253 Mo. 642 | Mo. | 1913
Lead Opinion
OPINION.
I.
(After stating the facts as above). — In considering this case we shall confine our views to the claim that the penalty clause of the statute supra is void under the provisions of the Constitution giving the proceeds of fines to the school fund of the respective counties, since that question goes to the root of the right to recover in this action, which is only a suit for the penalty provided by the statute.
The power of the General Assembly to enact laws is subject in all matters to the limitations °f the Constitution of this State, whether they be expressed by prohibitory clauses, or by affirmative provisions relating to the matter in hand. Both methods of restriction are equally binding on the lawmaking power and no valid law can be enacted by it which contravenes either. [Redmond v. Railroad, 225 Mo. l. c. 731.]
In this case the constitutional restraint upon the Legislature is in the form of an affirmative provision of the organic law that “the clear proceeds of all penalties and forfeitures . . . shall belong to . . . the county public school fund.” [Constitution, art. 11, sec. 8.]
Unquestionably the attempted diversion of any such penalties or forfeitures by the Legislature would nullify the act, if it was passed for that sole purpose, for the Constitution kav*:ag spoken as to the proper receptacle of such funds, the power of the Legislature to speak in a contrary way is stilled and ceases to exist until the constitutional provision shall be amended or abrogated. It is evident that so much of the penalty clause of the act under review as purports to create a penalty payable to the good roads fund is void.
But does this conclusion invalidate the penalty clause so that a different beneficiary .to the one specifically designated by the Legislature may not claim thereunder, upon the theory that it was the intention of the Legislature to create a penalty in favor of such other beneficiary though not mentioned in' the act?
The test in such case is whether, considering the words and objects of - the. law or section thereof containing the unconstitutional provision, we would be warranted in holding that it would have been enacted
In the present case, the penalty clause under review is void on its face in so far as it purports to create a penalty or forfeiture payable to the good roads fund.
"With that in mind, we have searched the language of the penalty clause added by the amendment of 1905, and we fail to discover any basis in its terms or purposes, which could support a legal intendment that it was enacted for any other object than the creation of a debt enforceable on behalf of the good roads fund. That purpose is explicitly stated in the Laws of 1905, p. 113, and no other purpose is indicated by any of the language employed in said amendment than the single and indivisible one of creating a specific debt for the benefit of the good roads «fund which the amendment sought to accomplish by striking out the provision which the former act contained, affording a right of private action to the shipper of goods and substituting therefor a specific and fixed sum to be “forfeited and paid” to the good roads fund, and recoverable by a civil action. It will be observed that the session act does not say that the disobedient carrier shall pay a fine, and thereafter provide such fine shall inure to the good roads fund, nor does it contain a word from which a rational inference can be drawn that it was the legislative motive first to create a fine, and then to indicate its recipient. Had that form of phraseology been used, some ground might exist for "the contention that the act was primarily designed to create a penalty or forfeiture, and secondarily to give the benefit of it .to the good roads fund, in which event we would sustain so much of it as fixed the penalty. This was ruled in State v. Bockstruck, 136 Mo. l. c. 340; 359, where section 7 then held in judgment prescribed a fine, and section 11 later provided a disposition of it
II.
A review of the history of the act does not impress us with the logic of this suggestion. When the act was originally passed it was expressed as section six of the Laws of 1872, pp. 73-4, and provided in substance that railroad corporations should receive and deliver grain at the crossings and junctions of all other railroads, canals and navigable rivers. [R. S. 1879, sec. 817.] The secondary public fine for the violation of the original act was abrogated in the revision of 1879, leaving only a right of private action for damages. to the consignee or person entitled to the control of such property. The next amendment was in 1881. (R. S. 1889, sec. 2622), and required the additional: duty of constructing switches and freight houses at. towns containing two hundred inhabitants and stopping one train a day there to receive and unload freight, and the only penalty attached to the violation of this amendment was a right of action given to the consignee or person entitled to the control of the property. [R. S. 1889, secs. 2622, 2618.] The main act was finally amended in 1905 and is now complete as section 3158 set out in the foregoing statement. Prom the passage of the original act, and during all of its transmutations until its present form, no public penalty for its enforcement has existed later than 1879, although during the whole period of its existence a primary provision for its enforcement by a private suit has been continued. The secondary penalty imposed in favor of the public was abolished by the provisions of 1879 and has never reappeared until the amendment of 1905, if such a construction can be given to that amend
On the contrary we think the Legislature meant exactly what it said, when it undertook to bestow the penalties and forfeitures of this act to the good roads fund. The creation of such a fund was then and is now a matter of proper concern and keen interest-to the people of this State and necessarily appealed to their representatives when engaged in the task of bettering the laws of the State. That the urgency of this appeal was felt is shown by the abolition for that purpose of the prior statutory right of action to the owner of the property.
The learned counsel for the State argues that if the sentence of the penalty clause he dismembered by erasing the name of the payee of the penalty, a valid act would spring into existence, because the effect of the constitutional provision would be to olate “school funds” for the erasure of the legislative beneficiary. But would this be any the lebss an interpolation of a different payee, than if the former name was stricken out and the new name written in. We do not understand that it is pretended that a sentence which completely expresses the thought of its author, can be physically spoliated so as to express a contrary idea and still continue to bear the meaning which it carried before. There is no rule of construction which would tolerate such an abnormality. So in this case the learned counsel would hardly contend if there were no general constitutional provisions whereby all fines go to the school fund, that the legislative purpose to give this fine to the school fund could be arrived at by striking out the words ‘ ‘ good roads ’ ’ and substituting the words ‘ ‘ school fund. ’ ’ For that would be a bold and palpable act of judicial legislation by interpolating words destructive of the plain purpose of the lawmakers. Certainly the effect would be the same if the same thing is accomplished by erasure and the supplial of other words, as the legal effect of a fortuitous provision of the Constitution that all fines shall go to the “school fund.” The legislative intent is no less thwarted in the one ease than the other, the only difference being that in the one instance the new words would be actually inserted in the act, while in the other they would be automatically read into the act perforce the Constitution, in a way just as antipodal to the expressed intention of the Legislature as if the words “school fund” had been written into the act after the erasure
IV.
Neither do we think the persuasive authorities cited in the latest brief for the State, Railroad v. State, 55 Ark. l. c. 207-8; Harrod v. Latham, 77 Kan. l. c. 469, are in point. In the Arkansas case the fine was divided, part of it being given to an informer, an improper desti nation under the Constitution of that State. The act was held constitutional because its words showed the intention to create a fine additional to that portion which it gave to the informer, and the court could well hold, as it did, that the primary purpose of the Legislature to create a fine would justify sustaining’ the law on that ground and that this general intent could be' effected by applying the part of the fine improperly allowed to the same purpose which the other part of the fine would go under the laws of Arkansas. The Kansas case was like the Arkansas except that the fines imposed by one section of the Kansas act were in another section divided between the county and the informer. It was correctly held in that case that the-later section only, being separable and independent of the former, was unconstitutional. In the case at bar the pith of the amendment of 1905 is expressed in one paragraph or section and in one sentence, and for the reasons stated it does not fall within the purview of any of the authorities cited in the brief of the State.
This conclusion goes no further than stated, and does not affect the remainder of the act as it now stands nor the right to compel obedience to its requirements by proper procedure, but the judgment rendered in this case, for the amount fixed in the unconstitutional penalty clause added to the act in 1905, is reversed.
Concurrence Opinion
CONCURRING OPINION.
That the law necessarily involves the idea of punishment, and to that end employs language (the word “forfeit”) appropriate only to a penalty, that the penalty is directed to the punishment of a public wrong as contradistinguished from a private wrong (State ex rel. v. Warner, 197 Mo. l. c. 664), I think, is clear.
■That the “clear proceeds” of such penalty belong to the public school funds and that no such penalty can be created payable to any other object or to any person without violating the Constitution, is also clear. [Sec. 8, art. 11, Constitution; State v. Clifford, 124 Mo. 492; State ex rel. Clay County v. Railroad. 89 Mo. 562; State ex rel. v. Warner, 197 Mo. 650.]
But in none of those cases was .the language of the statute held in judgment the same as the language used in the statute in judgment in the instant case. In none of them did the lawmaker stamp upon the very penalty itself his purpose in creating it. He did not create it for an expressed purpose and write that purpose into the very language whereby he created the penalty so as to be part and parcel of it, and then make that purpose an unconstitutional one as here.
I have labored in my own mind to sustain the law, but am constrained to think it an unconstitutional exercise of the lawmaking power in the particular considered by my brother. It is much the same as if the lawmaker had said to the recalcitrant railroad: If you will, not obey the law and provide shipping facilities by rail, then by way of penalty you shall pay for building public roads whereby facilities for hauling may be encompassed. It thereby becomes a novelty, an experiment outside the Constitution and in spite of it. Indeed if an avowed unconstitutional purpose can ever make a law unconstitutional this law must fall.
I vote to concur.
SEPARATE OPINION.
This seems to be conceded, by counsel for both parties; but their parting of ways seems to turn upon the question as to whether or not the Legislature would have enacted the statute as it now exists, had it not been for the clause giving the penalties to the road fund.
In my opinion, that question should be answered in the negative, and my reasons for so stating are, that the penalties prescribed by the Acts of 1872 and 1881, which constitute two of the three elements which make up the Act of 1905, were apparently sufficient to guarantee their obedience by the railroads of the country; that is, the penalties therein prescribed were in proportion to and in keeping with those imposed by the Legislature for the violation of kindred statutes governing no more serious offenses.
Moreover, the courts of the State cannot conscientiously close their eyes to the history and trend of legislation in this State, and in this country for that matter, which discloses an.ardent desire on the part of the lawmaking power to strain every point in favor of procuring funds for the construction, maintenance and improvement of public highways throughout the State and of the United States; and in my opinion the amendment of 1905 would never have been enacted had it not been for the insertion of the objectionable clause previously mentioned.
I am, therefore, of the opinion that the judgmént of the circuit court was erroneous, and that same should be reversed with directions to enter judgment for the defendant.