State ex rel. Olsen v. Board of Control of State Institutions
| Decision Date | 03 January 1902 |
| Docket Number | 12,885 - (208) |
| Citation | 88 N.W. 533,85 Minn. 165 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. J. W. OLSEN and Another v. BOARD OF CONTROL OF STATE INSTITUTIONS and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Proceedings in the supreme court in the nature of quo warranto to oust and exclude respondents, state board of control and its members, from the management of the financial affairs of the state normal schools, and from interference with the state normal school board in the exercise of its right to manage said affairs. Writ of ouster denied.
Title of Act -- Construction of Const. Art. 4, § 27.
Under claim that a law is in conflict with section 27, article 4 of the state constitution, declaring that "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title," canons of construction have been adopted by this court which may be summarized as follows: That every law is presumed to be valid; that this provision of the constitution is to be liberally construed, and all doubts resolved in favor of the law; that the title should also be liberally construed, giving to its general words paramount weight; that it is not essential that the best or even accurate words in the title be employed, but the remedy to be secured and mischief avoided furnishes the best test of its sufficiency to prevent such title from being made a cloak or artifice to distract attention from the substance of the act, provided the title be fairly suggestive, and not foreign to its purpose.
Laws 1901, c. 122 -- Charitable Institutions -- Normal Schools.
From a consideration of the title (Laws 1901, c. 122), which reads as follows: "An act to create a state board of control, and to provide for the management and control of the charitable, reformatory and penal institutions of the state, and to make an appropriation therefor, and to abolish the state board of corrections and charities," -- Held, that the phrase "charitable institutions," in the title, under the liberal rules of construction applicable to such cases, is within the legal tests above designated and fairly suggestive of the supervision by the state board of control of the finances of the state normal schools, and hence not obnoxious to section 27, article 4, of the state constitution.
W. B. Douglas, Attorney General, and Lafayette French, for relators.
Harris Richardson, for respondents.
Information by the attorney general, upon the relation of J. W. Olsen, a member of the state normal school board, to test the right of the board of control to manage the financial affairs of the normal schools of this state, as provided in Laws 1901, c. 122. The information sets forth that the board of control is usurping the functions of the normal school board, in making contracts and regulating its finances contrary to law, and thereby intruding upon their rights and franchises. On the return of the writ a motion was made to quash. We have reached a conclusion that renders it unnecessary to consider such motion.
The board of control answered, setting forth matters in which appear the grounds relied upon to sustain its authority to supervise the finances of the normal schools. A demurrer was interposed, wherein the facts stated in the information are admitted, but the relators claim they are not a justification of respondents' acts, upon the ground that Laws 1901, c. 122, creating a state board of control, so far as it relates to the normal schools, is in violation of section 27, article 4, of the state constitution, which provides that "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title."
On this review there should be no misunderstanding of the precise question this court is to decide. It must be admitted at the outset that views of the policy of the law are not before us. It is not for us to say whether it is best for the legislature, in the interests of economy, to provide for a control of the finances of the state institutions, and particularly of the normal schools, by a board of supervision, as attempted by this act, nor is it to be questioned that sufficient provisions are in the body of the statute itself to effect that purpose; but it is upon its alleged defective title alone that relator seeks to have it nullified, so far as it relates to the five normal schools of the state.
The title reads as follows:
"An act to create a state board of control, and to provide for the management and control of the charitable, reformatory and penal institutions of the state, and to make an appropriation therefor, and to abolish the state board of corrections and charities."
The gist of relators' contention against the law is that the normal schools are in no sense embraced in or suggested by the words of the title, "charitable institutions"; that the normal schools are distinctively educational in character -- hence excluded from the title as plainly as if by a proviso declaring that the law should not apply to them.
It is proper to state here that, in the quotations we make hereafter, the italics are our own.
The duty of a court to set aside a statute because it is invalid is peculiarly an incident of our national and state policy. It was first asserted by the great judges who laid the foundations of our jurisprudence, but with the potential qualification well stated by that eminent jurist, Chief Justice Shaw, as follows:
"When called upon to pronounce the invalidity of an act of legislation passed with all the forms and solemnities requisite to give it the force of law, courts will approach the question with great caution, examine it in every possible aspect, and ponder upon it as long as deliberation and patient attention can throw any new light on the subject, and never declare a statute void, unless the nullity and invalidity of the act are placed, in their judgment, beyond reasonable doubt." In re Wellington, 16 Pick. 87, 95.
Said Chief Justice Marshall in an early case in the United States supreme court:
"The question whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the constitution is at all times a question of much delicacy, which ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative in a doubtful case." Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, 128.
Said Justice Washington in the same court:
"If I could rest my opinion in favor of the constitutionality of the law on which the question arises on no other ground than this doubt, * * * that alone would, in my estimation, be a satisfactory vindication of it." Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, 270.
It may be said to be conclusively settled at this time that the duty to pass upon the validity of a statute calls for the exercise of the highest authority in the highest court of the land. Of such obligation, when the occasion exists, there can be no question; but the co-ordination of the three divisions of government -- executive, judicial, and legislative -- must be kept inviolate and independent of each other.
No tribunal has heretofore manifested a more decided purpose to maintain the proper equilibrium between these powers of government than this court. It has many times resolved doubts in favor of statutes, but has guarded with jealous solicitude and earnest fidelity the prerogatives of the lawmaking body. Said Justice CORNELL:
Curryer v. Merrill, 25 Minn. 1, 4.
This court, speaking through GILFILLAN, C.J., said:
to sustain it. Woodruff v. Town of Glendale, 26 Minn. 78, 1 N.W. 581.
See also Ames v. Lake Superior & M.R. Co., 21 Minn. 241, 282; Fletcher v. Peck, supra; People v. Draper, 15 N.Y. 532, 543; Sharpless v. Mayor, 21 Pa. 147.
A consensus of opinion in the legal tribunals of the whole country upon the duty of courts in this regard imposes no passive obligation, but requires of the judiciary an active, earnest effort to save a legislative enactment, if that end can be accomplished upon reasonable grounds or by the solution of doubts in its favor. Through a long course of our own judicial history, continuing from the first session of this court to the present term, the attempt has been made repeatedly by able and astute lawyers to prevent the enforcement of important laws by aid of the constitutional provision invoked to defeat the act in question, but generally without avail. Upon an unruffled current of opinion in this court there comes down to us such views of the organic law in this respect that peculiar rules have grown into use and have been followed for the purpose of sustaining legislative acts, that would now seem to forbid original consideration of the subject; but different conclusions among members of the court require a somewhat extended review of the question.
To restate the substance of relators' claim, compressed into the briefest formula possible, it is: "Charitable institutions" are not educational institutions. Normal schools are educational, not charitable, institutions. The title is therefore defective, since it omits the word "educational"; hence, so far as it...
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