Love v. Bell
| Citation | 465 P.2d 118,171 Colo. 27 |
| Decision Date | 26 January 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 24267,24267 |
| Parties | John A. LOVE, Governor of the State of Colorado, Mark Hogan, Lieutenant Governor and President of the Senate of the State of Colorado, John D. Vanderhoof, Speaker of the House of Representatives for the State of Colorado, John H. Heckers, Director of Revenue of the State of Colorado, William A. Cassel, Motor Vehicle Supervisor of the State of Colorado and the People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiffs in Error, v. Joseph BELL, J. Chris Davidson, Gwen Ledbetter, Bruce Cerman, James P. Tagaris, Clint Ellis, and the Colorado Motorcycle Association, a Colorado Non-Profit Corporation, Defendants in Error. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Colorado |
Duke W. Dunbar, Atty. Gen., John P. Moore, Deputy Atty. Gen., Harold L. Neufeld, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for plaintiffs in error.
Ward, McKibben, Constantine & Pred, Frank C. McKibben, Denver, for defendants in error.
The defendants in error (plaintiffs in the trial court and hereinafter designated as such) initiated a class action in the Denver District Court seeking a declaratory judgment concerning the constitutionality of C.R.S.1963, 13--5--159, enacted by the 1968 General Assembly (commonly known as the Motorcycle Helmet Law), and seeking temporary and permanent relief from enforcement of that statute.
C.R.S.1963, 13--5--159, which appears in Colorado Session Laws, p. 146 (1968), provides in part:
'No person shall operate any motorcycle or motor-driven cycle on any public highway in this state unless such person and any passenger thereon is wearing securely fastened on his head a protective helmet designed to deflect blows, resist penetration, and spread the force of impact; * * *'
At the trial on the issues, the plaintiffs presented no evidence whatsoever. The defendants (the plaintiffs in error here) offered several documents containing statistics dealing with the results of the operation of motorcycles by drivers wearing helmets as compared to those with drivers not wearing helmets. No other evidence appears in the record. At the conclusion of the trial, the district court ruled that the intent of the Colorado Legislature in passing the legislation in question was to prevent motorcyclists from sustaining serious head injuries, and that the legislation was designed to protect only that certain class of individuals who operate or are passengers on motorcycles. For this reason, the trial judge ruled that the helmet statute did not relate to the health and welfare of the citizens of Colorado in general, and was, therefore, an unconstitutional exercise of the police power of the state. The court entered judgment ordering that the state be permanently enjoined from enforcing that portion of the statute relating to the requirement of wearing a helmet. The court upheld as constitutional the portion of the statute requiring operators of motorcycles and passengers thereon to wear a face shield, goggles, or safety glasses.
The defendants contend that the district court was in error in adjudging the portion of C.R.S.1963, 13--5--159 dealing with motorcycle helmets unconstitutional as an improper exercise of the police power of the state. We agree and reverse the judgment of the trial court on that issue.
The plaintiffs assign several grounds for cross-error. They allege that the trial judge was in error in holding (1) that the statute in question does not create an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce; (2) that C.R.S.1963, 13--5--159 is not discriminatory and does not constitute special legislation prohibited by the Colorado Constitution; (3) that the statute in question is not an unconstitutional burden on the freedom of movement and right to travel; and (4) that the portion of the statute dealing with goggles and protective glasses was a valid exercise of the police power of the state. We do not agree with the contentions of cross-error by the plaintiffs.
At the outset, we point out that there are several well settled principles of law in Colorado and in other jurisdictions which serve to guide our decision in this case. First, there is a presumption that every statute is valid and constitutional, and the burden of clearly demonstrating the unconstitutionality of a statute is upon the party asserting its invalidity. Second, in order for a statute to be within the police power of the state, the provisions of the statute must be reasonably related to the public health, safety, and welfare. Whether or not the relationship is reasonable is a judicial question.
The plaintiffs argue that whenever a statute has the effect of depriving a certain class of persons of their individual constitutional freedoms, there must be a more substantial relationship between the restrictive provisions and the public health, safety, and welfare than that provided by the test of mere reasonableness. We do not agree. While this Court has characterized an individual's right to use of the public highways of the state as an adjunct of the constitutional right to acquire, possess, and protect property, yet this Court has clearly held that such a right might be limited by a proper exercise of the police power of the state based on a reasonable relationship to the public health, safety, and welfare. People v. Nothaus,147 Colo. 210, 363 P.2d 180.
In deciding that the statute in question bears no reasonable relation to the public health, safety, and welfare, the trial judge, in our opinion, failed to apply the above noted principles of constitutional law correctly to the facts of this case.
The trial judge concluded that the purpose of the statutory requirement that cyclists wear protective helmets was to prevent them from sustaining head injuries, and that such purpose was not within the police power of the state. To say that statutes which protect the individual from serious bodily harm or death are per se unconstitutional as not bearing a reasonable relationship to the public health, safety and welfare is to apply a most shallow concept to the doctrine of the police power of the state. Such a concept would require us to hold unconstitutional hunter safety laws, laws requiring life jackets in boats, laws requiring workers in certain occupations to wear protective devices, a result which we are not prepared to adopt in the name of the 'right to be let alone.'
It is, of course, part of romantic tradition that an individual ought to be able to lead an adventurous and swash-buckling existence without regard to his own safety and without interference from the King. But when that individual as a result of this freewheeling activity seriously injuries or kills himself, the ultimate result is unfortunately not always borne by him alone. Today our society humanely accepts as one of its functions the responsibility for relieving the economic suffering of its members. The evidence in the record here clearly shows a higher frequency of serious head injury and death among motorcyclists not wearing helmets as compared with motorcyclists wearing helmets. Persons often become public charges because of their prolonged hospitalization for serious injury, and families are often required to be supported by public welfare as a result of the death of their breadwinner.
We would point out that this Court has held that the police power relates not merely to the public health and public physical safety, but also to public financial safety, and that laws may be passed within the police power to protect the public from financial loss. Zeigler v. People, 109 Colo. 252, 263, 124 P.2d 593, 598.
Moreover, we would point out that the record shows that injuries to motorcycle riders involved in accidents are more serious when they are not wearing helmets. It is a proper exercise of power for the legislature to protect members of the motoring public involved in accidents with motorcycle riders from being required to respond in damages more heavily than might be the case if the motorcycle driver and passenger were wearing helmets.
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