Bratton v. Chandler
| Decision Date | 13 November 1922 |
| Docket Number | No. 239,239 |
| Parties | BRATTON et al. v. CHANDLER et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. M. M. Neil, Thomas H. Jackson, and James L. McRee, all of Memphis, Tenn. (Frank M. Thompson, Atty. Gen., and Nathan William MacChesney, of Chicago, Ill., of counsel), for appellants.
Messrs. Elias Gates, Julian C. Wilson, and Walter P. Armstrong, all of Memphis, Tenn., for appellees.
The appellees, as complainants in the District Court, in their capacity as copartners or as individuals, assailed the constitutionality, under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, of a statute of Tennessee passed in 1921, entitled:
'An act to define, regulate and license real estate brokers and real estate salesmen, to create a state real estate commission, and to provide a penalty for a violation of the provisions thereof.' Laws 1921, c. 98.
Appellants Bratton, Adams, and Brownlow were appointed commissioners under the act, and they and the appellant Bates, as Attorney General of Shelby County, or as district attorney (he is described as the latter in the answer) of the county, were, it is alleged, charged with the duty of enforcing the act.
The pleadings are very elaborate and need not be reproduced. The court restrained the execution of the statute until its further order, basing its action upon the provisions of the statute, which the court decided did not afford to applicants for licenses due process of law. To review the order and the grounds of it, this appeal is directed.
The act constitutes a commission to be appointed by the Governor of the state and in 21 sections defines the powers and duties of the commission, the qualifications of applicants for licenses, and the procedure they must observe.
The District Court (three judges sitting) gave a very studious and comprehensive consideration to the provisions of the act, but rested its decision adverse to the constitutionality of the act upon section 8. The determining pertinency of the section the court expressed by saying that 'the first step in the proposed regulation' of the real estate business 'is the granting and issuing of licenses as provided in section 8' of the act. That 'section gives color and purpose to every other section in the act and without which the other sections would be meaningless.'
We may then accept the controlling and comprehensive effect of the section and concentrate attention and decision upon it, pretermitting all others or comment upon them.
The condemning comment of the court was that section 8 authorized the commission, not only to require an applicant to furnisl evidence of his qualifications, but to procure independently of the applicant any proof it may deem desirable, and this without any provision for notice or opportunity to meet the evidence so procured, nor even to be advised of the nature or source of the evidence. Because of this delinquency the court was of opinion that the act did not afford due process of law, and was therefore unconstitutional and void.
Is the comment and conclusion justified? The section requires an application for a license to be made in writing and provides, with circumstantial detail, what it shall contain and concludes as follows:
The District Court, in further comment upon the provision, expressed a doubt that any rulings or regulations that might be promulgated by the commission would cure the defect of the statute and added:
'However, that question is not here presented, for it does not appear from the pleadings in this case that any such rulings have been promulgated though the commission is functioning in manner and form as authorized by the statute.'
So determined was the court in the...
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