State ex rel. Berry v. Shields
| Decision Date | 26 June 1877 |
| Citation | 4 Mo.App. 259 |
| Parties | STATE OF MISSOURI, EX REL. A. M. BERRY, v. WILLIAM SHIELDS, AUDITOR, ETC. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
1. The act of the General Assembly, approved April 24, 1877 creating the office of reporter of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, is not unconstitutional. Its enactment was a legitimate exercise of the powers conferred upon the Legislature, by section 15 of the schedule under article 9 of the Constitution of 1875, to " pass all such laws as may be necessary to carry this Constitution into full effect."
2. In the absence of such an express grant of power the Legislature may adopt any measure, not specifically forbidden, in aid of the operation of a constitutional provision.
3. The General Assembly may, in the exercise of its discretion create any agency which it may deem essential to give efficacy to a constitutional provision, and courts will not revise the exercise of such discretionary powers.
4. The question as to whether the system of reporting and publishing the decisions of the Court of Appeals adopted by the act under consideration was necessary to carry the Constitution into full effect was a matter within the legislative discretion.
5. A law is neither " local" nor " special," within the meaning of the Constitution, which results directly or indirectly from a specific constitutional requirement.
6. A law creating an office and prescribing the duties of the officer, whose services are to be rendered in, and form a part of, the administration of the laws of the State, and affect equally all who come within their range, is neither " local" nor " special," within the meaning of the Constitution.
7. The source from which the expenses of the office are to be paid is not a test by which to determine whether the act creating the office is " local" or " " " " special."
APPLICATION for mandamus.
Demurrer to return sustainea.
A. R TAYLOR, for relator: If there is a doubt as to the constitutionality of the law, it must be upheld.-- The State v. Cape Girardeau R. Co., 48 Mo. 468; Slack v. Jacob, 8 W.Va. 612; Attorney General v. City of Eau Claire, 37 Wis. 400; McCormick v. Alexander, 2 Ohio St. 75. As to when a law is or is not " local" or " special." -- Conner v. Mayor, 5 N.Y. 285; Phillips v. Mayor, 1 Hilt. 483; The People v. Stephens, 2 Abb. Pr. (N. S.) 483; Williams v. The People, 24 N.Y. 405; The State v. Lean, 9 Wis. 279; Clark v. City of Janesville, 10 Wis. 136; City of Rochester v. Briggs, 50 N.Y. 553; The People v. Hills, 35 N.Y. 449; Brewster v. City of Syracuse, 19 N.Y. 116; Burnham v. Acton, 7 Robt. 395, and cases cited; Bretz v. Mayor, 6 Robt. 325.
E. T. FARISH, for respondent: That the act of April 24, 1877, is a " local" and " special" law, see City of Atchison v. Barthelow, 4 Kan. 124; The People v. O'Brien, 38 N.Y. 194; The People v. Hills, 35 N.Y. 451; The People v. McCann, 16 N.Y. 60; 3 Park. Cr. 272; Williams v. The People, 24 N.Y. 405; Const. Mo. 1875, art. 4, sec. 54.
The relator applies for a mandamus to compel the city auditor of St. Louis to audit and allow his account for one month's salary as reporter of the decisions of the St. Louis Court of Appeals. The respondent, in his return upon the alternative writ, denies that there is any such office as the relator claims to hold, and affirms that the act of the General Assembly, approved April 24, 1877, attempting to create it, is unconstitutional and void. A demurrer to the return places the whole controversy upon the validity of the act.
The personal interest of the relator in obtaining pay for his services seems a matter of small moment compared with the importance to the public at large of the principal questions whose solution is necessary to the determination of this controversy. The extent of the powers left in the Legislature, with the forms essential for their exercise, since the introduction, with our new Constitution, of some novel restrictions and limitations, are matters of vital interest to every citizen. But no phase of the common concern can possibly transcend one which brings into view the absolute needs of an efficient administration of justice over one-fourth of the wealth and population of the State.
The petition alleges, and the return does not deny, that since the organization of this court 563 causes have been disposed of on written opinions, of which eighty-six in all have been taken by appeal to the Supreme Court. There have thus accumulated, in a little over a year, 477 final expositions of the law, which are of binding authority on seventeen courts of record, embodying all the original civil, criminal, and probate jurisdiction throughout the counties composing the Court of Appeals' district. For these courts the opinions thus delivered are as conclusively the law as are the adjudications of the Supreme Court or the statutes enacted by the General Assembly. It is not possible for them, however learned and able their judges may be, to solve the complicated and varying problems of human right with consistency, and in steady conformity with paramount rulings, unless they have some sort of access to the utterances of their common superior. If they could do so, there would be no need for this or any other appellate court. The conspicuous presence of appellate tribunals in all the judicial systems of the civilized world demonstrates the recognized necessity, not merely for their existence, but for that direct communication between them and the inferior courts without which they could accomplish little or nothing. If their practical utility were intended to go no further than a settlement between the parties to each individual case, an oral declaration of the result would suffice in every instance. But when it is required that their opinions be written, this means that each adjudication is to be a guide for similar cases that may come after. It results that the promulgation of such adjudications, in some form that may be practically available, is one of the chief ends for which appellate tribunals are created.
The written opinions of the St. Louis Court of Appeals are filed in the clerk's office, where they become permanent records. In a very few years they may be numbered by thousands, instead of hundreds. Will finite memories among courts or counsel be capable of recalling, whenever demanded, the points decided in a given connection, the precise cases in which they arose, the manner of their judicial treatment, and the exact degrees of resemblance between different cases, as new combinations in controversy appear from time to time? If so, the litigants in St. Charles, Warren, Lincoln, and St. Louis Counties may provide themselves, at whatever expense, as each Circuit Court term approaches, with duly certified transcripts of all the opinions theretofore delivered by this court touching the various branches of judicial enquiry within which their controversies may fall. But if, as a more reasonable proposition, even St. Louis lawyers and judges may find it impracticable to ferret out, from personal memory, or by enquiring of the clerk, or by persistent canvassing among a host of attorneys, who may or may not know what opinions previously recorded may be applicable to their cases, to the end that justice may be administered without frequent contradictions or vain researches over grounds fully explored, then some means of information, other than the certified transcript, must be adapted to a rational fulfilment of the purposes for which this court was constitutionally established.
If all the adjudications of the St. Louis Court of Appeals were subject to review by a higher tribunal, the importance of these considerations might not be so apparent. No decision would then be final, or binding on inferior courts, until after such review. But, practically, about seven-eighths of all the litigation in our great centre of trade and population finds its last resort in this tribunal. To that extent, then, the Supreme Court Reports throw no light whatever on the ways of our jurisprudence. Those volumes continue, and will yet continue indefinitely, to enlighten and guide our courts by new applications of judicial wisdom to the ever-accruing complications of business, property, and social relations in a great State. But as to all those similar, and yet unlike, complications--of almost equal number in a given time--whose judicial treatment can never appear in them, the courts of St. Louis and adjoining counties, without similar publications, would be far worse off than if this court had never been created.
No comparison, in this connection, can be made between the Court of Appeals and the general term of the St. Louis Circuit Court, with reference to its former capacity as an intermediate appellate tribunal. Three vital distinctions exclude all analogy.
1. The general term was, in no case whatever, a court of last resort.
2. Its opinions were not binding authority on any other court.
3. Its rulings, so far as they bound the special terms, were made by the same judges who held the special terms, and who had, therefore, only to repeat their own conclusions. The records of the Court of Appeals already show that appeals have been taken and litigation protracted in numerous cases whose nisi prius judgments would doubtless have remained undisturbed if appellants had known the previously declared views of this court upon the points involved. The existing condition of things might be compared, in effect, with those systems of judicial secrecy which were always the detestation of a free people.
Experience has been showing, for some centuries, what the present universal practice attests, that the only effectual way in which the rulings of superior courts can be made...
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