Loftus v. Department of Agr. of Iowa

• Decision Date: 22 September 1930
• Docket Number: 40215
• Citation: 232 N.W. 412,211 Iowa 566
• Parties: M. F. LOFTUS et al., Appellees, v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE OF IOWA et al., Appellants
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

232 N.W. 412

211 Iowa 566

M. F. LOFTUS et al., Appellees, v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE OF IOWA et al., Appellants

No. 40215

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

September 22, 1930

REHEARING DENIED DECEMBER 13, 1930.

Appeal from Mitchell District Court.--M. H. KEPLER, Judge.

This was a proceeding in equity to enjoin the state department of agriculture, M. J. Thornburg, secretary thereof, and other state and county officers and representatives, from enforcing the Bovine Tuberculosis Law, as set forth in Chapter 129 of the 1927 Code, as amended by Acts of the Forty-third General Assembly, Chapter 75. There was a trial to the court, and the injunction was granted, as prayed. From that judgment and decree the defendants appeal.

Reversed.

John Fletcher, Attorney-general, Earl F. Wisdom, Assistant Attorney-general, H. H. Matt, and L. D. Prewitt, for appellants.

William H. Salisbury, Kugler & Bartlett, and B. N. Hendricks, for appellees.

J. B Newman, W. H. Antes, Sager & Sweet, and Senneff, Bliss Witwer & Senneff, Amici Curiae.

KINDIG J. MORLING, C. J., and EVANS, STEVENS, DE GRAFF, WAGNER, and GRIMM, JJ., concur.

OPINION

KINDIG, J.

The plaintiffs-appellees claim that Chapter 129 of the 1927 Code, as amended (Acts Forty-third General Assembly, Chapter 75), is unconstitutional and void. This legislation was enacted by the state for the purpose of controlling and eradicating bovine tuberculosis. Section 2 of the amendment declares:

"The state of Iowa is hereby declared to be and is hereby established as an accredited area for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis from the dairy and breeding cattle of the state."

Quarantine is authorized, and tubercular cattle may be destroyed or otherwise disposed of by the department of agriculture. Inspectors or testers are arranged for in the legislation, and these agents may apply the tuberculin or other tests, to determine the existence or nonexistence of tuberculosis in the cattle. Various phases of this legislation have been before us at different times. See Peverill v. Board of Supervisors, 201 Iowa 1050, 205 N.W. 543; Fevold v. Board of Supervisors, 202 Iowa 1019, 210 N.W. 139; Lausen v. Board of Supervisors, 204 Iowa 30; Peverill v. Board of Supervisors, 208 Iowa 94, 222 N.W. 535.

Appellees are the owners of dairy and breeding cattle in Mitchell County. Defendants-appellants include the state department of agriculture, its secretary, and other state and county officers who are commanded by law to enforce the Bovine Tuberculosis Statute aforesaid. It was stipulated in the district court that, unless the injunction was granted by that tribunal, the defendants would proceed under the law to apply the tuberculin test to appellees' cattle. Also, it was stipulated that the department of agriculture had claimed to locate tuberculosis in certain animals in appellees' herds. So, too, it was stipulated that, unless prevented by injunction, the department of agriculture would order the slaughter of those animals which reacted to the tuberculin test. Hence, appellees bring this action to obtain an injunction, in order that the Bovine Tuberculosis Statute aforesaid will not be enforced. Foundation for the action, as before said, is that the legislative act in question is unconstitutional. Basis for this contention is that the legislation under attack does not provide due process of law, and permits an unreasonable exercise of the police power, allows arbitrary action by the enforcing officers, authorizes the administrative department to unlawfully enact and enforce rules and regulations, is not uniform in its operation, combines in one testing agent the duties of administrative and judicial officers, and otherwise is repugnant to the state and Federal Constitutions. Hence, it is urged, the legislation is in conflict with Articles 1, 3, 4, and 5 of the Iowa Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

There is presented, then, the problem of determining the merits of appellees' contentions aforesaid. Unconstitutionality, if any exists, arises because the state legislature exceeded its powers when enacting the particular laws now being considered.

Under our system of government, the law-making power is vested in the legislature. Such power was originally in the people. Likewise, in our civil government, the administrative and judicial authority originated with the people themselves. These three fundamental prerogatives were granted by the people, through appropriate constitutional and legislative provisions, to the legislative, administrative, and judicial departments of the state government. Each department of government is an agency of the people. No department can exercise any power or authority not granted to it by the people. By conferring a particular power or authority upon one department, the people thereby indicated that they withheld such power or authority from the other departments. Power to legislate was significantly and intentionally conferred upon the legislative department. Consequently, the courts cannot interfere with the exercise of that power and authority by the legislature. It is only when the legislature attempts to exercise a power which it does not possess, because of state or Federal constitutional prohibitions, that the duty devolves upon the court to declare the act unconstitutional. Through such declaration, the court, as an agency of the people, reports back to them that another agency--the legislature--has thus exceeded its power. Unless the legislature has usurped powers prohibited by said Constitutions, the courts will not interfere. The unconstitutionality must "plainly, clearly, and palpably appear." Even if the constitutionality of a legislative act is doubtful, the courts will resolve the benefit of the doubt in favor of the legislature's power. As said in City of Des Moines v. Manhattan Oil Co., 193 Iowa 1096, on page 1117, 184 N.W. 823:

"There is no presumption against the validity of an act of the legislature. On the contrary, all presumptions are in its favor, and a statute will not be held unconstitutional unless its contravention of constitutional guaranties is so clear, plain, and palpable as to leave no reasonable doubt on the subject * * *."

For authorities announcing the same doctrine, see State v. Hutchinson Ice Cream Co., 168 Iowa 1, 147 N.W. 195 (local citation 10); State v. Fairmont Cream. Co., 153 Iowa 702, 133 N.W. 895 (local citation 706); Hubbell v. Higgins, 148 Iowa 36, 126 N.W. 914 (local citation 47); McGuire v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 131 Iowa 340, 108 N.W. 902 (local citation 348); Stewart v. Board of Supervisors, 30 Iowa 9 (local citations 11, 19). See, also, Kimball v. Board of Supervisors, 190 Iowa 783, 180 N.W. 988 (local citation 792). When the constitutionality of a legislative act is challenged by a litigant, the burden is upon him to show why the legislation thus should be overthrown and rejected. People v. Teuscher, 129 Misc. 94 (221 N.Y.S. 20, 25). See the other cases above cited.

Have the appellees met this burden in the case at bar? That is the question. Convenience suggests that appellees' attack on the Bovine Tuberculosis Statute be discussed in the order named.

I. Is the legislation under consideration within the police power of the state? If so, is there provided due process of law in the enforcement thereof?

Police power is constantly exercised by the state; yet a definition of such power has never been definitely and precisely formulated. In fact, public policy rather demands that there be no specific definition. See Stettler v. O'Hara, 69 Ore. 519 (139 P. 743). Each case as it arises must be determined according to its own facts. State v. Schlenker, 112 Iowa 642, 84 N.W. 698. During its discussion in the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 49 L.Ed. 643, 25 S.Ct. 358, the United States Supreme Court said:

"The authority of the state to enact this [vaccination] statute is to be referred to what is commonly called the police power,--a power which the state did not surrender when becoming a member of the Union under the Constitution. Although this court has refrained from any attempt to define the limits of that power, yet it has distinctly recognized the authority of a state to enact quarantine laws and 'health laws of every description;' indeed, all laws that relate to matters completely within its territory, and which do not by their necessary operation affect the people of other states. According to settled principles, the police power of a state must be held to embrace at least such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety."

Again, the Supreme Court of the United States said in Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 38 L.Ed. 385, 14 S.Ct. 499:

"The extent and limits of what is known as the police power have been a fruitful subject of discussion in the appellate courts of nearly every state in the Union. It is universally conceded to include everything essential to the public safety, health, and morals, and to justify the destruction or abatement, by summary proceedings, of whatever may be regarded as a public nuisance. Under this power, it has been held that the state may order the destruction of a house falling to decay, or otherwise endangering the lives of passers-by; the demolition of such as are in the path of a conflagration; the slaughter of diseased cattle; the destruction of decayed or unwholesome food; the prohibition of wooden buildings in cities; the regulation of railways and other means of public conveyance, and of interments in burial grounds; the restriction of objectionable trades to certain localities; the compulsory vaccination of children; the...