Hubbell v. Higgins

• Decision Date: 16 June 1910
• Citation: 126 N.W. 914,148 Iowa 36
• Parties: FREDERICK M. HUBBELL, ET AL., Appellees, v. LAFAYETTE HIGGINS, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

126 N.W. 914

148 Iowa 36

FREDERICK M. HUBBELL, ET AL., Appellees, v. LAFAYETTE HIGGINS, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

June 16, 1910

Appeal from Polk District Court.--HON.W. H. MCHENRY, Judge.

ACTION for injunction brought by the plaintiffs, as owners of a hotel, against the defendant, as the official hotel inspector, to restrain the defendant from enforcing against the plaintiffs the provisions of the law relating to hotel inspection, being chapter 168, Acts 33d General Assembly, on the alleged ground that such act is unconstitutional. There was a decree in the trial court sustaining the contention of the plaintiffs and entering a decree of perpetual injunction against the defendant on the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute. The defendant appeals.

Reversed.

H. W Byers and George Cosson, for appellant,

W. E Johnston and Baily & Stipp, for appellees.

OPINION

EVANS, J.

The case was tried below upon a stipulation of facts. The issues were so framed and the facts so stipulated as to present to the court the one question whether the act of the Thirty-Third General Assembly above referred to is constitutional. The specific grounds upon which plaintiffs challenge the validity of the act as being unconstitutional are set forth in their substituted petition as follows:

That said act is unconstitutional, and in violation of and repugnant to the provisions of the Constitutions of the United States and state of Iowa for the reason that the classification of inns, hotels and public lodging houses to which the said act is made applicable is an arbitrary classification based on no valid or sufficient reason, for the reason that it is class legislation and not equal or uniform in its provisions. That it deprives the plaintiffs of equal protection of the law. That it abridges the privileges and immunities of the plaintiffs as citizens of the United States and of the state of Iowa. That it deprives plaintiffs of their property and liberty without due process of law. That it delegates legislative power to the inspector of hotels, for the reason that the regulations contained in said act are arbitrary and unreasonable. That section sixteen of said act is in violation of and repugnant to section nineteen of article one of the Constitution of the state of Iowa in that it provides for imprisonment for debt and endeavors to make a misdemeanor out of an act which the Legislature has no power to define as a misdemeanor. That sections two and five of said act are in violation of and repugnant to section one of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States and section six of article one of the Constitution of the state of Iowa for the reason that said sections of said act create a monopoly and abridge the privileges and immunities of these plaintiffs and denies to these plaintiffs the equal protection of the law. That section six of said act is in violation of and repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and state of Iowa for the reason that it endeavors to make a nuisance out of things and conditions which are not nuisances in fact. That said act is void for the reason that its provisions are so uncertain and indefinite as to be impossible of enforcement.

The argument of plaintiffs, appellees, is concentrated largely upon the propositions: (1) That the classification of hotels as made in such act is arbitrary and unreasonable; (2) that the act confers upon the hotel inspector legislative powers; (3) that it gives the inspector arbitrary power to declare a hotel a nuisance even though no nuisance exist in fact or law; (4) that it is void for uncertainty in its terms; (5) that it authorizes imprisonment for debt, in that a failure on the part of the hotel keeper to pay the inspection fee is made a misdemeanor thereby.

There are a few general rules applicable to the discussion which are well settled by the authorities and which are not controverted by the parties before us. As preliminary to the discussion, some of these rules may be stated in varying form as we cull them from the cases.

Legislation in favor of different classes of individuals, in order to be valid, must extend to and embrace equally all persons who are or may be in like circumstances, and the classification must be natural and reasonable, not arbitrary or capricious.

The true practical limitation of the legislative power to classify is that the classification must be upon some apparent natural reason, some reason suggested by necessity, by such a difference in the situation and circumstances of the subjects placed in different classes as suggests the necessity, or propriety of different legislation with respect to them.

Classification, to be constitutional, must be based upon substantial distinction which makes one class so different from another as to suggest the necessity of different legislation with respect to it.

Laws public in their objects may be confined to a particular class of persons if they are general in their application to the cases to which they apply, provided the distinction is not arbitrary but rests upon some reason of public policy.

Classification must be reasonable and based upon real differences in the situation, conditions and tendencies of things. If there is no real difference between persons, occupations, or property, the state can not make one in favor of some persons over others.

The true practical limitation of the legislative power to classify is that the classification shall be upon some apparent natural reason, some reason suggested by necessity, by such a difference in the situation and circumstances of the subjects placed in different classes as suggest the necessity or propriety of different legislation with respect to them. State v. Garbroski, 111 Iowa 496, 82 N.W. 959; Bailey v. People, 190 Ill. 28 (60 N.E. 98, 54 L.R.A. 838, 83 Am. St. Rep. 116); State v. Cooley, 56 Minn. 540 (58 N.W. 150); State v. Mitchell, 97 Me. 66 (53 A. 887, 94 Am. St. Rep., 481); Nichols v. Walter, 37 Minn. 264 (33 N.W. 800).

Legislation which affects alike all persons similarly situated is not class legislation. Sisson v. Board of Supervisor, 128 Iowa 442, 104 N.W. 454; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27 (5 S.Ct. 357, 28 L.Ed. 923); Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U.S. 68 (7 S.Ct. 350, 30 L.Ed. 578).

The legislature has power to adopt legislation in the interest of public health and public safety, provided such legislation is reasonably adapted to the end sought. The Legislature may also grant to commissioners and other subordinate officers power to ascertain and determine appropriate facts as a basis for procedure in the enforcement of the law, and the granting of such authority is not a delegation of legislative power. Brady v. Mattern, 125 Iowa 158, 100 N.W. 358; State v. Thompson, 160 Mo. 333 (60 S.W. 1077, 54 L.R.A. 950, 83 Am. St. Rep. 468); Ryan v. Outagamie, 80 Wis. 336 (50 N.W. 340); Locke's Appeal, 72 Pa. 491 (13 Am. Rep. 716); Easton Commissioners v. Covey, 74 Md. 262 (22 A. 266).

The first point argued by the appellees is that the statute is arbitrary in its classification, in that it is confined in its application to hotels having ten or more sleeping rooms. This classification is found in section one of the act, and it is in the nature of a definition of "hotel" within the meaning of the act, and is as follows: "Every building or structure kept, used, advertised as or held out to the public to be an inn, hotel or public lodging house, or place where sleeping accommodations are furnished for hire to transient guests whether with or without meals in which ten or more sleeping rooms are used for the accommodation of such guests shall for the purpose of this act be defined to be a hotel."

It is not denied but that some classification is desirable and proper, and that some line of division may be reasonably adopted as limiting the application of the law. Can it be said that the line of division which is provided in the statute is based upon a natural reason and one in harmony with the necessities of the situation? There is a sense, it is true, wherein the adoption of ten as the minimum number is arbitrary; that is to say, the Legislature might as reasonably have adopted the number nine or the number eleven or even a larger or a smaller number. But this fact does not render the act arbitrary in a legal sense. It was essential to the practicability of the enactment that some fixed limitation be provided. Such limitation must be based upon a natural rather than an arbitrary reason. If the limitation adopted was a natural and reasonable one, it would be none the less so because some other limitation could have been adopted in lieu thereof.

It seems quite clear to us that the limitation adopted in this act was natural and reasonable and was in harmony with the necessity of the situation. This provision of the act is manifestly based upon the assumption that the peril to the life and safety of guests is somewhat proportionate to the size of the hotel. We can not say that this is an unreasonable assumption. On the contrary, it impresses us otherwise. If a fire were to obtain in a hotel containing a thousand rooms occupied by guests, surely the problem of rescue confronting the public authorities in such case would be immensely more difficult than would be that presented by a like situation in a building containing only a few rooms and guests.

It is urged that it would have been...