Shad v. De Witt

• Decision Date: 11 October 1946
• Citation: 158 Fla. 27,27 So.2d 517
• Parties: SHAD v. DE WITT et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

27 So.2d 517

158 Fla. 27

SHAD v. DE WITT et al.

Florida Supreme Court

October 11, 1946

Appeal from Circuit Court, Duval County; Bayard B Shields, judge.

Freeman Richardson & Watson, of Jacksonville, for appellant.

J. Henry Blount, of Jacksonville, for Board of County Com'rs for Duval County.

Fleming Jones, Scott & Botts and Charles R. Scott, all of Jacksonville, for Civil Service Board for Duval County.

Austin Miller and Harry Fozzard, both of Jacksonville, for Aaron H. Brown and others, intervenors.

THOMAS, Justice.

The appellant described in his bill in the chancery court as a citizen, resident, and taxpayer of Duval County, sought to enjoin the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the members of the Board of Public Instruction, the Board of County Commissioners, and the Civil Service Board from expending public moneys in the administration of Chapter 22263, Laws of Florida, Special Acts of 1943, establishing a civil service system for the employees of the county and creating the Civil Service Board. For 11 reasons, so it was alleged, the act offended against various provisions of the Constitution. The chancellor found that the act 'as a whole' did not 'clearly violate the provisions of the Constitution'; so he dismissed the bill. Thereupon appeal was taken to this court.

The appellant has grouped the supposed flaws into six questions, thereby requesting us to test the validity of the act in the light of Article II, Sections 16, 20, and 21 of Article III, Sections 1 and 2 of the Declaration of Rights, and Section 7 of Article XVI.

It seems fitting at the outset to refer to the oft-recognized general principle that the legislature is presumed to have intended the enactment of a valid law, State ex rel. Clarkson v. Philips, 70 Fla. 340, 70 So. 367, Ann.Cas.1918A, 138, and the allied rules that the Constitution being a limitation of power, legislation will not be held invalid unless opposed to some express or implied prohibition of the organic law, Chapman v. Reddick, 41 Fla. 120, 25 So. 673, and that every reasonable doubt will be resolved in favor of the act attacked. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Coachman, 59 Fla. 130, 52 So. 377, 20 Ann.Cas. 1047. The rules of construction in testing constitutionality of acts have lately been assembled in the case of Ball v. Branch, 154 Fla. 57, 16 So.2d 524.

We shall not pause to remark upon the virtues of the civil service plan, our views on the subject being already well known, but without further ado we shall proceed to the determination of the controverted points in the order we have listed them.

It is charged by appellant that the act is invalid because in it an attempt was made to delegate legislative and judicial functions and powers to the Civil Service Board and its secretary, contrary to the inhibitions of Article II. The act is not found to be so infected when it is measured by the rule announced by this court in Arnold et al. v. State ex rel. Culbreath et al., 140 Fla. 610, 190 So. 543, and reiterated in Hutchins et al. v. Mayo, 143 Fla. 707, 197 So. 495, 133 A.L.R. 394. If the legislature defines a pattern to which rules and regulations must conform, then the provisions empowering the adoption of those rules and regulations to effectuate the general purpose of the act cannot be said to amount to an unlawful delegation of power. It is plain to us from a study of the act in question that it does contain a definite pattern and that, therefore, the provision (in Section 4) granting to the Civil Service Board 'the power: (a) To adopt and amend rules and regulations for the administration of [the] Act' amounted to nothing more than placing in the hands of the administrative board the authority to promulgate such rules and regulations as would enable it to accomplish the legislative purpose.

We reach now the challenge to the title. Appellant insists that it does not comport with the requirements of Section 16 of Article III, and he predicates his position upon the presence in the body of the act of two provisions which he contends would not even have been suggested to any person reading the title to acquaint himself with the contents. One of these denounces certain violations of the provisions of the act as misdemeanors; the other relates to attachment proceedings against persons disobeying subpoenas to testify in investigations conducted by the Civil Service Board. To uphold him in the contention that he should prevail on this score it would be necessary to find (1) that the portions of the act under attack 'injuriously affected' his rights or (2) that they rendered invalid a part of the act which did affect his rights or (3) that the provisions about which he complained rendered the entire act void. State ex rel. Clarkson v. Philips, supra; Stinson v. State, 63 Fla. 42, 58 So. 722. Obviously the first two factors could not obtain because, as we said in the beginning, he has described himself only as a citizen, resident, and taxpayer and claims no interest in any other capacity. It is not even pretended that the appellant has run afoul of these provisions or is in anywise presently affected by them. The third could not apply because even were the two provisions invalid the remainder of the law, by its very terms, would be operative. Further development of this point would, then, constitute nothing more than an academic exploration. The third factor, we apprehend, was in the mind of the chancellor when he decided that the law 'as a whole' was not unconstitutional.

Sections 20 and 21 of Article...