Dike v. State

• Decision Date: 30 April 1888
• Citation: 38 N.W. 95,38 Minn. 366
• Parties: DIKE v STATE.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

38 Minn. 366

38 N.W. 95

DIKEvSTATE.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 30, 1888.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Chapter 158, Gen. Laws 1887, entitled “An act providing for the judicial determination and adjustment of two alleged claims of W. H. Dyke,” is not in violation of the constitutional amendment of 1881, prohibiting the legislature from enacting any special or private law, “granting *** any special or exclusive privilege, immunity, or franchise whatever.”

Appeal from district court, Ramsey county; BRILL, Judge.

Moses E. Clapp, Atty. Gen., and H. W. Childs, for the State, appellant.

Warner & Lawrence, for Dike, respondent.

MITCHELL, J.

The only question in this case is whether chapter 158, Gen. Laws 1887, is in violation of the constitutional amendment of 1881, which prohibits the legislature from enacting any special or private laws, among other things, “for granting to any individual, association, or corporation, except municipal, any special or exclusive privilege, immunity, or franchise whatever.” The contention on behalf of the state is that the act in question grants to plaintiff a “special privilege,” because it gives him the right to appeal to the district court from the decision of the commission established by chapter 1, Gen. Laws 1881, Extra Sess., disallowing his claims; the same right not being given to others whose claims were disallowed by that commission. The title of the act, as well as the peculiar form in which it is cast, may at first sight seem to give an appearance of plausibility to this position. The act was evidently adroitly drawn, so as to win legislative favor; but, when stripped of all matters of mere dress, all there is of the act of substance is an appropriation of money out of the state treasury to pay the claims of plaintiff, or a percentage thereof, on condition that he established certain facts to the satisfaction of the district court. What is recited as having been done under the act of 1881 is unimportant, and that act itself cuts no figure except so far as it is referred to, to indicate what facts the plaintiff must establish, and the district court find, in order to entitle plaintiff to draw the money from the state treasury. In short, the legislature, instead of investigating the facts themselves, and then appropriating the money absolutely, referred the investigation to the district court, and appropriated the money to pay the claims, conditioned upon the court's finding that they were of the character and description provided for in the fourth section of the act of 1881. Had the legislature adopted the first course, it seems to us that no one would have questioned the constitutionality of the act; but there is no difference in principle between that case and this. The appropriation of money to pay these claims,...