State Ex Rel. X-cel Stores, Inc. v. Lee

• Decision Date: 14 January 1936
• Citation: 166 So. 568,122 Fla. 685
• Parties: STATE ex rel. X-CEL STORES, Inc. v. LEE, Comptroller.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

166 So. 568

122 Fla. 685

STATE ex rel. X-CEL STORES, Inc. v. LEE, Comptroller.

Florida Supreme Court

January 14, 1936

Affirmed on Rehearing February 25, 1936.

Second Rehearing Denied March 23, 1936.

En Banc.

Original mandamus proceeding by the State, on the relation of the X-Cel Stores, Inc., against J. M. Lee, as comptroller of the state of Florida.

Judgment for respondent.

Judgment affirmed and opinion readopted on rehearing 166 So. 262.

Second rehearing denied 166 So. 574.

BROWN J., dissenting.

COUNSEL

Claibourne M. Phipps and Reginald L. Williams, both of Tampa, for relator.

Cary D Landis, Atty. Gen., H. E. Carter and J. V. Keen, Asst. Attys. Gen., and H. C. Tillman, of Tampa, for respondent.

OPINION

DAVIS Justice.

This is one of the several cases presented to this court and required to be decided by it involving the constitutionality of chapter 16848 (Senate Bill No. 724), Acts 1935, Laws of Florida. In the other cases, all points raised in the present case were specifically discussed and decided adversely to the contentions of relator in this case, except the special and particular proposition contended for in the instant proceeding to the effect that said Senate Bill No. 724 was never constitutionally passed by the Legislature of Florida.

The grounds of the last-mentioned contention are alleged to be:

(1) The journal entries in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, if considered conclusive, show beyond question that Senate Bill No. 724 was never enacted by either House of the Legislature in accordance with the mandatory procedure laid down in article 3 of the State Constitution.

(2) In order to sustain as valid the method pursued by the Legislature in the final passage of said Senate Bill No. 724, in the form it was signed by the presiding officers and clerks of the several Houses of the Legislature, the courts must assume that (contrary to the journal entries) some action was taken by the Legislature radically different from that shown by the Legislature's journals, of which last-mentioned action there is no evidence in the journals.

We shall only undertake to discuss in this opinion the question that is special and peculiar to this proceeding.

The remaining propositions raised and that would otherwise be required to be decided in this suit have already been so fully discussed and disposed of in the several opinions of this court in the cases of State ex rel. Lane Drug Stores v. Simpson (Fla.) 166 So. 227 (decided November 26, 1935), and State ex rel. Thos. B. Adams v. Lee (Fla.) 166 So. 249 (decided November 27, 1935), that further dissertation on same in connection with the disposition of this case is unnecessary.

Accordingly, we revert to the single question. Was Senate Bill No. 724 constitutionally passed by the several Houses of the 1935 Legislature so as to become a constitutionally enacted law in the precise form in which it was in due course signed by the Governor and filed in the office of the Secretary of State?

Stated differently, as is contemplated by our briefing rules, the question here brought into controversy may be amplified and otherwise propounded as follows:

Where a legislative bill is introduced into the state Senate under a proper title conforming to section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution, and under that title it is duly read three times, amended, and passed by the Senate, and is thereafter engrossed as amended and formally transmitted to the House of Representatives with a request to the House of Representatives that the House consider it as a legislative proposal originating in, and passed by, the Senate, and thereupon the House of Representatives in due course of legislative procedure receives the original Senate Bill, reads it the first time by its title, then constitutionally waives the rules and causes it to be read the second time by its title only, ^[1] after which the House of Representatives adopts, and proposes for concurrence in and by the Senate, seven specific House amendments changing the title and body of the Senate Bill as it had come from the Senate duly engrossed and been taken up for consideration by the House of Representatives, one of which proposed amendments was an amendment to the title of the Senate Bill to make it conform to certain other amendments to the text of the bill that had been earlier adopted and proposed in the House of Representatives, and under such circumstances the Senate Bill is, in due course, read a third time in full and passed by the House of Representatives, as amended, consequent upon which legislative action in the House of Representatives, the bill is immediately referred back to the Senate for its concurrence in the seven proposed House amendments, whereupon four of the amendments are concurred in, but three of same are rejected, does the subsequently adopted report of a legislative conference committee adopted viva voce by the House and Senate as a proposal for settlement of the differences existing between the two Houses over the three Senate rejected House amendments, one of the amendments included in the conference committee report adopted being the House amendment to the title of the Senate Bill, under which proposed amended title the Senate Bill had been passed by the House on third reading, but which the conference committee report recommended that the House of Representatives recede from, constitute a constitutional enactment of the Senate Bill under the original title by which the Senate Bill was first introduced into the Senate, it appearing that the title of the Senate Bill as enrolled, and as signed by the legislative officers, and as approved by the Governor, is now the identical title under which the Senate Bill was first introduced into the Senate and passed by it on third reading, despite the frustrated attempt of the House of Representatives to have the initial Senate title changed during the course of the Senate Bill's legislative consideration and passage after it left the Senate?

Our conclusion is that the foregoing question must be answered in the affirmative for the following reasons:

The requirement of section 16 of article 3 is that each 'law' (not each bill as introduced or considered) when 'enacted' by the Legislature shall contain but one subject and matter properly connected therewith, which subject shall be briefly expressed in the title. Thus, while the title to a mere legislative 'bill' as distinguished from the title of a 'law enacted by the Legislature' is a material part of the 'bill' at all times, because even a 'bill' is constitutionally required to be legislatively handled and dealt with by its title during a part (at least) of its course of legislative progress up to its final passage, and material differences between the titles of 'bills' as passed by the House of Representatives and as subsequently passed by the Senate, may defeat the validity of such bills ^[2] when the legislative history of the 'bill' as recorded in the legislative journals (considered as a whole) demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that what purports to be a 'law enacted by the Legislature' did not originate as a 'bill' and pass both Houses under such recorded legislative procedure that it can be certainly determined from the legislative journals that both of the legislative branches agreed to, and passed, the same or identical 'bill,' under the same title and with the same text in the body thereof, as is evidenced by the enrolled bill that appears to have been authenticated as a 'law enacted by the Legislature' within the purview of section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution of Florida, yet there is nothing in the Florida Constitution that precludes an agreement at any time by both branches of the Legislature on the ultimate title to a completely passed bill as it is ordained to be finally published as a 'law by the Legislature,' so long as the legislative records show that the title of the proposed 'law (as so) enacted by the Legislature,' and as finally submitted by the Legislature to the Governor in the form of an enrolled bill to be considered by him, is an agreed title that at some stage of the bill's enactment has been adopted by concurrence of both the House of Representatives and the Senate therein, at a time when the Legislature was still in possession of the bill and still possessed of legislative jurisdiction over it. Therefore when it affirmatively appears that there has been an agreement on the part of the House and Senate as to the title to a 'law enacted in the Legislature' (to use the language of section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution itself) and when it further appears that such agreed title is in keeping with the original subject of the 'bill' as expressed in its title when it was first introduced into the Legislature as a proposed enactment, ^[3] it cannot be said that section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution has been violated.

The object of section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution was not a design to embarrass legislation by making laws unnecessarily restrictive in their scope and operation and thus to multiply their number. On the contrary, its purpose was to remedy (1) the practice of bringing together into one bill subjects diverse in their nature, and having no necessary nor appropriate connections, with a view to combining in their favor the advocates of all, and thus secure the passage at one time of several unrelated measures no one of which could succeed upon its own merits alone, and (2) to outlaw the practice of inserting, by dexterous manipulation, clauses of which the title to the bill gave no intimation, thereby sanctioning the passage of legislative provisions which the Legislature's membership could not be made by the...