Johns Hopkins University v. Williams

• Decision Date: 05 March 1952
• Docket Number: No. 139,139
• Citation: 86 A.2d 892,199 Md. 382
• Parties: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY et al. v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 382

199 Md. 382

86 A.2d 892

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY et al. v. WILLIAMS.

No. 139.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 5, 1952.

Harry N. Baetjer and Arthur W. Machen, Jr., Baltimore, for appellant Johns Hopkins University (Venable, Baetjer & Howard, Baltimore, on the brief).

Hall Hammond, Atty. Gen. (Robert M. Thomas, Asst. Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellant Board of Public Works.

Harrison L. Winter, Baltimore (Seymour O'Brien and Miles, Walsh, O'Brien & Morris, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARBURY, Chief Judge, and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and MARKELL, JJ.

MARBURY, Chief Judge.

This is a taxpayer's suit to enjoin the Board of Public Works of Maryland from issuing a State loan of $1,500,000 under the provisions of Chapter 414 of the Acts of 1951. This act provides that the cash proceeds of the loan, after paying the usual costs and expenses, shall be paid to the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University for the construction and equipping of a new building at Homewood for the School of Engineering of said university, to be used for the general purposes of said School of Engineering, including an industrial research laboratory. It is contended that this act is in violation of Sec. 34 of Article III of the Constitution of the State, and hence is unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect. An answer was filed by the Board of Public Works. The Johns Hopkins University asked leave to intervene, and also filed an answer. A stipulation of facts was filed, some testimony was taken, and the chancellor filed a decree in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, holding that Chapter 414 was void, and enjoining the issuance of the bonds. From this decree an appeal was taken to this court by the Johns Hopkins University. The Board of Public Works, although nominally a defendant, took a somewhat neutral position below, and continued to take that position here. The Attorney General, who represented the Board, is inclined to agree with the decision of the chancellor.

The case turns upon the proper interpretation of Sec. 34 of Article III of the Constitution. That section reads in part as follows, with the special clause claimed to be applicable italicized: 'No debt shall be hereafter contracted by the General Assembly unless such debt shall be authorized by a law providing for the collection of an annual tax or taxes sufficient to pay the interest on such debt as it falls due, and also to discharge the principal thereof within fifteen years from the time of contracting the same; and the taxes laid for this purpose shall not be repealed or applied to any other object until the said debt and interest thereon shall be fully discharged. The credit of the State shall not in any manner be given, or loaned to, or in aid of any individual association or corporation; nor shall the General Assembly have the power in any mode to involve the State in the construction of works of internal improvement, nor in granting any aid thereto which shall involve the faith or credit of the State; nor make any appropriation therefor * * *.'

This section did not originate with the Constitution of 1867. It was substantially the same as Sec. 33 of Article III of the Constitution of 1864, and was first adopted as Sec. 22 of Article III of the Constitution of 1851. The italicized portion was exactly the same, except that some commas were left out in 1867. It is not suggested, however, that this changes in any way the meaning or intention of the section. In the Constitutions of 1851 and 1864, the last clause read: '* * * nor shall the general assembly have the power in any mode to involve the State in the construction of works of internal improvement, nor ['or' in 1851] in any enterprise which shall involve the faith or credit of the State, nor ['or' in 1851] make any appropriations therefor; * * *'. The words 'nor in any enterprise' were changed in 1867 to 'nor in granting any aid thereto'. In the Constitution of 1851, the debts contracted under the first sentence and remaining unpaid were limited to one hundred thousand dollars. This limit was eliminated in the succeeding constitutions.

It has been said by this court that the rule which above all others gives life to the written law and makes its use possible for the government and control of men in carrying on the actual business of life is that, 'while the principles of the constitution are unchangeable, in interpreting the language by which they are expressed, it will be given a meaning which will permit the application of those principles to changes in the economic, social, and political life of the people, which the framers did not and could not foresee. * * * In determining the true meaning of the language used, the courts may consider the mischief at which the provision was aimed, the remedy, the temper and spirit of the people at the time it was framed, the common usage well known to the people, and the history of the growth or evolution of the particular provision under consideration. * * * In aid of an inquiry into the true meaning of the language used, weight may also be given to long-continued contemporaneous construction by officials charged with the administration of the government, and especially by the Legislature.' Norris v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 172 Md. 667, 675, 676, 192 A. 531, 535. 'Great weight has always been attached, and very rightly attached, to contemporaneous exposition.' Chief Justice Marshall in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 418, 5 L.Ed. 257. 'A contemporaneous construction placed upon a particular provision of the organic law by the legislative department of the government, acquiesced in and acted upon without ever having been questioned, followed continuously and uniformly from a very early period * * * furnishes a very strong presumption that the intention is rightly interpreted.' Trustees of the Catholic Cathedral Church of Baltimore v. Manning, 72 Md. 116, 130, 19 A. 599, 603; Wyatt v. State Roads Commission, 175 Md. 258, 264, 1 A.2d 619. 'While the construction of a statute or constitutional provision is a judicial function, courts may, in declaring their meaning and effect, avail themselves of the construction put upon them by the Legislature by long-continued custom and acquiescence.' Humphreys v. Walls, 169 Md. 292, 299, 181 A. 735, 738. 'In interpreting the Constitution the first thing to be got at is, what was the purpose of its framers? Where this has not been clearly expressed, we must look to the necessity and nature of the thing provided for, or against, as the case may be. With this guide we can experience but slight, if any difficulty, in ascertaining the meaning of the language used in the section quoted.' Buckingham v. Davis, 9 Md. 324, 328.

These quotations indicate the proper method by which the courts are to determine the meaning of ambiguous constitutional provisions, or those which are susceptible of more than one meaning. Of course, if they are clear and unambiguous, then there is no construction or clarification necessary or proper. It is also true that while contemporaneous construction or acquiescence in a particular course of dealing is of very great assistance, such construction or acquiescence cannot make an unconstitutional law constitutional. Somerset County Com'rs v. Pocomoke Bridge Co., 109 Md. 1, 71 A. 462; Maryland Theatrical Corp. v. Brennan, 180 Md. 377, 387, 388, 24 A.2d 911.

The Johns Hopkins University is a private, non-stock corporation engaged in the promotion of education in the State of Maryland at the collegiate and post-graduate levels. It is in no sense engaged in the construction of works of internal improvement, and, therefore, any prohibition which may be construed to prevent the issuance of the state loan under Chapter 414 of the Acts of 1951 must be found, if at all, in the credit clause of the second sentence of Sec. 34, which we have italicized, and which begins: 'The credit of the State * * *' etc. The question is whether, by the sale of bonds and the gift of the proceeds to the university, the credit of the State has been in any manner given or loaned to, or in aid of, the university.

The credit clause was not original with the framers of the Constitution of 1851. It is exactly the same as a clause inserted in the Constitution of the State of New York, adopted in the year 1846, art. 7, § 9, and the basic reasons for its adoption in New York were the same as those which caused its insertion in the Maryland Constitution. During the second quarter of the 19th Century, these two states, as well as others, had given millions of dollars of state funds in the promotion of privately owned railroads and canals. It was a period of great expansion of internal improvements such as these, and what was done turned out to be a reckless and improvident use of public funds. The situation in New York is aptly described by Mr. Alvord, a member of the Constitutional Convention of New York of 1867, reported in Vol. 3 of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention, at page 1844. He said: 'The past history of this State previous to the Constitution of 1846 was this: if a railroad or some enterprise of thak kind was started in any portion of the State, and was unable as it seemed to get along without some State aid the State came in as an indorser or security for the road, loaning to the road or to the corporation its bonds, payable at a future period of time, with an agreement on the part of the corporation to take care of the interest as it bacame due and ultimately to redeem the principal. The result was in very many instances the State lost the entire amount of the investment.' A complete discussion can be found in Lincoln's Constitutional History of New York, Vol. 2, pages 73 to 101. An illustration of the method used may be found in Chapter 170 of the Laws of New York of 1836, which authorized the issuance of $3,000,000 worth of state...