South Florida Trust Co. v. Miami Coliseum Corp.

• Decision Date: 28 March 1931
• Citation: 101 Fla. 1351,133 So. 334
• Parties: SOUTH FLORIDA TRUST CO. v. MIAMI COLISEUM CORPORATION et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

133 So. 334

101 Fla. 1351

SOUTH FLORIDA TRUST CO. v. MIAMI COLISEUM CORPORATION et al.

Florida Supreme Court

March 28, 1931

Commissioners' Decision.

Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; W. L. Freeland, Judge.

Action by the Southern Florida Trust Company against the Miami Coliseum Corporation and others, in which plaintiff recovered judgment and procured an order appointing a commissioner for examination of defendants in supplementary proceedings. Thereafter the court granted the motion of certain of the defendants to vacate the order for supplementary proceedings and plaintiff brings error.

Reversed.

Syllabus by the Court.

SYLLABUS

The purpose of chapter 7842, Acts of 1919 (section 4540, Compiled General Laws of Florida), is to assist judgment creditors to discover any assets of the defendant that can be appropriated to the satisfying of judgment, thereby furnishing a new and additional means of making executions effective when a judgment has been secured and a fruitless effort made to satisfy it.

A portion of an act, properly before the court, may be declared unconstitutional and the remainder valid; any portion not properly before the court will not be passed upon.

The title to an act may be so restrictive as to confine the body of the act to such phase of the subject as is indicated by the title, and it may be general so long as it is not employed to conceal the real object of its provisions.

If the general subject of an act is clearly disclosed or may be readily inferred or easily determined from details expressed in the title, it is sufficient.

A statute may be valid in its essential provisions, though separable portions be judicially eliminated as invalid.

Section 1 of chapter 7842, Acts of 1919, does not violate section 12 of the Declaration of Rights in not requiring notice to be first given to judgment debtors, as their judicial status has already been established.

Due process of law means a course of legal proceedings according to those rules and principles which have been established in our system of jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private rights.

Vesting of law courts by statute with power to compel disclosure of assets is not violative of section 11, article 5, of the Constitution, providing that the circuit courts shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in equity; the examination of a judgment debtor does not involve the substance of any equitable rights.

COUNSEL

Paul C. Taylor, of Miami, and Carroll W. Fussell of Sulphur Springs, for plaintiff in error.

Marion Brooks, of Miami, for defendants in error.

OPINION

ANDREWS C.

Plaintiff in error, as plaintiff below, filed its declaration on a promissory note of $10,000 against the Miami Coliseum Corporation and J. K. Dorn and G. R. Washbish as joint makers, to which each appeared but failed to plead. Thereupon default was entered, and final judgment in favor of plaintiff was rendered in due course. Execution duly issued on the jodgment, and the return thereon by the sheriff showed only partial satisfaction. Thereupon plaintiff filed its affidavit pursuant to chapter 7842, Acts of 1919 providing for proceedings supplementary to execution, section 1 of which (section 4540, Compiled General Laws of Florida 1927), reads as follows.

'At any time after an execution shall have been in the hands of any sheriff of this State and returned unsatisfied, the plaintiff in execution, his agent or attorney, may make and file in the court from which such execution issued, an affidavit affirming such fact and also that said execution is valid and outstanding, and also stating the residence of the defendant, and the plaintiff shall thereupon be entitled to have from the judge of said court an order requiring the defendant or defendants in said execution to be and appear in case the residence of defendant is in the county in which the court is located, before the judge of said court or some commissioner designated in said order, and in case the residence of defendant is in another county, then before some commissioner designated in said order in that other county, at a time and place specified in said order and then and there to be examined concerning his property.'

Upon presentation of this petition, the court appointed a commissioner before whom defendants Dorn and Washbish were ordered to appear 'to be examined concerning their property.' Before answering, Dorn and Washbish filed a motion requesting the court to enter an order setting aside and vacating said former order upon the grounds that said chapter 7842, Laws of 1919, is in conflict with section 11 of article 5 of the Florida Constitution in undertaking to confer equity jurisdiction upon courts of law from which execution issues, and violates section 12, Declaration of Rights, of the Florida Constitution, in failing to give notice of the issuance of said order in derogation of due process of law. At the hearing upon the motion, by consent, the further ground was added and presented to the court that the title of said act of 1919 was not sufficiently broad to indicate the contents of the act. The trial court, after an argument upon said motion, entered an order granting the motion of defendants Dorn and Washbish vacating and setting aside the former order upon the ground, as expressed in said order, that it appeared to the court that various portions of said chapter 7842 are in violation of the Constitution of the state of Florida, and that such portions, if any, of said chapter as are not unconstitutional are rendered ineffective when the unconstitutional portions thereof are rejected.

From the above order, plaintiff in execution took writ of error, and assigned as error, in substance, that the trial court erred in holding that the statute under which its former order was issued appointing a commissioner and requiring the defendants in execution to appear before said commissioner and be examined as to their property was unconstitutional.

The constitutionality of this statute was approved, though upon another point raised against it in the recent case of Reese v. Baker, Sheriff, 98 Fla. 52, 123 So. 3. It was there held that the statute is broad enough in its terms to require the defendant to make the disclosure as to any property held by him or others in his behalf or due to him from other parties, whether such property be located within or beyond the boundaries of this state, that the fundamental purpose behind the act was to assist judgment creditors to discover any assets the defendant may have that can be appropriated to the payment of the execution, and that it is a new and additional means to make effective the process of the law, when a judgment has been secured and a fruitless effort has been made to satisfy it.

It has been repeatedly held in this state that portions of an act may be declared unconstitutional and the rest held valid, and that courts will not pass upon the constitutionality of a portion of an act not before it. Harper v. Galloway, 58 Fla. 255, 51 So. 226, 26 L. R. A. (N. S.) 794, 19 Ann. Cas. 235; Lainhart v. Catts, 73 Fla. 735, 75 So. 47; Gwynn v. Hardee, 92 Fla. 543, 110 So. 343; Martin v. Dade Muck Land Co., 95 Fla. 530, 116 So. 449.

It seems quite clear that the provisions of the act of 1919 for the appointment of a commissioner to take testimony and requiring defendants to appear before him and be examined as to their property are necessarily included in the title: 'An Act to Provide for Proceedings Supplementary to an Execution.' However, there can be but little room for confusion or doubt as to what was intended to be conveyed by the title; in fact, it is clearly disclosed and easily determined. The case of State v. Bryan, 50 Fla. 293, 39 So. 929, 962, contains a review of previous cases upon that subject, and has been frequently cited in this state. It adhered to the general rule that:

'The title of an act may be general, and so long as the generality of the subject therein expressed is not employed as a guise to conceal the real object of the law, or

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