State ex rel. Condon v. Maloney

• Decision Date: 09 November 1901
• Parties: STATE ex rel. CONDON et al. v. MALONEY, County Judge. STATE ex rel. MALONEY, County Judge, v. CONDON et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

65 S.W. 871

108 Tenn. 82

STATE ex rel. CONDON et al. v. MALONEY, County Judge.

STATE ex rel. MALONEY, County Judge, v. CONDON et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 9, 1901

Appeal from chancery court, Knox county; Jos. W. Sneed, Chancellor.

Proceeding by mandatory injunction by S. P. Condon and others to compel G. L. Maloney, as county judge of Knox county, to approve the bonds of complainants as road commissioners of Knox county. From a decree of the court of chancery appeals affirming a decree in favor of complainants, defendants appeal. Also proceedings in the nature of quo warranto by officials removed under the former proceeding to test the title of the complainants in the former proceeding. From a decree of the court of chancery appeals affirming a decree dismissing the bill, relators appeal. In each proceeding the decree is affirmed.

Chas T. Cates, Jr., S. G. Heiskell, J. M. King, and Caldwell & Caldwell, for relators Condon and others. Green & Shields and Pickle & Turner, for relator Maloney. Pickle & Turner and Green & Shields, for defendant Maloney. C. T. Cates, Jr., and J. W. Caldwell, for defendants Condon.

BEARD J.

These are consolidated causes. The first is a proceeding by mandatory injunction to compel the defendant Maloney, as county judge, to examine and approve the bonds of complainants as road commissioners of Knox county; they asserting claim to that office by virtue of an appointment by the governor pursuant to the provisions of an act of the last session of the legislature. Acts 1901, p. 10, c. 8. In their bill it is alleged that they had tendered to the defendant the bonds, executed in all respects as required of them by the fifteenth section of the act, for his approval as county judge, and that he had declined to examine or approve them upon the sole ground assumed by him, that the act was void for unconstitutionality; and the prayer of the bill is that a mandatory injunction be awarded to require him to discharge the duty of examination and approval as one merely ministerial. In accordance with the prayer a writ of mandatory injunction was awarded. Subsequently a demurrer calling in question the right of the complainants to this injunction and challenging the constitutionality of the act was filed, and upon argument overruled. The defendant declining to make further defense, a final decree was entered, affirming the right of the complainants to the relief sought. From this decree an appeal was prayed and granted. The second of these causes is a statutory proceeding in the nature of a quo warranto, brought after defendants who are the complainants in the first-named case, had been inducted into office, as the result of the mandatory injunction referred to, on the relation of the removed officials, assailing the title of the defendants to the offices of public road commissioners, and seeking reinstatement of the relators. The attack of the relators on the title of the defendants is based on the assumed unconstitutionality of chapter 8 of the Acts of 1901. Upon demurrer the bill was dismissed, and the relators appealed. The causes were heard by the court of chancery appeals, and the decree of the chancellor in each was affirmed. From these decrees of affirmance the defendant Maloney, in the one, and the relators, in the other, of these cases, have prosecuted appeals to this court.

The questions involved in the two causes are the same, save in the first it is insisted for the defendant Maloney that the action of the chancellor in awarding the mandatory injunction was arbitrary and unauthorized, and this court is earnestly asked to so pronounce. Rare as is the use of this extraordinary process, yet the power of the chancellor to grant it in a proper case is recognized in equity practice and we are not prepared to say that there was here an abuse of discretion. But, if it was conceded the writ should not have been awarded, yet it appears from the record that it was obeyed by the county judge in the examination and approval of the bonds submitted to him, and the complainants were inducted into office. This being done, the writ spent its force, and a reversal of his decree in that regard could not undo what has been done. This being so, it would be an idle ceremony, even if disapproving the chancellor's action, to enter such a decree.

This brings us to the more serious questions raised by these appeals. The act, the constitutionality of which is challenged by the respective appellants, is entitled, "An act to create a board of public road commissioners, to regulate the laying out and working of public roads in this state, in counties having a population of not less than 70,000 and not more than 90,000, under the federal census of the year 1900, or any subsequent federal census, and to provide a method for the management and control of county workhouses in counties coming under the provisions of this act." It is a well-established canon of constitutional construction, and certainly is now axiomatic in this state, that he who seeks to have a legislative act declared void on the ground that it is violative of the constitution must be prepared to place his finger upon the clause which vitiates it. For, as was said by Caldwell, J., in Manufacturing Co. v. Falls, 90 Tenn. 468, 16 S.W. 1046: "All intendments are in favor of the constitutionality of an act of the legislature passed with the forms and ceremonies requisite to give it the force of law. *** Every reasonable doubt must be solved in favor of the legislative action." Bearing this rule in mind, we come now to the consideration of the act in question.

In the first place, it is said that this is vicious class legislation, passed in violation of article 11, § 8, and article 1, § 8, of the state constitution, and the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. These several sections are so familiar, it is not worth while to set them out here. In Harbison v. Iron Co., 103 Tenn. 421-431, 53 S.W. 955-957, 76 Am. St. Rep. 682-688, it is said that the phrase "by the law of the land," as used in section 8, art. 1, of the state constitution, is the exact equivalent of the term "due process of law," as used in the federal constitution; and it is asserted in the argument of the counsel for the appellants "that whatever is forbidden as vicious class legislation by the state constitution is likewise forbidden by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States." We will then first refer to one or more of the leading cases decided by the supreme court of the United States involving the question of legislative classification, and ascertain the rule adopted by that court.

In Magoun v. Bank, 170 U.S. 282, 18 S.Ct. 594, 42 L.Ed. 1037, was raised the question of the constitutionality of the inheritance tax law of the state of Illinois. That act classified successions, and fixed

the rate of taxation upon them, in substance, as follows: (1) When the beneficial interest to any property or income therefrom should pass to or for the use of a father, mother, husband, wife, child, brother, sister, wife, or widow of the son, etc., in every such case the rate of tax should be $1 on each $100 of the market value of the property received by such persons: provided, however, that any estate of less value than $20,000 received by such person should not be the subject of this tax; (2) when the beneficial interest to any property passed to or for the use of any uncle, aunt, etc., in any such case the rate of such tax should be $2 on every $100 of the market value of such property received by each person in excess of $2,000 so received; and (3) in all other cases the rate should be on each $100 of property received as follows: On all estates of $10,000 or less, $3; on all estates of over $10,000, and not exceeding $20,000, $4; on all estates over $20,000, and not exceeding $50,000, $5; and on all estates over $50,000, $6, etc. This act was attacked as vicious class legislation; it being insisted that it was necessarily arbitrary, and its provisions, as causing discrimination and creating inequality of burdens of taxation, in violation of the fourteenth amendment, which prohibits a state denying to any citizen the equal protection of the laws. To this contention the court, speaking through McKenna, J., said: "What satisfies this equality has not been, and probably can never be, defined. Generally, it has been said that it 'only requires the same means to be applied impartially to all the constituents of a class, so that the law shall operate equally and uniformly upon all persons in similar circumstances.' Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U.S. 321, 337, 6 S.Ct. 57, 29 L.Ed. 414. It does not prohibit legislation which is limited either in the objects to which it is directed, or by the territory within which it is to operate. It merely requires that all persons subjected to such legislation shall be treated alike under like circumstances and conditions, both in the privileges conferred and the liabilities imposed. *** It may be safely said that the rule prescribes no rigid equality, and permits to the discretion and wisdom of the state a wide latitude, as far as interference by this court is concerned. *** In other words, the state may distinguish, select, and classify objects of legislation, and necessarily this power must have a wide range of discretion." And so it was the court held that the act did not infringe upon the fourteenth amendment, though it relieved absolutely persons who belonged to the first class, and yet came into property of a less value than $20,000, while it placed the burden upon all others of that class succeeding to property of greater value than $20,000, and not only placed a still heavier burden upon those belonging to the second...