State v. Van Trump
| Decision Date | 19 October 1937 |
| Docket Number | 43889. |
| Citation | 275 N.W. 569,224 Iowa 504 |
| Parties | STATE v. VAN TRUMP. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Henry County; Oscar Hale, Judge.
A criminal action in which the defendant was charged with a violation of certain rules and regulations adopted and published by the State Conservation Commission. The district court sustained demurrers to the informations on the ground that the Legislature has no authority, under the Constitution, to delegate its legislative power to any commission or board.
Affirmed.
Superseding opinion, 272 N.W. 152.
John H. Mitchell, Atty. Gen., Paul Freeburn, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Le Roy A. Rader, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Van Allen & Van Allen and Leo V. Collins, all of Mt. Pleasant for defendant-appellee.
The defendant was charged in a justice court in Henry county under two informations; one charging the unlawful possession of a channel catfish during the closed season, and the other charging the taking of the fish with illegal devices, to wit, hoopnets. It is alleged in both of the informations that the act charged is contrary to certain sections of the " Iowa Angling Regulations" so as to violate the provisions of section 1789 of the Code imposing a misdemeanor penalty for " violation of the provisions of the rules and regulations adopted by the Commission." The defendant was convicted and fined in the justice court and appealed to the district court, where he interposed demurrers to the informations for the reason that the crimes charged therein are a violation not of a statute, but of rules and regulations of the State Conservation Commission, adopted pursuant to an attempted void and unconstitutional delegation of legislative power, in contravention of article 3, § 1, of the Iowa Constitution. The demurrers were sustained, and the state appeals.
Both informations seek to impose the misdemeanor penalty prescribed by section 1789 of the Code of Iowa for violation of rules and regulations adopted by the State Conservation Commission under a statutory grant of power, contained in section 1703-d12 of the Code. There is no statute which, by express terms, prohibits the doing of the acts complained of in the informations. The state contends that section 1703-d12, subd. 5, effectually empowered the Conservation Commission to adopt and promulgate rules and regulations for the protection of fish, etc., and make the violation thereof crimes. We cannot so hold.
In the case of Goodlove v. Logan, 217 Iowa 98, 251 N.W. 39 40, this court held that a statute authorizing the State Highway Commission to adopt rules and regulations as to the use of the highways in the state by automobiles or other vehicles was in contravention of the Constitution of the state of Iowa and an unwarranted attempt to delegate legislative power. The authorization from the Legislature to the Highway Commission, involved in that case, read: " Such rules and regulations may * * * relate to."
This court held that the Legislature had delegated to the Highway Commission power, " first to say whether there shall be any law, and, second, what that law shall be."
Our opinion in that case and our prior and subsequent holdings recognize that the Legislature may, as said by the United States Supreme Court in Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 12 S.Ct. 495, 505, 36 L.Ed. 294, 310," make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend." Goodlove v. Logan, 217 Iowa 98, 251 N.W. 39; Hubbell v. Higgins, 148 Iowa 36, 126 N.W. 914, Ann.Cas.1912B, 822; McLeland v. Marshall County, 199 Iowa 1232, 201 N.W. 401, 203 N.W. 1; Loftus v. Department of Agriculture, 211 Iowa 566, 232 N.W. 412; State v. Manning, 220 Iowa 525, 259 N.W. 213; Vilas v. Iowa State Board of Assessment and Review (Iowa) 273 N.W. 338.
The Legislature may not delegate its purely legislative power. The courts throughout the land have held this. Nevertheless, it has been recognized from the very earliest times that this does not prevent the Legislature from invoking the aid of other governmental departments in effectuating its policies. This court has endeavored, within constitutional limits, to pursue a " common sense" policy in determining the extent to which delegation may be permitted, and to give due consideration to the necessities of governmental co-ordination and the practical difficulty of adapting legislation to complex conditions involving a host of detail. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 394, 48 S.Ct. 348, 72 L.Ed. 624; McLeland v. Marshall County, 199 Iowa 1232, 201 N.W. 401, 203 N.W. 1; Loftus v. Department of Agriculture, 211 Iowa 566, 232 N.W. 412; Talarico v. City of Davenport, 215 Iowa 186, 244 N.W. 750; State v. Manning, 220 Iowa 525, 259 N.W. 213; Vilas v. State Board of Assessment and Review (Iowa) 273 N.W. 338.
In the recent case of State v. Manning, 220 Iowa 525, 530, 531, 259 N.W. 213, 216, Chief Justice Hamilton, speaking for this court, said:
" The three branches, executive, judicial, and legislative, are co-ordinate parts of our government, and the line of demarcation between the three in matters of the character here involved is not easily defined according to any fixed standard of interpretation. As early as the year 1825, no less renowned authority than Chief Justice Marshall, in recognition of this difficulty under such circumstances as confront us in this case, said:
‘ The line has not been exactly drawn which separates those important subjects, which must be entirely regulated by the legislature itself, from those of less interest, in which a general provision may be made, and power given to those who are to act under such general provisions, to fill up the details.’ Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 41, 6 L.Ed. 253.
Our own court has given expression to the same thought in McLeland v. Marshall County, 199 Iowa 1232, at page 1238, 201 N.W. 401, 203 N.W. 1:
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