Bell v. Gray
| Decision Date | 22 January 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 3114,3114 |
| Citation | 377 P.2d 924 |
| Parties | C. N. BELL, Plaintiff, v. Norman B. GRAY, Attorney General of the State of Wyoming; Gilbert A. D. Hart, Insurance Commissioner for the State of Wyoming; Attilio W. Bedont, C.L.U., Archie Shafer, Tom Horn, Jr., Don Noonan, R. Max Hursh, The Board of Insurance Agent's Examiners for the State of Wyoming; Bernard E. Cole, County and Prosecuting Attorney, Laramie County, Wyoming; H. J. Conine, Sheriff, Laramie County, Wyoming, Defendants. |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
John W. Pattno, Cheyenne, for plaintiff.
Norman B. Gray, Atty. Gen., W. M. Haight, Deputy Atty. Gen., Sterling A. Case, Asst Atty. Gen., Cheyenne, for defendants.
Hickey, Raper, Rooney & Walton, Cheyenne, amicus curiae.
Before PARKER, HARNSBERGER, and McINTYRE, JJ.
This is a suit under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act for the purpose of determining the validity of c. 234, S. L. of Wyoming, 1961 (§§ 26-67.1-26-67.11, W.S.1957 (1961 Cumulative Supp.)). The law previously required a license of insurance agents and brokers. The Act in question created a board of insurance agent examiners and provided for the written examination of insurance agents but exempted from its provisions four classes of persons, those selling insurance for fraternal benefit societies; those representing public carriers who, in the course of said representation, solicit or sell insurance incidental to the transportation of persons or to the storage or transportation of property; those soliciting or selling insurance in connection with credit life and credit health and accident insurance transactions; and those soliciting or selling insurance in connection with motor vehicles sales transactions.
Plaintiff, an insurance agent who claimed injury by reason of the existence of the law, charged it was violative of §§ 2, 6, and 7, Art. 1, Wyo.Const., and § 27, Art. 3, Wyo.Const., and also violative of § 10, Art. 1, U.S.Const., and of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.Const.
The trial court reserved and certified to the supreme court as a difficult constitutional question the following:
'Is Chapter 234, Wyoming Session Laws, 1961, Pages 591 to 594, inclusive, unconstitutional in contravention of Article 1, Sections 2 and 7 of the Constitution of Wyoming, and/or Article 6 [sic] of the Wyoming Constitution, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and/or Article 1, Section 10, of the Constitution of the United States, and/or Article 3, Section 27 of the Wyoming Constitution?'
Plaintiff concedes that insurance being a business affecting the public interest is subject to state control and regulation but charges that the exemptions of the mentioned insurance agents are unreasonable, arbitrary, and unrelated to the purpose of the statute and argues that there is no real difference between those who are relieved from taking the examination and other insurance agents.
No consideration need be given to the first three exemptions since plaintiff's counsel presented no sound reasons in support thereof and indicated that objection to them was only nominal. Miller v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of Natrona, 79 Wyo. 502, 337 P.2d 262, 271; Salt Creek Transp. Co. v. Public Service Commission of Wyoming, 37 Wyo. 488, 263 P. 621, 622.
In the parties' stipulation, they assume that the purpose of the questioned law is to cause insurance brokers and agents to be better qualified in insurance matters and to better protect the insurance buying public from unqualified insurance agents and brokers, and they agree that persons who solicit and sell insurance in connection with motor vehicles sales transactions sell all of the same types and varieties of insurance as do persons who sell motor vehicle insurance and are required to take and pass the insurance examination before being licensed and that persons who solicit and sell insurance in connection with motor vehicle sales receive commissions.
In a challenge of the unconstitutionality of a statute, a primary rule is that announced by In re Trent's Claim, 68 Wyo. 146, 231 P.2d 180, 185, "One who assails the classification in such a law must carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary." As we noted in Miller v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of Natrona, supra, 337 P.2d at 271, a person contesting the constitutionality of a statute must do more than make bald assertions of what he thinks is discriminatory. Discussions of this well established principle are found in 16 C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 100 c, p. 462, and 12 Am.Jur. ...
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Mills v. Reynolds
...is to succeed, than merely make bald assertions of whatever is perceived to create a constitutional problem. Stephenson; Bell v. Gray, 377 P.2d 924 (Wyo.1963). It is incumbent upon the party asserting that legislative enactments are unconstitutional to provide facts and cogent argument in s......
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White v. State
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Hoem v. State
...and accordingly, have adopted the rule that no law will be declared unconstitutional unless it is clearly so." Bell v. Gray, Wyo., 377 P.2d 924, 925-26 (1963). "If any state of facts can be reasonably conceived which sustain[s] the classification, such facts will be assumed." Mountain Fuel ......
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