests. Farmville v. Walker,
Constitutions are not esoteric documents and recondite learning ought to be unnecessary when we come to interpret provisions apparently plain. They sрeak for the people in convention assembled, and must be obeyed.
“It is a general rule that the words of a Constitution are to be understood in the sense in which they are popularly employed, unless thе context or the very nature of the subject indicates otherwise.” Black on Interpretation of Laws, page 25.
“In the first place, then, every word employed in the Constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obviоus, and com
It is in attempts to harmonize these prinсiples and in efforts to sustain statutes whose constitutionality is more than doubtful that courts wander in that judicial labyrinth deplored by Judge Dillon.
Before a law which puts Carroll county in a class by itself can be sustained, some sort of reason for that classification must appear. There is no basis for it in the record and we know of nothing out of the record which can sustain it. Nowhere and from no direction is there light. It is earmarked neithеr by statistics nor by location.
In Martin’s Executors v. Commonwealth,
“The proposition * * * that a law otherwise constitutional is invalid simply because it does not provide for a future contingency which may never occur, does not seem to the author to be well considered or sound. See Mr. Hubbard’s article in Harvаrd Law Rev., Vol. XVIII, pp. 592-594, June, 1905.”
The opinion further said: “Constitutional prohibitions against special legislation do not prohibit classification. A general law in its simplest form embraces all persons and places within the State, but varying circumstances often render it impossible to apply the same rule everywhere and to everybody. But the classification must not be purely arbitrary. It must be natural and reasonable, and apрropriate to the occasion. There must be some such difference in the situation of the subjects of the different classes as to reasonably justify some variety of rule in respect thereto. Though an act be general in form, if it be special in purpose and effect, it violates the spirit of the constitutional prohibition. * * * If any state of facts can be reasonably conceived that would sustain it, that statе of facts at the time the law was enacted must be assumed. 1 Dill. Mun. Corp. (5th ed.) section 146; Polglaise v. Commonwealth,
The act was sustained because the court was of opinion that it was general in its purpose and that its classifications were not only not arbitrary but entirely reasonable. That the sergeants of Richmond and Radford should not receive the same pay anyone would concede. Classifications which are reasonable аre always constitutional, and are not invalidated merely because there is failure to provide for possible future contingencies.
In Ex Parte Settle,
A classification must have some reasonable basis. Polglaise’s Case,
In the last-named case this definition of special acts, taken from Budd v. Hancock, 66 N. J. Law 133,
Prentis, C. J., in discussing it said:. “This definition undoubtedly strikes at the foundation of the subject, for an arbitrary separation of persons, places or things of the same general class, so that some of them will and others of them will not be affected by the law, is of the essence of special legislation. But whаt does it take to constitute ‘an arbitrary separation ?’ ”
It is not necessary for us to undertake to formulate an inclusive definition of “arbitrary separation.” For the purposes of this case it is enough for us to know that the manner of selection of a trial justice in Carroll county differs from that provided in every county in the State wherein such an official may be named. If this is not special legislation then these constitutiоnal safeguards might as well be wiped away as meaningless.
The statute in judgment, to be sustained, must have back of its classification some reason. For all that we know or that has been suggested, it is utterly arbitrary. Carroll and Grayson, for example, stand upon a common footing. It is unconstitutional and void. Mr. Howlett holds no office under it, and can impose no fine.
The objectionable provision was written into an
The judgment appealed from must be reversed, and it is so ordered.
Reversed.