State v. Phillips

• Decision Date: 02 November 1910
• Citation: 78 A. 283,107 Me. 249
• Parties: STATE v. PHILLIPS.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

78 A. 283

107 Me. 249

STATE

v. PHILLIPS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Nov. 2, 1910.

Agreed Case from Supreme Judicial Court, Hancock County, at Law.

J. D. Phillips was convicted of violating Act March 12, 1909 (Laws 1909, c. 133), prohibiting the use of automobiles in certain towns on the island of Mt Desert, and appeals to the Supreme Judicial Court. Agreed statement of facts and case reported to the law court. Judgment for the state.

The defendant was arrested on a warrant duly issued by the Bar Harbor municipal court for an alleged violation of a special act of the Legislature approved March 12, 1909 (Laws 1909, c. 133), entitled "An act to prohibit the use of automobiles in the towns of Eden, Mount Desert, Tremont, and Southwest Harbor, on the island of Mount Desert." The defendant pleaded not guilty, but on trial was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $20 and costs, and thereupon the defendant appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Argued before EMERY, C, J., and WHITEHOUSE, PEABODY, CORNISH, KING, and BIRD, JJ.

Wiley C. Conary, Co. Atty., for the State.

Herbert L. Graham, for defendant.

WHITEHOUSE, J. This is a criminal prosecution for an alleged violation of a special act of the Legislature approved March 12, 1900, entitled "An act to prohibit the use of automobiles in the towns of Eden, Mount Desert, Tremont, and Southwest Harbor on the island of Mount Desert." Laws 1909, c. 133. The respondent was found guilty by the municipal court of Bar Harbor and appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court for Hancock county. The case comes to the law court on an agreed statement of facts.

Section 1 of the special act in question declares that "no automobile or motor vehicle shall be set up, used, driven or operated in or on any highway, townway or public street within any of the towns of Eden, Mount Desert, Tremont, and Southwest Harbor, on the island of Mount Desert, in the county of Hancock, state of Maine."

Section 2 prescribes the penalties for violation of the act, and section 4 is as follows: "In such of the said towns as shall accept this act at any legal meeting called by a warrant containing an article for that purpose, this act shall, subject to the provisions of the Constitution thereto applicable, take effect ten days after it shall be so accepted."

This act was duly accepted by the towns of Eden, Mt. Desert, and Tremont at legal meetings called for that purpose, but was rejected by the town of Southwest Harbor, on the 16th day. of July, 1909.

It appears from the agreed statement of facts that the respondent, a resident and taxpayer of the town of Southwest Harbor which had rejected the act of the Legislature, left his home on the 1st day of October, 1909, in his automobile, propelled by its own power, and traveling by the only road possible from his home in Southwest Harbor to the city of Ellsworth, was obliged to pass through certain portions of the towns of Mt. Desert and Eden, two of the towns accepting the act.

It also appears from the agreed statement that "the town of Southwest Harbor is so situated that closing the roads of Mt. Desert and Eden to the use of automobiles and motor vehicles, makes it impossible for the owners thereof, resident of Southwest Harbor, to leave that town, and the island of Mt. Desert by the town and county roads, without passing through some portions of the towns of Mt. Desert and Eden."

The agreed statement concludes with the following stipulation:

"If the court is of opinion (1) that the act of the Legislature granting authority to the towns of Eden, Mt Desert, and Tremont totally to prohibit the use of automobiles and motor vehicles within the limits of said towns is not in violation of the state and United States Constitutions, (2) and by so prohibiting them to deprive the residents of Southwest Harbor, the town rejecting said special act, of free ingress and egress to and from said town over the public highways, is not in violation of the state and United States Constitutions, upon the above statement of facts and papers in the case, then judgment is to be rendered for the state, otherwise for the respondent."

It is not in controversy that in the exercise of that police power which pertains to every sovereign state the Legislature may regulate the manner in which automobiles shall be operated on the highways, and may absolutely prohibit their use upon certain specified highways and streets. But it is contended that the special legislation in the case at bar is unconstitutional, first, because it totally prohibits the use of automobiles on any and all of the highways, townways, and public streets within the limits of the towns of Eden, Mt. Desert, and Tremont; and, second, because as a result of the acceptance of the act in the three towns named, and its rejection by the town of Southwest Harbor, the residents of that town are deprived of the right of ingress and egress over the county roads to and from their homes in vehicles recognized as legitimate means of conveyance on the public highway. It is argued that this statute makes a distinction between the towns here in question and other towns throughout the state, which is arbitrary and unreasonable, and not necessary for the promotion or preservation of the public health, safety, or welfare. It is accordingly contended that it cannot be justified or sustained as an exercise of the police power of the state, and that the decision of the Legislature upon this question is not final and conclusive, but is a legitimate subject of inquiry by the court when the constitutionality of the act is assailed. The constitutional provisions invoked by the respondent, in contravention of which the statute is alleged to have been enacted, are section one of the "Declaration of Rights" in article 1 of the Constitution of this state, and section 1 of the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution, declaring that "no state shall * * * deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws."

It is a fundamental rule respecting the distribution of the powers of government into three departments that "no person or persons belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the others." Const. Me. art 111, § 2. But courts are not Justified in preventing the enforcement of a legislative enactment by declaring it invalid unless satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that it is in clear violation of some provision of the Constitution. It is the duty of one department to presume that another has acted within its legitimate province until the contrary is made to appear by strong and convincing reasons. State v. Rogers, 95 Me. 98, 49 Atl. 564, 85 Am. St. Rep. 395; State v. Lubee, 93 Me. 421, 45 Atl. 520; Soper v. Lawrence, 98 Me. 280, 56 Atl. 908, 99 Am. St. Rep. 397. "It is but a decent respect," said the court in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 270, 6 L. Ed. 606, "due to the wisdom, the integrity, and the patriotism of the legislative body by which any law is passed to presume in favor of its validity, until its violation is proved beyond all reasonable doubt."

In determining the constitutionality of the statute in the case at bar, it is important to enter upon the inquiry with a correct understanding of the relations between the state and the municipalities and the authority of the Legislature respecting the establishment and control of highways.

In Dillon's Mun. Corp. (2d Ed.) § 653, the author says: "Public streets, squares, and commons, unless there by some special restriction when the same are dedicated or acquired, are for the public use, and the use is none the less for the public at large as distinguished from the municipality because they are situate within the limits of the latter, and because the Legislature may have given the supervision, control, and regulation of them to the local authorities. The Legislature of the state represents the public at large, and has, in the absence of special constitutional restraint and subject (according to the weight of more recent judicial opinion) to the property rights and easements of the abutting owner, full paramount authority over all public ways and public places." This was cited with approval in Scovel v. City of Detroit, 146 Mich. 93, 109 N. W. 20, in which it was held competent for the Legislature to confer upon a park commissioner authority to set aside a portion of a boulevard as a speedway. So in People ex rel. Bristol v. Board of Supervisors of Ingham Co., 20 Mich. 95, the court said: "The legislative power is everywhere recognized as the proper guardian of all such public rights, as the right of travel upon the highways, and as having as the proper representative of the public, full power over the whole subject of laying out opening, altering, and discontinuing highways. And this power they may, so far as they have not been restrained by the Constitution, exercise directly without delegating it to any other tribunal."

In accordance with this view, in the early case of Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143, 3 Am. Dec. 39, the court observed: "We are not prepared to deny a right in the general court to discontinue by statute a public highway. It is an easement common to all the citizens who are represented in the Legislature. The authorization of the erection of bridges over navigable waters is in fact an exercise of a similar right." So in Eudora v. Darling, 54 Kan. 654, 39 Pac. 184, it was held that the Legislature, as the representative of the public, had full constitutional power to vacate certain streets and alleys laid out and established and opened for public travel. See, also, State v. Yopp, 97 N. C. 477, 2 S. E. 458, 2 Am. St. Rep. 305, and Twilley v. Perkins, 77 Md. 252, 26 Atl. 286, 19 L. R. A. 632, 39 Am. St. Rep. 408. In Commonwealth v. Abrahams, 150 Mass. 57, 30 N. E. 79, it was held that a statute authorizing park commissioners to "govern and regulate" any park laid...