State Bd. of Chiropractic Examiners v. Life Fellowship of Pa.
Decision Date | 07 January 1971 |
Citation | 441 Pa. 293,272 A.2d 478 |
Parties | STATE BOARD OF CHIROPRACTIC EXAMINERS v. LIFE FELLOWSHIP OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellant. |
Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Victor L. Schwartz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harrisburg, for appellee.
Before BELL, C.J., and JONES, COHEN, EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, and POMEROY, JJ.
At issue in this appeal is the constitutionality of Section 15 of the Chiropractic Registration Act, which requires that chiropractors, to be eligible for renewal of their annual registration and license, must demonstrate that they have attended one two-day educational conference held by the Pennsylvania Chiropractic Society, or an equivalent educational conference. We agree with the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County (Commonwealth Docket) that Section 15 is enacted, violates Article III, Section 32 and Article II, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, P.S. However, we disagree with that court's holding that the offending words of Section 15 were severable from the statute.
This case arose out of the following circumstances. In 1968, the Life Fellowship of Pennsylvania, a professional association of chiropractors, applied to the State Board of Chiropractic Examiners for approval of a two-day educational conference, which Life Fellowship proposed to hold. The reason for conducting the conference was to satisfy the requirements of Section 15 of the Act. Section 15 provides in pertinent part:
Act of August 10, 1951, P.L. 1182, § 15, 63 P.S. § 615.
The Board dismissed the application. Life Fellowship appealed to the Dauphin County Court sitting as the Commonwealth Court, which held that the references to the Society made the statute a special law in violation of Art. III, Section 32, and also that the automatic approval of conferences held by the Society was an unlawful delegation of legislative power under Article II, Section 1. The Commonwealth Court, however concluded that the statute would be valid if all references to the Society were stricken. It therefore dismissed the appeal, but observed that the Board must now promulgate additional rules relative to the approval of disapproval of conferences so as to comply with Section 15 after severance of the offending language.
Thereafter, Life Fellowship appealed to the Superior Court, which affirmed per curiam. This Court granted a petition for allowance of appeal.
Article III, Section 32 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides in part:
'The General Assembly shall pass no local or special law in any case which has been or can be provided for by general law * * *.'
We agree with the Commonwealth Court that the statutory privilege granted to the Society under Section 15 violates this section of the constitution. Section 15 is part of a scheme of legislative regulation designed to protect the public and to insure that practitioners of chiropractic meet certain standards of educational and professional competence. The Legislature in adopting such regulatory statutes may grant certain exemptions, but such particular exemptions must be founded upon 'sound reason and real necessity.' Commonwealth v. McDermott, 296 Pa. 299, 304, 145 A. 858, 859 (1929). Where the exemption granted is to a specific organization rather than to a class or group, the necessity and reason for such an exemption must be still more firmly grounded. See Haverford Township v. Siegle, 346 Pa. 1, 5, 28 A.2d 786, 788 (1942).
In Commonwealth v. McDermott, supra, this Court found that the high standing and capacity for effective charity work of the exempt class of organizations there involved was a matter of common knowledged and was the undoubted basis of the Legislature's grant of an exemption. In the present case, however, there is no indication that the Legislature relied upon either the standing or adequacy of the Society in framing the exemption contained in Section 15. Nor is there any indication in the record that the regulatory professional standard embodied in the statute should not be applicable to the Society or that subjection of the Society to such regulation would have untoward effects.
We conclude that the record before us fails to demonstrate any sound reason or real necessity for the specific exemption from certified compliance with the educational and professional requirements of the chiropractic profession which Section 15 extends to the Society's conferences, and therefore Section 15 is an unlawful special law.
We also agree with the Commonwealth Court that the preferential treatment accorded the Society violates Article II, Section 1, of the Pennsylvania Constitution which provides: 'The Legislative power of this Commonwealth shall be vested in a General Assembly, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.'
It is axiomatic that the Legislature cannot delegate its power to make laws to any other branch of government, or to any other body or authority. Chartiers Valley Joint Schools v. Allegheny County Board of School Directors, 418 Pa. 520, 211 A.2d 487 (1965); Archbishop O'Hara's Appeal, 389 Pa. 35, 131 A.2d 587 (1957); Holgate Brothers Co. v. Bashore, 331 Pa 255, 200 A. 672 (1938); Baldwin Township Annexation, 305 Pa. 490, 158 A. 272 (1931).
'While not specifically set forth in the Constitution, the non-delegation rule is a natural corollary to Article II, Section 1 since it requires that the basic policy choices involved in 'legislative power' actually be made by the Legislature as constitutionally mandated.
Chartiers Valley Joint Schools v. Allegheny County Board of School Directors, supra, 418 Pa. at 529, 211 A.2d at 492--493 (citations omitted).
Guided by these principles, we hold that a statute stating attendance at a conference of a particular chiropractic society will satisfy license and registration standards, without providing any guide or criterion, is an unlawful delegation to that society of the power to determine the requirements, quality and nature of chiropractic continuing education, and is an abrogation by the General Assembly of its constitutional legislative duties.
Section 55 of the Statutory Construction Act states:
Act of May 28, 1937, P.L. 1019, art. IV, § 55, 46 P.S. § 555. (Emphasis added.)
We have set out the principles to be followed in analyzing this type of problem in Saulsbury v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 413 Pa. 316, 196 A.2d 664 (1964):
'It is true that a statute or ordinance may be partially valid and partially invalid, and that if the provisions are distinct and not so interwoven as to be inseparable, that the courts should sustain the valid portions. * * * (citing cases.)
Id. at 320--321, 196 A.2d at 666--667.
With the deletions ordered by the Dauphin County Court, Section 15 reads as follows:
Applying the Saulsbury principles noted above to this case, we hold that the unconstitutional portion of Section 15 as enacted, namely the reference to...
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