Lyon v. City of Payette

• Decision Date: 12 March 1924
• Parties: L. M. LYON, Respondent, v. THE CITY OF PAYETTE, Appellant
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

224 P. 793

38 Idaho 705

L. M. LYON, Respondent, v. THE CITY OF PAYETTE, Appellant

Supreme Court of Idaho

March 12, 1924

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS-POWER TO DEFINE BOUNDARIES-DETACHMENT OF LANDS FROM MUNICIPALITY-LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS-DELEGATION OF POWERS-JUDICIAL DISCRETION.

1. The power to establish municipal corporations and to enlarge and contract their boundaries is legislative.

2. It is a judicial function to hear a cause pending between adverse parties, to apply the law to the facts, and to make and render a judgment determining the rights of the parties.

3. Upon the finding by the court of the existence of the facts required by the statute for the detachment of agricultural lands from a municipality, the law makes it the duty of the court to render judgment detaching the lands.

4. A statute, directing the district court to render judgment detaching agricultural lands from a municipality upon the ascertainment by the court of the existence of the facts specified in the statute to be found before the judgment can be rendered, does not constitute a grant of legislative power to the court.

5. Article 4, chapter 169, title 32, of the Compiled Statutes providing that upon the ascertainment of the existence of the facts therein mentioned, the district court shall render judgment detaching agricultural lands from a municipality vests the court with no other discretion than to determine the existence of the facts, and does not constitute a delegation of a legislative power to a judicial officer.

6. A judgment of the district court detaching land from a municipality will be reversed where the evidence is not sufficient to establish the existence of all the facts required by the statute to exist in order to justify the rendition of the judgment.

APPEAL from the District Court of the Seventh Judicial District, for Payette County. Hon. B. S. Varian, Judge.

Proceedings to detach agricultural lands from a municipality. Judgment for plaintiff. Reversed.

Judgment reversed. Costs to appellant.

A. O Sutton, for Appellant.

Plaintiff's petition or complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, nor to entitle plaintiff to the relief prayed for or any relief whatever. (Kerr's Pleading and Practice, sec. 820; Miller v. Pine Mining Co., 3 Idaho 493, 35 Am. St. 289, 31 P. 803.)

The court had no jurisdiction of the subject of the action. (Art. 5, sec. 20, Const. of Idaho; People v. Nevada, 6 Cal. 143; Stone v. Elkins, 24 Cal. 125; Forsyth v. Hammond, 71 F. 443; Brenke v. Borough of Belle Plaine, 105 Minn. 84, 117 N.W. 157; Glaspell v. Jamestown, 11 N.D. 86, 88 N.W. 1023; Winkler v. City of Hastings, 85 Neb. 212, 122 N.W. 858.)

C. S., sec. 4105, is unconstitutional. (Art. 12, sec. 1, art. 2, sec. 1, Const. of Idaho; Forsyth v. Hammond, supra; In re Brenke, supra; Winkler v. The City of Hastings, supra; Glaspell v. Jamestown, supra; People v. Nevada, supra; Stone v. Elkins, supra; Vernon v. San Bernardino County, 142 Cal. 513, 76 P. 253; City of Hutchinson v. Leimbach, 68 Kan. 37, 104 Am. St. 384, 74 P. 598, 63 L. R. A. 630; City of Galesburg v. Hawkinson, 75 Ill. 153; Territory v. Stewart, 1 Wash. 98, 23 P. 405, 8 L. R. A. 106; People v. Carpenter, 24 N.Y. 86.)

T. A. Walters, for Respondent.

C. S., secs. 4101 to 4105, as amended by chap. 111, 1921 Sess. Laws, are constitutional. The legislature may pass laws by which it may determine and fix the causes, if found to exist by a court to which the matter is referred by the legislature, for which territory may be disconnected from towns and cities. This is all the legislature did in enacting the above sections. (Miller v. City of Pineville, 121 Ky. 211, 89 S.W. 261; In re Fullmer, 33 Utah 43, 92 P. 768; Town of Edgewater v. Liebhardt, 32 Colo. 307, 76 P. 366; Young v. Salt Lake City, 24 Utah 321, 67 P. 1066; Anaconda Mining Co. v. Town of Anaconda, 33 Colo. 70, 80 P. 144; City of Lebanon v. Knott, 24 Ky. Law, 1992, 72 S.W. 790; Peletier v. City of Ashton, 12 S.D. 366, 81 N.W. 735; Grover Hill v. McClure, 27 Ohio C. C. 376.)

When facts required by statute have been properly established, the court must order the detachment. (See cases last above cited.)

Public utilities must confer a real or substantial benefit in order to warrant refusal to detach land from city. (Morrison v. Lafayette, 67 Colo. 220, 184 P. 301; In re Fullmer, supra.)

WM. E. LEE, J. McCarthy, C. J., and Budge and William A. Lee, JJ., concur.

OPINION

WM. E. LEE, J.

--The district court of the seventh judicial district, for Payette county, heretofore made and entered a judgment detaching a tract of ten acres of land from the corporate limits of the city of Payette. Being dissatisfied with the judgment, the city has appealed, and urges, as grounds for reversing the judgment, first, that the law under which the proceeding was instituted is unconstitutional, and, second, that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the judgment.

The proceeding was instituted under the provisions of article 4, chapter 169, title 32, of the Compiled Statutes, as amended by chapter 111 of the Session Laws of 1921. Appellant contends that this article is in contravention of article 12, section 1; article 5, section 20; and article 2, section 1, of the constitution of the state of Idaho. Article 12, section 1, authorizes the legislature to provide, by general laws, for the incorporation, organization and classification of cities. Article 5, section 20, vests district courts with original jurisdiction in all cases at law and in equity, and such appellate jurisdiction as may be conferred by the legislature. Article 2, section 1, divides the powers of the state government into three distinct departments; the legislative, executive and judicial, and it further provides that ". . . . No person or collection of persons charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any powers properly belonging to either of the others, except as in this constitution expressly directed or permitted."

Appellant contends that the peculiar vice of the law lies in the fact that it attempts to delegate legislative powers to the district courts; and that in making and entering a judgment detaching land from a city, the court exercises a legislative rather than a judicial power. The constitutionality of the law and the consequent determination of this cause must turn upon the question of whether the power, conferred upon the district courts, of determining, in the manner prescribed, whether territory should be detached from the corporate limits of a municipality is a judicial or a legislative power. It is fundamental that if the court, in hearing and determining the matter, exercise legislative power, the law is in contravention of article 2, section 1, of the constitution, and is void, for it is well settled that the power to establish municipal corporations and to enlarge and contract their boundaries is purely and wholly legislative. (Dillon on Municipal Corporations, 5th ed., vol. 1, p. 61, sec. 33; 19 R. C. L. 700; 12 C. J. 856.) That the question is not easy of solution is evidenced by the fact that there appears to be a conflict in the authorities, statutes of the nature of the one in question here having been held valid and invalid under constitutional provisions almost identical with the sections above quoted and referred to.

It is a judicial function to hear a cause pending between adverse parties, to apply the law to the facts, and to make and render a judgment determining the rights of the parties. Does the law under consideration either authorize or permit the court to do more than this? It is generally conceded that while the legislature cannot delegate the power conferred upon it by the constitution to legislate, the legislature can pass a law to become effective at some future time upon the determination of facts set forth in the law; and the legislature may delegate to the courts the power to determine the existence of the conditions prescribed in the law, upon which it will become effective. And if, in the enactment, the legislature vest no power in the courts other than to determine the existence of the facts set forth in the law itself, contingent upon the existence of which the law comes into operation, it does not constitute a delegation of legislative power. (In re Fullmer, 33 Utah 43, 92 P. 768; Town of Edgewater v. Liebhardt, 32 Colo. 307, 76 P. 366; City of Hutchinson v. Leimbach, 68 Kan. 37, 104 Am. St. 384, 74 P. 598, 63 L. R. A. 630; Young v. Salt Lake City, 24 Utah 321, 67 P. 1066; City of Winfield v. Lynn (Kan.), 57 P. 549; Callen v. City of Junction City, 43 Kan. 627, 23 P. 652, 7 L. R. A. 736; Winkler v. City of Hastings, 85 Neb. 212, 122 N.W. 858; Borough of Belle Plaine v. Brenke, 105 Minn. 84, 117 N.W. 157; Hunter v. City of Tracy, 104 Minn. 378, 116 N.W. 922; Glaspell v. City of Jamestown, 11 N.D. 86, 88 N.W. 1023; Pelletier v. City of Ashton, 12 S.D. 366, 81 N.W. 735; Boone County v. Town of Verona, 190 Ky. 430, 227 S.W. 804; Incorporated Village of Fairview v. Giffee, 73 Ohio St. 183, 76 N.E. 865; City of Galesburg v. Hawkinson, 75 Ill. 152; City of Burlington v. Leebrick, 43 Iowa 252; 12 C. J. 856, sec. 352.)

But where, in addition to a determination of the existence of the facts which bring the provisions of the law to bear upon the particular object, the law-making body has gone further, and has provided for an appeal to the courts from the decision of a body to which a legislative power has been delegated, or has authorized the court "in its discretion," or "if the court is of the opinion that the prayer of the petition should be granted" (and similar expressions) to grant or deny the relief,...