Carmack v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Agriculture, 79644
| Decision Date | 27 May 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 79644,79644 |
| Parties | Richard CARMACK, d/b/a Carmack Elk Farm, individually and as agent for Diane Carmack, et al., Appellants, v. DIRECTOR, MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Gwendolyn S. Froeschner, Columbia, for Appellants.
Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Karen King Mitchell, Christine A. Kincannon, Assistant Attorneys General, Jefferson City, for Respondents.
"No bill shall contain more than one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title....." Mo. Const. art. III, sec. 23 ("section 23"). In this case we consider whether the general assembly violated section 23 when a bill bearing the title "relating to economic development" contained, among its 102 statutory amendments or additions, amendments to section 267.610, RSMo, changing the indemnification paid to owners upon the destruction of their livestock carrying highly contagious or communicable or infectious disease.
We have jurisdiction. Mo. Const. art. V, sec. 3. We conclude that the general assembly's passage of Conference Committee Substitute for Senate Committee Substitute for House Committee Substitute for House Bill 566 violated section 23 in that the bill contained more than one subject. We, therefore, hold that the amendment to section 267.610 contained in C.C.S.S.C.S.H.C.S.H.B. 566 is void. The judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Richard Carmack is a part owner of Carmack Elk Farm in Howard County. As the name suggests, Carmack and his partners raise elk there, and have since 1990, when they first imported elk from Canada. The elk were initially tested and certified disease free at the time Carmack acquired them. However, word reached the state veterinarian that tuberculosis had infected the Canadian herd from which Carmack obtained his elk. The state veterinarian tested the Carmack elk, and several animals tested positive for bovine tuberculosis. For a more complete discussion of the facts pertaining to the tuberculosis discovery, see Carmack v. Saunders, 884 S.W.2d 394 (Mo.App.1994). The state veterinarian initially determined it necessary to order the slaughter of six elk to contain the tuberculosis. Prior to January 1, 1993, and pursuant to the state veterinarian's order, seven elk were destroyed, one by mistake. Despite a contentious process, the state ultimately reimbursed Carmack the actual value of the elk--$7,650.58 each. After January 1, 1993, more of Carmack's elk contracted tuberculosis and, ultimately, a total of forty-six elk met their death on the state veterinarian's order.
C.C.S.S.C.S.H.C.S.H.B. 566 amended, among many other statutes, section 267.610. The governor approved the legislation on June 29, 1993. The new legislation changed the rate of compensation paid to owners of livestock slaughtered by the state veterinarian to prevent the spread of disease. That statutory change, effective January 1, 1993, by its express terms, is at the nub of this case. Carmack prefers the previous indemnification formula, which based indemnification on the actual value of the animals destroyed; the state prefers the less expensive, new indemnification, which bases indemnification on pre-determined values for various animals set by regulation of the department of agriculture and which limits total indemnification payable to legislative appropriations for that purpose. To achieve his preference, Carmack claims that the general assembly passed the amendment to section 267.610 as part of a bill that violated section 23.
When originally introduced for consideration by the members of the general assembly, House Bill 566 (the original bill will be described as "House Bill 566") proposed repeal of twelve statutory sections "relating to economic development" and proposed enacting seventeen new sections "in lieu thereof." The original, officially-printed bill consisted of twenty-three full pages of text and eleven words on a twenty-fourth page and: (1) required the governor's budget message to include a cost-benefit analysis of various state tax expenditures specifically directed to tax-incentive programs administered by the department of economic development; (2) required the highway and transportation department to develop a plan "to modernize the state's transportation system;" (3) authorized the governor to establish and provided guidelines for the operation of a private Missouri Business Modernization and Technology Corporation to replace the Corporation for Science and Technology to work in conjunction with the department of economic development; (4) permitted the Small Business Assistance Office to establish regional offices under the direction of the department of economic development; (5) created and defined the authority of the Missouri Business Modernization and Sudden Response Job Retention Teams within the department of economic development; and (6) created a "new jobs" revolving fund administered by the department of economic development.
When finally passed, C.C.S.S.C.S.H.C.S.H.B. 566 ("H.B.566") repealed 88 statutory sections "relating to economic development" and enacted 102 new sections "relating to the same subject." The bill covered nearly 179 full pages of text. The 102 new sections amended laws in 25 statutory chapters:
Chapter 30 State Treasurer, Linked Deposits, Farm Assistance
Chapter 32 State Department of Revenue, Neighborhood Assistance Act
Chapter 135 Tax Relief, Credit for New or Expanded Business Facility
Chapter 186 Advisory Commissions, Committees and Councils, Missouri Council on Women's Economic Development and Training
Chapter 226 State Highway and Transportation Department
Chapter 265 Standardization, Inspection and Marketing of Agricultural Products, Meat Inspection
Chapter 348 Authorities and Corporations for Economic and Technological Development, Small Business, Missouri Technology Corporation Chapter 350 Farming Corporations
Chapter 362 Banks and Trust Companies
Chapter 442 Titles and Conveyance of Real Estate
Chapter 447 Lost and Unclaimed Property
Chapter 620 Department of Economic Development
Chapter 644 Water Pollution
A.
Carmack claims that H.B. 566 violates section 23. Section 23 is a procedural requirement imposed by the people in the constitution to limit the manner in which the legislature may pass legislation. At the outset of our discussion of this issue, we recite again the clear rules that have bridled this Court's review of procedural challenges to legislation passed by the general assembly and approved by the governor. An act of the legislature carries a strong presumption of constitutionality. Hammerschmidt v. Boone County, 877 S.W.2d 98, 102 (Mo. banc 1994). This Court resolves all doubts in favor of the procedural and substantive validity of legislative acts. Id. Attacks against legislative action founded on constitutionally imposed procedural limitations are not favored. Id. An act of the legislature must clearly and undoubtedly violate a constitutional procedural limitation before this Court will hold it unconstitutional. Id. Finally, we will attempt to avoid an interpretation of the Constitution that "will limit or cripple legislative enactments any further than what was necessary by the absolute requirements of the law." State v. Miller, 45 Mo. 495, 497 (1870).
In the part of section 23 pertinent here, the constitution imposes two distinct limitations on the procedures by which the general assembly may pass legislation: (1) A bill cannot contain more than one subject and (2) the subject of the bill "shall be clearly expressed in its title." Section 23 is a mandatory, not directory, constitutional provision. Miller, 45 Mo. at 498. It has been a part of every Missouri constitution since 1865. Mo. Const. art IV, sec. XXXII (1865).
In Hammerschmidt, this Court considered legislation ultimately found to violate the "one subject" provision of section 23. We said there that "[t]o the extent the bill's original purpose is properly expressed in the title to the bill, we need not look beyond the title to determine the bill's subject." Id. at 102. We remarked parenthetically, however, that "[a]morphous titles that are too broad to inform the public and the legislature of the subject of the bill present serious, but different, constitutional problems....." Id. at 102, n. 3.
As previously indicated, Hammerschmidt directs that we look first to the title of H.B. 566 to determine its subject. The title of H.B. 566 includes reference to specific statutory sections and describes the bill as "relating to economic development."
Carmack urges that the description of the subject contained in the title to H.B. 566--"relating to economic development"--cannot include a law determining the compensation due livestock owners when the state destroys their livestock to protect other livestock from disease without violating section 23. Carmack says that "economic development" means "to bring out the capabilities or possibilities of the production, distribution and use of income and wealth." App. Br. at 17, quoting (without more accurate citation) The American...
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