State v. Grove
| Decision Date | 08 October 1921 |
| Docket Number | 23,612 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF KANSAS, ex rel. RICHARD J. HOPKINS, Attorney-general, Plaintiff, v. CHARLES E. GROVE, Defendant |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Decided July, 1921.
Original proceeding in quo warranto. Judgment for plaintiff June 27, 1921.
Judgment rendered.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW -- Statute Authorizing Declaratory Judgments Constitutional. A statute authorizing the rendition of merely declaratory judgments is not unconstitutional on the ground of attempting to confer nonjudicial power upon courts. Such judgments may be judicial acts although rendered in actions admittedly brought before a right has been invaded, and although no consequential relief is given or sought.
2. RAILROAD CORPORATION--Operating Under City Franchise--Employee Disqualified to Hold Office of City Commissioner. Where a railroad company uses certain streets and alleys in a city under ordinances granting it the right to occupy them with its tracks upon condition that it shall conform to certain requirements, including the keeping the track in good condition with respect to general travel, the paving of the track between the rails, and the maintaining of a driveway and sidewalk for the public, one who is employed by such company as a boilermaker is disqualified to hold the office of city commissioner, under the statute which provides that no employee of a railway corporation operating under a franchise granted by a city, or having any contract with it, shall hold any city office. The term franchise is used in such statute in a broad and general rather than a narrow and technical sense, and covers rights acquired under such ordinances, and the relations of the city and railway company under such ordinances are contractual.
Richard J. Hopkins, attorney-general, J. K. Rankin, and E. W. Clausen, assistant attorneys-general, for the plaintiff.
Robert C. Foulston, and George Siefkin, both of Wichita, for the defendant.
This proceeding was brought by the state on the relation of the attorney-general for the purpose of determining the legal capacity of Charles E. Grove, the defendant, to hold the office of member of the board of commissioners of the city of Wichita, to which he had been declared elected on the canvass of the returns. The case was submitted on the pleadings, the facts not being in dispute, on June 10, 1921. It being suggested that the interest of the public required an early determination of the matter, the court, having reached the conclusion that the defendant was ineligible to the position, announced its decision to that effect June 27, with the statement that an opinion would be written later.
The defendant is in the employ of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, and the claim of disqualification is based upon the statute which forbids an employee of a railway company operating under any franchise granted by the city or having any contract with it to hold any city office, and imposes a penalty of both fine and imprisonment for doing so. (Gen. Stat. 1915, § 1556.) Inasmuch as the defendant had not attempted to enter upon the discharge of the duties of the office the proceeding against him was brought under the provisions of the law enacted at the recent session of the legislature authorizing the rendition of declaratory judgments (Laws 1921, ch. 168), the constitutionality of which is challenged by the defendant. The questions to be determined are whether the declaratory judgment statute is valid, whether the railway company is operating under a "franchise" granted by the city within the meaning of that term as used in the statute concerning the qualifications of city officers, and whether the company has a contract with the city.
1. A statute authorizing declaratory judgments has recently been held unconstitutional. (Anway v. Grand Rapids Railway Co., 211 Mich. 592, 179 N.W. 350.) The proceeding in which the decision was rendered was not based upon an actual controversy. The members of the court appear to have agreed that for this reason it could not be maintained. A majority of the justices, however (two out of eight dissenting and another limiting his concurrence to the result reached), treated the proceeding as one of the kind the legislature intended to authorize, but held the statute invalid because the power to make a declaration of rights, where no consequential relief can be had, is not judicial, and cannot be conferred upon courts.
Whatever may have been the intention of the framers of the Michigan act in that respect, the Kansas statute is explicitly limited in its operation to "cases of actual controversy." (§ 1.) The decision of the Michigan court that the proceeding there under consideration was not maintainable and should be dismissed appears to have turned upon the fact that (as in Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 55 L.Ed. 246, 31 S.Ct. 250, upon which case much reliance is placed) no actual controversy existed between opposing parties. The decision so far as it is based upon that ground is not inconsistent with the validity of the act here involved. In the majority opinion in that case, however, views were expressed that if accepted as sound would be fatal to the Kansas statute.
There is no occasion for a general discussion here of declaratory judgments--their purpose, the needs that give rise to them, the extent to which they have been employed and the results obtained. These matters have been fully covered by recent contributions to legal publications, most important among which may be mentioned those of Professor Edson R. Sunderland (16 Michigan Law Review, 69, December, 1917), and Professor Edwin M. Borchard (28 Yale Law Journal, 1, 105, November and December, 1918). The authorities bearing on the question of the constitutionality of such statutes have likewise been so fully collected and discussed in the majority and minority opinions in the Michigan case as to dispense with the necessity of reviewing them here. See also note, 12 A. L. R. 52, in which all aspects of the matter, including the constitutional question, are fully discussed. The first and sixth sections of the Kansas act contain its vital provisions--those against which the constitutional objections are directed. They read:
"This act is declared to be remedial; its purpose is to afford relief from the uncertainty and insecurity attendant upon controversies over legal rights, without requiring one of the parties interested so to invade the rights asserted by the other as to entitle him to maintain an ordinary action therefor; and it is to be liberally interpreted and administered, with a view to making the courts more serviceable to the people." (Id., § 6.)
Against the validity of the statute it is urged that the occasion for judicial action cannot arise until a claim is made that an actual wrong has been done or is immediately threatened and moreover (what is much the same thing stated in another way) that a decision cannot properly be classed as a judgment--as a strictly judicial act--unless besides determining the merits of the controversy between the parties--deciding which is right--it affords (or denies) some additional remedy--in other words "consequential relief"; and therefore that power to decide a controversy in the absence of the conditions indicated is not judicial and cannot be conferred upon courts by the legislature. This view appears to us to be unsound and to be the result of confusing declaratory judgments with advisory opinions and decisions in moot cases and perhaps also of an inclination to treat a general practice that has been long established as having acquired the force of a constitutional guaranty. A mere advisory opinion upon an abstract question is obviously not a judgment at all, since there are no parties to be bound and the rights of no one are directly affected. The situation is substantially the same where opposing parties present a moot question--one the decision of which can have no practical effect. Where a judgment is sought of such character as to be of no benefit unless accompanied by an order the carrying out of which is impossible the futility of the proceeding is a sufficient basis for a court's refusal to entertain it, whether or not jurisdiction to do so exists. But some judgments are wholly or in part self-operative. They perform a valuable function in and of themselves. It is often said that a cause of action arises only upon the breach of a duty--the invasion of a right. This, however, is merely the announcement of a general rule of practice subject to possible exceptions and to legislative change. Actions to quiet title and to construe wills are recognized methods of invoking judicial action which do not originate in the actual commission of a wrong nor terminate in a judgment inflicting a penalty, granting compensation or injunction, or otherwise giving "consequential relief," the declaration of rights being all that is necessary to fit the requirements of the case. The decree in an action to quiet title is...
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...act of Kansas. Kaleikau, 27 Haw. at 426. The Kansas Supreme Court first addressed its declaratory judgment act in State ex rel. Hopkins v. Grove, 109 Kan. 619, 201 P. 82 (1921). The Kansas Supreme Court noted that its statute was explicitly limited in its operation to cases of "actual contr......
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