Isaacs v. Oklahoma City
| Decision Date | 27 December 1966 |
| Docket Number | 41527,Nos. 41276,s. 41276 |
| Citation | 437 P.2d 229,1966 OK 267 |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
| Parties | Roy ISAACS for himself and others similarly situated, Plaintiff in Error, v. OKLAHOMA CITY, a Municipal Corporation, Urban Renewal Authority, Granville Tomerlin, Chairman, F. D. Moon, Vice-Chairman, C. Kenneth Woodard, Secretary, Reuben G. Martin, Member, Ralph L. Bolen, Member, James T. Yeilding, Executive Director, Defendants in Error. S. M. ROOF, Loal C. Wilson and J. V. Garrett, Plaintiffs in Error, v. TULSA URBAN RENEWAL AUTHORITY, a purported public body corporate, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and its Officers and Members, Leeman Nix, Chairman, Robert Laird, Vice-Chairman, Murray McCune, Member, Paul Chapman, Executive Director and Secretary, and the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Municipal Corporation, Defendants in Error. |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The purpose of Urban Redevelopment Act was to enable cities to take steps to eliminate slums and blighted areas, injurious to public health, safety, morals and welfare of residents of state.
2. While the Legislature cannot delegate its constitutional power to make laws, it can make a law which delegates the power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law shall become operative, that is the Legislature may enact general provisions but leave to those who are to act discretion in filling in the details, provided the Legislature fixes reasonable and definite standards governing the exercise of such authority.
3. The clearance and redevelopment of blighted areas of a city for which private property may be acquired by condemnation under Urban Redevelopment Act are a 'public use and purpose', and hence Act is not invalid as authorizing city to acquire private property by condemnation for a private use, even though Act authorizes city to sell, lease or otherwise transfer property acquired to private redevelopers who may profit therefrom.
4. Legislature may, after declaring policy, and fixing primary standard, confer upon others power to prescribe regulations to carry legislation into effect.
5. Where language of statute is plain and unambiguous, there is no room for the construction thereof, and courts may not search for a meaning beyond the statute itself, but will give it the meaning intended by the Legislature.
6. Exemption of property from taxation, while it is owned by a city, or an Urban Renewal Authority, does not do violence to constitutional provisions with respect to taxation.
7. Urban Redevelopment Act was not vague or indefinite and does not violate due process clause of constitution.
8. Judicial examination of any law enacted by the Legislature proceeds on the assumption that such law is valid unless it contravene an express inhibition of the constitution or one necessarily implied from some express affirmative constitutional provision.
9. Urban Redevelopment Act, in being applicable only to cities with a population in excess of 100,000 is not a special or local law and is not arbitrary or capricious and is not unconstitutional on these grounds.
10. An act of the Legislature is not to be stricken down on ground that it is unconstitutional unless infringement of the constitution is clear beyond a reasonable doubt.
Appeal from the District Court of Oklahoma County, and Appeal from the District Court of Tulsa County; Glen O. Morris, District Judge and Raymond W. Graham, District Judge.
Appeal from order and judgment sustaining demurrer to amended petition in declaratory judgment action. Roy Isaacs, plaintiff in error appeals in case No. 41,276. Appeal from order and judgment dismissing petition in declaratory judgment action. S. M. Roof, et al., plaintiffs in error appeal in case No. 41,527. Affirmed.
Sid White, Oklahoma City, and Ted R. Fisher, of Johnson & Fisher, Tulsa, for plaintiffs in error.
Roy H. Semtner, Horace Thompson, Oklahoma City, for defendant in error City of Oklahoma City.
V. P. Crowe and Paul R. McDaniel, of Crowe, Boxley, Dunlevy, Thweatt, Swinford & Johnson, and Coleman Hayes and Russell F. Thompson, of Monnet, Hayes, Bullis, Grubb & Thompson, and J. Dan Batchelor, Oklahoma City, for defendant in error, Urban Renewal Authority.
Smith & Brown, and Chas. E. Norman, by Finis Smith, Tulsa, for defendants in error, Tulsa Urban Renewal Authority.
T. Murray Robinson and Wm. N. Christian, of Robinson, Robertson & Barnes, Oklahoma City, for S. D. Rorem, amici curiae.
There are two cases involved here, which because of the similarity of issues, have, by our order of November 10, 1966, been consolidated for decision.
The first case is an appeal from the judgment of the District Court of Oklahoma County in sustaining a demurrer to the petition of Roy Isaacs, plaintiff in error here, who, for himself and others similarly situated, filed a declaratory judgment action against the defendants in error, the City of Oklahoma City, a municipal corporation, the Urban Renewal Authority and the individual members of the Authority's Board of Commissioners and its executive director, seeking a declaration of the unconstitutionality of the Urban Redevelopment Law, 11 O.S. 1961, Section 1601 et seq., and for injunctive relief.
The second case is an appeal from the District Court of Tulsa County in sustaining the demurrer of the defendants in error, Tulsa Urban Renewal Authority and its officers, and the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma to the petition of the plaintiffs in error, S. M. Roof, L. C. Wilson and J. V. Garret. As in the Oklahoma City case, plaintiffs in error, in the Tulsa case sought a declaratory judgment against the Tulsa Urban Renewal Authority, its officers, and against the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, decreeing the creation of the Tulsa Urban Renewal Authority under the provisions of 11 O.S.1961, Section 1601--1620, to be void and violative of certain provisions of the Oklahoma Constitution, and for injunctive relief.
In the Oklahoma City case, all defendants in error filed motions to strike and to make more definite and certain with respect to the petition of plaintiff. These motions were sustained in part and overruled in part by the trial court. Accordingly, the plaintiff in error filed an amended petition, to which each of the defendants in error demurred. All demurrers were sustained by the trial court and the Urban Redevelopment Law was held to be constitutional. Plaintiff in error filed his motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he thereupon perfected his appeal here.
In the Tulsa case, the general demurrer to plaintiff's in error petition was sustained. Plaintiff's in error elected to stand on their petition. The trial court dismissed the action. Plaintiffs in error filed a motion for a new trial, which was overruled. Plaintiffs in error thereupon lodged their appeal here.
For convenience, plaintiffs in error in both cases shall be referred to herein as plaintiffs and the defendants shall be referred to by their respective names, if necessary.
The statutory provisions under attack, 11 O.S.1961, Sec. 1601--1620, covers some thirty pages in the statutes, and we do not deem it necessary to set out the act in full, but reference will be made herein to the various sections of the act.
Generally it may be said, as stated in Section 1604 of the act, that the over-all purpose of the act is to enable certain cities to take steps to eliminate slum and blighted areas which constitute a serious and growing menace to the public health, safety, morals and welfare of the citizens of the state, the elimination of which is declared to be a matter of public interest.
Many grounds are asserted by plaintiff for the unconstitutionality of the act, which we number and will discuss consecutively, for convenience and to meet the method of presentation.
Plaintiff, as his first ground, contends that the act attempts to confer legislative, executive and judicial authority upon the city and the authority. Other courts, in discussing this objection to similar Urban Renewal Acts, have uniformly rejected this contention, where the legislature has adopted the policy and set forth the guide lines which are to be utilized by the cities and the authority. The Supreme Court of Kansas, in the case of State ex rel. Fatzer v. Urban Renewal Agency of Kansas City, 179 Kan. 435, 296 P.2d 656, had the following to say about this point:
In addition thereto, we have consistently held in the past, in a variety of factual situations that the legislature has no authority to delegate power to an administrative board to make laws, but it may delegate to an administrative board the authority to prescribe and enforce rules and regulations to carry into effect and to aid in the enforcement of existing laws. See Rush v. Brown, 187 Okl. 97, 101 P.2d 262, and also in the case of Harris v. State, ex rel. Oklahoma Planning & Resources Board, 207 Okl. 589, 251 P.2d 799, we quoted with favor the following:
The same argument was made in connection with the establishment of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, and in that case, styled Application of Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, ...
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