Brodkey v. Sioux City
| Decision Date | 02 April 1940 |
| Docket Number | 44806. |
| Citation | 291 N.W. 171,229 Iowa 1291 |
| Parties | BRODKEY v. SIOUX CITY et al. (MURRAY et al., Interveners). |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Woodbury County; Miles W. Newby, Judge.
Suit in equity to enjoin defendants from proceeding under certain allegedly illegal and unconstitutional ordinances and contracts. Upon a trial on the merits defendants prevailed. Plaintiff has appealed.
Reversed and Remanded.
Lester C. Davidson, Fred H. Free, and Robert J. O'Connor, all of Sioux City, for appellants.
Milchrist & Marshall, Shull & Stilwill, Kindig, Faville & Mathews, Lowell C. Kindig, Ralph Crary, Virgil DeWitt, H. N Slotsky, and Abe A. Sekt, all of Sioux City, for appellees.
While that which will be related was transpiring, the plaintiff was a resident of defendant city and a taxpayer therein. He had acquired a leasehold that comprised a portion of a business building fronting upon a street within the Sioux City " parking meter zones" . From that street there was an entrance that afforded the sole means of access to plaintiff's premises. He there was engaged in the blending, grinding and packing of coffee. For delivering the coffee from the premises to purchasing customers he used his duly licensed motor vehicle. The business places where deliveries were made to about twenty-five of these customers were likewise within the " parking meter zones" . Plaintiff's petition was filed on July 19, 1938. Therein a series of ordinances of defendant city and two contracts it had entered into for the purchase of 700 parking meters were set out, followed by allegations that pursuant thereto the city was about to install parking meters in the district where plaintiff and his customers had there places of business, to the damage of plaintiff and others similarly situated. Alleging that the ordinances and contracts were illegal, unconstitutional and void, plaintiff prayed they be adjudged so to be, and that specific as well as general relief in restraint of defendants proceeding thereunder be granted. An amendment was filed on August 19, 1938, wherein were averments that the contemplated installing of parking meters had been carried out. Some additional matters were pleaded. Defendants answered, and various petitions in intervention were filed. After hearing the cause, the court dismissed the petition on the merits and entered judgment against plaintiff. Therefrom he has appealed.
The ordinances, passed during the months of September, 1937, and May, June and July, 1938, purported to establish " parking meter zones" adjacent to the sidewalk curbs on both sides of certain streets, and provided that in and upon such zones " the Superintendent of Public Safety shall cause to be located and established not to exceed seven hundred parking meters at such locations in said zones as he may designate" and that he should remove them to new locations, as traffic conditions require. The ordinances directed that the Superintendent of Public Safety enter into a contract, after approval by the city council, for the purchase, " and/or" installation and operation and maintenance of parking meters. Further provisions were that each meter be placed upon the curb adjacent to an individual parking space twenty feet in length, and that each meter indicate " by a proper signal the legal parking time established by the city," and also indicate, when operated, the duration of the period of legal parking and illegal overparking at the expiration of such period. Several duties were imposed upon an operator parking a vehicle in one of these spaces. With respect to each such requirement a failure to comply by the operator was made a public offense. The area of the zones was such that there were therein approximately 1800 spaces, each twenty feet in length.
Plaintiff makes the statement that, though the parking of a vehicle in a space where there is no meter would constitute no public offense " today" the superintendent makes it an offense " tomorrow" by placing there a meter. Plaintiff also points out that the record shows that the superintendent in fact exercises all the authority the ordinances purport to confer on him. It is the theory of plaintiff that in this granting of powers to the superintendent the city delegated to that official the council's legislative functions, and that therefore the ordinances are violative of Article 3 of the Constitution of Iowa, which reads:
A setting apart of approximately 1800 spaces for meter controlled parking clearly appears. Not to exceed 700 spaces were to be so used. This limitation was numerical. That is, no identification by the city council of the particular spaces not exceeding 700 was attempted. Authority to designate those spaces and to subsequently vary such designation was conferred on the superintendent, to be exercised at his discretion. It is of this the plaintiff complains.
It may be conceded there was delegated a measure of authority. The city council itself could have attempted to point out the particular spaces. It afterwards might have re-designated them. But from that concession the soundness of plaintiff's proposition would not necessarily follow. For, consistently with the holding in this as well as other jurisdictions, the issue deemed raised by plaintiff's proposition is whether, on account of the nature of the authority delegated or by reason of the manner in which it was delegated, the legislative body transgressed the constitutional inhibition. State v. Van Trump, 224 Iowa 504, 275 N.W. 569.In the cited case as well as in Goodlove v. Logan, 217 Iowa 98, 251 N.W. 39, and State v. Manning, 220 Iowa 525, 259 N.W. 213, we have recently reviewed numerous pertinent authorities, and have noted certain generally adopted concepts relative to judicial attitude and viewpoint when, in a given case, a court has for decision the constitutional question now before us. One thought running through the cases is this-the function of a lawmaking body is the establishment of principles or standards of conduct, and may not be delegated; but the application of those principles or standards to the facts as they arise and the determination whether or not those facts exist, being a function of administrative government, may be delegated to an administrative body. In Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 12 S.Ct. 495, 505, 36 L.Ed. 294, this is stated in these words: " The legislature cannot delegate its power to make a law, but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend." Constitutional provisions such as the one here involved are not regarded as denying law making bodies resources that afford flexibility and practicality necessary to effective functioning of the laws they enact. Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 55 S.Ct. 241, 79 L.Ed. 446.And courts are prone to give consideration to a showing that the authority delegated is to do things the law making body could not understandingly or advantageously do itself. State v. Manning, 220 Iowa 525, 259 N.W. 213.
As in the case last cited, a situation existed in the case at bar that seemingly called for an administrative agency. It may be that in the cited case the need was more imperative. But it fairly appears in the case before us that flexibility of functioning of the ordinances to the end that they apply advantageously to factual situations as they should arise or change was a proper legislative objective if it could be attained lawfully. This is on account of the nature of the subject matter the ordinances affected. For several years a traffic problem had existed in Sioux City. It had varying aspects. A congestion at times of vehicular traffic was a paramount factor. The testimony is that these ordinances were looked upon by the city council as a remedy. The probability is that the city council could not as understandingly and advantageously meet each newly arising or later changing condition as could an efficient administrative officer. It is common knowledge that municipal traffic problems are being increasingly transferred for solution to a more or less developed sphere of expert investigation and deduction. From these considerations it appears that use of an administrative agency for determining the facts or state of things upon which the ordinances evidently intended to make their action depend, was not inherently unwarranted. Nor are we persuaded that the manner of the delegating of this authority was amenable to attack on the constitutional grounds advanced. The objection that unguided authority and discretion was delegated finds answer in the ordinances. The superintendent was directed to make designation of meter controlled spaces " as traffic conditions require" . We think this afforded a guide for exercising his authority and that it was sufficient, in that it defined as...
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