State v. Gamble Skogmo, Inc.

• Decision Date: 16 August 1966
• Docket Number: No. C,C
• Citation: 144 N.W.2d 749
• Parties: The STATE of North Dakota, Respondent, v. GAMBLE SKOGMO, INC., a.k.a. Tempo Stores Corporation, Defendant and Appellant. r. 339.
• Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Page 749

144 N.W.2d 749

The STATE of North Dakota, Respondent, v. GAMBLE SKOGMO, INC., a.k.a. Tempo Stores Corporation Defendant and Appellant.

No. Cr. 339.

Supreme Court of North Dakota.

Aug. 16, 1966.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution permits the states a wide scope of discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than they affect others. The constitutional safeguard is offended only if the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective.

2. State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power despite the fact that, in practice, their laws result in some inequality.

3. A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.

4. The problem of legislative classification admits of no doctrinaire definition. Evils in the same field may be of different dimensions and proportions, requiring different remedies. Reform may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind.

5. Only invidious discrimination is prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

6. Neither the Due Process Clause nor the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution demands logical tidiness. No finicky or exact conformity to abstract correlation is required of legislation. The Constitution is satisfied if a legislature responds to the practical living facts with which it deals. Through what precise points in a field of many competing pressures a legislature might most suitably have drawn its lines is not a question for judicial re-examination. It is enough to satisfy the Constitution that in drawing them the principle of reason has not been disregarded, and what degree of uniformity reason demands of a statute is a function of the complexity of the needs which the statute seeks to accommodate.

7. In the case of Sunday legislation, an extreme complexity of needs is evident. This is so, first, because one of the prime objectives of the legislation is the preservation of an atmosphere--a subtle desideratum, itself the product of a peculiar and changing set of local circumstances and local traditions; but in addition, in the achievement of that end, however formulated, numerous compromises must be made. Not all activity can halt on Sunday. Some of the very operations whose doings most contribute to the rush and clamor of the week must go on throughout that day as well, whether because life depends upon them, or because the cost of stopping and restarting them is simply too great, or because to be without their services would be more disruptive of peace than to have them continue. Many activities have a double aspect: providing entertainment or recreation for some persons, they entail labor and workday tedium for others. These factors require that a broad discretion be accorded the legislature in enacting laws on this subject.

8. That more or fewer activities than fall within the exceptions of our Sunday closing laws could with equal rationality have been excluded from the general ban does not make irrational the selection which has actually been made.

9. A statute is not to be struck down on the supposition that various differently treated situations may in fact be the same.

10. In the instant case the record is barren of any indication that a reasonable basis for the statutory exemptions does not exist, that the statutory distinctions are invidious, and that local tradition and custom might not rationally call for this legislative treatment.

11. Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution.

12. Mere laxity in the enforcement of a criminal statute is not a denial of the equal protection of the laws.

13. To show that unequal administration of a state statute offends the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution one must show an intentional or purposeful discrimination.

14. The burden of proving intentional or purposeful discrimination in the enforcement of a statute is upon the party attempting to have the statute set aside.

15. It is held that in the instant case the appellant has failed to prove that there was intentional or purposeful discrimination in the enforcement of the statute it is charged with violating.

16. The Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and State.' Thomas Jefferson.

17. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution requires the State to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the State to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.

18. The Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not ban federal or state regulation of conduct the reason or effect of which merely happens to coincide with the tenets of some or all religions.

19. As the present purpose of the Sunday closing statutes is not to aid religion but to set aside a day of rest and recreation, the statutes do not violate the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

20. The general rule is that a litigant may only assert his own constitutional rights or immunities.

21. As the appellant in the instant case has alleged only economic injury to it as a corporation and has not alleged infringement of a specific religion embraced by its stockholders, employees, or customers, it has no standing to raise the contention that § 12--21--15, N.D.C.C., prohibits the free exercise of religion, contrary to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or that it violates the provisions of Section Four of the North Dakota Constitution.

Bosard, McCutcheon & Coyne, Minot, for appellant.

Richard B. Thomas, State's Atty., Minot, for respondent.

ERICKSTAD, Judge.

In this case the defendant, Gamble Skogmo, Inc., also known as Tempo Stores Corporation, was charged with the offense of Sabbath breaking under §§ 12--02--04, 12--21--15, and 12--21--16, N.D.C.C. Trial was before the County Judge with Increased Jurisdiction of Ward County, the defendant having waived a jury.

As the defendant is commonly known and advertises as Tempo, we shall hereafter refer to it by that name.

The essential facts are not in dispute. In the December 4, 1965, issue of the Minot Daily News, Tempo placed a large advertisement encompassing approximately two-thirds of page 3, informing the public that it would be open on Sunday, December 5, from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. It announced special sales for Sunday, December 5, on toothpaste, items of clothing, motor oil, overshoes, soft drinks, toys, candy, battery booster cables, hair spray, sheet blankets, and sugar in five-pound bags. Part of the advertisement read as follows: 'SUNDAY attend the church of your choice in the morning. Bring the family to Tempo in the afternoon. (The word SUNDAY was in lettering 2 3/4 inches high and extended across the width of the page.)

'We have extended our shopping hours from 72 per week to 77 for your shopping convenience. We will be open Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m. Bring the family and shop now for your holiday needs. We offer you, the shopper, gift wrapping service, travelers checks, money orders, gift certificates, notary public service and you can pay all your utility bills at Tempo. Our display floor is stocked with over 27,000 items to choose from. No money needed, just say 'charge it'.'

On Sunday, December 5, pursuant to its advertisement, Tempo opened its doors to the public and, with all of its many items exposed for sale, it was engaged in the sale of whatever items of merchandise its customers desired to purchase when officials of the sheriff's office arrested two of its clerks after they sold two electric extension cords to a customer then present.

It is clear from the evidence that Tempo (a large discount store) was open on Sunday for the general sale of merchandise and that the specific sale for which it was charged was within the authority of its clerks, pursuant to direction from its management.

At the close of the trial Tempo moved that the charges be dismissed on the ground that the testimony and evidence adduced by the State did not show the commission of a public offense for the reason that §§ 12--21--15 and 12--21--16, N.D.C.C., upon which the charges were based, violate Article I, Article V, and § 1 of Article XIV of the Amendments to the United States Constitution and §§ 4 and 20 of the North Dakota Constitution. This motion was resisted by the State's Attorney of Ward County and was denied by the court.

Tempo was thereafter found guilty of Sabbath breaking and was sentenced to pay a $50.00 fine and $200.00 costs. The appeal is from the judgment of conviction and sentence imposed.

We shall consider the arguments of Tempo in the order in which they have been stated in its brief. The first argument is in two parts:

The first part is that § 12--21--15, N.D.C.C., violates Article XIV of the Amendments to the United States Constitution and § 20 of the North Dakota Constitution as a law depriving Tempo of its liberty and property without due process of law and denying it the equal protection of the laws.

The second part is that the enforcement of § 12--21--15 lacks any semblance of consistency...