Ex parte Rickell's Estate

• Decision Date: 08 April 1930
• Docket Number: 10.
• Citation: 150 A. 25,158 Md. 654
• Parties: EX PARTE RICKELL'S ESTATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

150 A. 25

158 Md. 654

EX PARTE RICKELL'S ESTATE.

No. 10.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

April 8, 1930

Dissenting opinion. For majority opinion, see 149 A. 446.

SLOAN J. (dissenting).

The majority opinion in this case holds that to enforce the provisions of the Act of 1929, chapter 74; Code, article 65 (Ann. Code Supp. 1929), sections 56A to 56U, would not violate the constitutional rights of any of the persons whom the act was intended to benefit, nor amount to a surrender of judicial power by a state court to a federal administrative official.

The federal act, cited as "the World War Veterans' Act 1924," U.S. Code, Annotated, title 38, sections 421 to 576, which was "intended to provide a system for the relief of persons who were disabled, and for the dependents of those who died as a result of disability suffered in the military service of the United States between April 6, 1917 and July 2, 1921" (section 422), provided for its administration through the "Director of the United Veterans' Bureau," who "shall administer execute and enforce the provisions of this chapter, and for that purpose shall have full power and authority to make rules and regulations not inconsistent with the provisions of this chapter, which are necessary, or appropriate to carry out its purposes, and shall decide all questions arising under this chapter, and all decisions of questions of fact affecting any claimant to the benefits of parts II, III or IV of this chapter (Compensation, treatment, insurance and vocational rehabilitation), shall be conclusive except as otherwise provided herein." The decisions cited by the majority opinion that Congress had the authority to pass such an act are not disputed, as the state courts are bound by such decisions affecting the validity of any federal statute.

Intending to aid in the administration of the World War Veterans' Act, the Legislature of Maryland passed the Act of 1929 chapter 74, providing for the appointment of guardians for those who in the judgment of the director of the Veterans' Bureau were incompetent to receive benefits under the federal act by reason of age or mental incapacity. With the purposes of the act there can be no difference of opinion, and, if it violates no constitutional right of a citizen or confers no judicial power on an administrative official or legislative agent, or unlawfully interferes with the powers and functions of the courts of the state as an independent branch of the state government, there would be no cause of complaint with the majority decision. As was so well said by the chancellor in this case:

"It is a rule of constitutional law that the grant of judicial power to the department created for the purpose of exercising it must be regarded as an exclusive grant covering the whole power, subject to the limitations which the constitutions impose, and to those exceptions which are incidental, necessary or proper to the exercise of legislative or executive function. Cooley on Constitutional Limitations (5th Ed.) 176.

In complete harmony with this statement of the law is the Constitution of Maryland, which creates a judicial system and makes it the repository of all judicial power and then assures its complete independence and freedom in the determination of justiciable questions by declaring that 'The Legislative, Executive and Judicial Powers of government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other, and no person exercising the function of one of said departments shall assume and discharge the duties of any other.' Maryland Declaration of Rights, art. VIII. This language is explicit and mandatory and the courts, obedient to its command, have intervened whenever an encroachment came to their attention. Beasley v. Ridout, 94 Md. 641, 52 A. 61; Crane v. Meginnis, 1 Gill & J. 463, 19 Am. Dec. 237; The Chancellor's Case, 1 Bland, 595, 672.

So it is a commonplace of our jurisprudence that the Legislature may not assume judicial power. Miller v. State, to Use of Fiery, 8 Gill, 145; Baltimore v. Horn, 26 Md. 194, 206, 207; Dorsey v. Gary, 37 Md. 64, 79, 11 Am. Rep. 528; Roche v. Waters, 72 Md. 264, 272, 19 A. 535, 7 L. R. A. 533; Queen Anne's County v. Talbot County, 108 Md. 196, 199, 69 A. 801; Harris v. County Com'rs of Allegany County, 130 Md. 488, 491, 494, 100 A. 733, L. R. A. 1917E, 824.

As a necessary corollary to this constitutional provision, the Legislature may not delegate a judicial function to an executive or administrative department, nor encroach upon the province of the judicial branch of government by depriving a court of the jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution. The plenitude of the judicial power in protecting the individual in his life, liberty or property is not to be impaired by legislative usurpation.

It was early stated in Prout v. Berry, 2 Gill, 147, 150, that the legislature must leave the mode or manner of administering justice untrammeled. State v. Northern Central Ry. Co., 18 Md. 193, 210; Dorsey v. Dorsey, 37 Md. 64, 77, 11 Am. Rep. 528. Since it is a judicial function to hear and determine those matters which affect the liberty or property of a person within the state, it follows that the legislature of Maryland can not empower a federal executive or administrative bureau or any of its officers to determine by a ruling the minority or incompetence of a citizen of Maryland and thus deprive the state courts of Maryland of their jurisdiction is such justiciable matters. Nor can the General Assembly make the efficacy and operation of a judgment or decree of the court of competent jurisdiction depend upon the sanction, or concurrence of any executive or ministerial officer or of any class of persons charged with the performance of non judicial duties. The judicial power granted by the Constitution to designate tribunals of its own creation, or inherent from the nature of their functions, can neither be abrogated nor abridged by legislative enactment. Any legislative device is void if it thwart or impair the jurisdiction of a constitutional court. If this were not sound legal doctrine the threefold separation of governmental power would be swept away and there would be no check upon the supreme, arbitrary and unmeasured power of the legislature. Supra and State v. Mace, 5 Md. 337, 349; Declaration of Rights, Articles 5, 19, 20, 23; Constitution, art. 4, §§ 1, 20, 29; Flanigan v. Guggenheim Smelting Co., 63 N. J. Law, 647, 650, 44 A. 762; Smith v. Livesey, 67 N. J. Law, 269, 51 A. 453; Public Service El. Co. v. Board of Public Utility Com'rs, 88 N. J. Law, 603, 96 A. 1013, 1015; Ex parte Thompson, 85 N. J. Eq. 221, 96 A. 102; In re Walker's Estate, 95 N. J. Eq. 619, 123 A. 423; Adams v. State, 156 Ind. 596, 59 N.E. 24, 26; State v. Noble, 118 Ind. 350, 21 N.E. 244, 4 L. R. A. 101, 10 Am. St. Rep. 143; Greenough v. Greenough, 11 Pa. St. 489, 51 Am. Dec. 567; Flynn v. Central Ry. Co., 142 N.Y. 439, 37 N.E. 514; Alexander v. Bennett, 60 N.Y. 204; Marvis v. Marvis, 216 A.D. 291, 215 N.Y.S. 43; Dexter Yarn Co. v. Am. Fabrics Co., 102 Conn. 529, 129 A. 527, 532; Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 26 L.Ed. 377, 387; Den ex dem. Murray v. Hoboken Land & Imp. Co., 18 How. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372, 377; Denny v. Mattoon, 2 Allen (Mass.) 361, 378, 79 Am. Dec. 784."

"It is provided by section 56D of the Act of 1929 that in the case of a mentally incompetent ward the petition shall show that such a ward has been rated incompetent on examination by the Bureau in accordance with the laws and regulations governing the Bureau and by section 56F. Where a petition is filed for the appointment of a guardian of a mentally incompetent ward, a certificate of a director or his representative setting forth the fact that such person has been rated incompetent by the Bureau on examination in accordance with the laws and regulations governing such bureau; and that the appointment of a guardian is a condition precedent to the payment of any moneys due such person by the Bureau shall be prima facie evidence of the necessity for such appointment."

There would be little room for criticism of the act from a state point of view if it merely provided for payment to a guardian after a determination of the competency of the soldier by an inquisition and then left the guardian or committee under the untrammeled direction of the court. This was the condition under which the Civil War Pension Act in the cases of the mentally deficient and minor dependents was satisfactorily administered for more than sixty years.

Under the act of Congress and the act of 1929, the determination of the soldier's competency is made by the Director of the Veterans' Bureau, and nowhere in the act of 1929 does it appear that his action is subject to review. Section 56F does not say that the certificate of the Director shall be prima facie evidence of the ward's incompetency, which would ordinarily mean that it might be rebutted, but that it "shall be prima facie evidence of the necessity for such appointment." The soldier has already been declared or rated incompetent, and the appointment of a guardian is a condition precedent to the payment of any money. Before the petition is filed, every question necessary to the appointment is settled and determined by the Director. The mere appointment of a guardian is a perfunctory act which does not call for the decision of any human rights. To have the power, however, to appoint such a custodian of one's property must be predicated on some act or proceeding the effect of which is to preserve or take away one's liberty and the right to enjoy or to take away the possession and...