Steffey v. City of Casper
| Citation | 358 P.2d 951 |
| Decision Date | 23 January 1961 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 2908,2933,s. 2908 |
| Parties | Paul E. STEFFEY, L. Louise Steffey and Florence Slack, Partners, doing business under the name and style of Zephyr Cleaners, the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, a corporation, and Gold Bond Stamps, Inc., a corporation, Appellants, (Plaintiffs below), v. CITY OF CASPER, a municipal corporation, W. S. Anderson, Mayor of the City of Casper, Paul Danigan, Chief of Police of the City of Casper, and Frank Bowron, Municipal Magistrate of the City of Casper, as agents of the City of Casper, Natrona County, Wyoming, Appellees, (Defendants below). Norman B. GRAY (substituted for Thomas O. Miller), Attorney General of the State of Wyoming, Bernard E. Cole, County and Prosecuting Attorney, Laramie County, Wyoming, Norbert E. Tuck, Sheriff, Laramie County, Wyoming, Appellants, (Defendants below), v. GOLD BOND STAMPS, INC., a corporation, National Gift Seal Company of Wyoming, a corporation, Pioneer Savings Stamps, Inc., of Coiorado, a corporation, the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, a corporation, Appellees, (Plaintiffs below). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Before BLUME, C. J., and PARKER and HARNSBERGER, JJ.
A petition for rehearing was filed herein, alleging the court erred in holding § 2(b) of the Trading Stamp Act, Ch. 84, S.L. of Wyoming, 1959, unconstitutional and severable, and thereby extended the prohibition on the issuance of trading stamps to merchants issuing their own stamps who had theretofore been exempted by § 2(b), contrary to Art. 2, § 1 of the Wyoming Constitution and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Error was also claimed because the court deemed the statute to be a regulation rather than an absolute prohibition.
A rehearing was granted limited, however, to the question of the first of these alleged errors, inasmuch as it was felt that the court had sufficiently and fully discussed the second matter in the original opinion.
Our understanding of the petitioners' position is that by holding § 1 of the Act, together with the penalty and severability sections, to be valid and constitutional and holding § 2(b) of the Act to be discriminatory and unconstitutional we improperly subjected the excepted class of merchants to the prohibitions of § 1 of the Act and consequently to the criminal penalties imposed for violation of that section. In support of this position, petitioners insist that by so doing we have been guilty of judicial legislation.
In the view the court is now disposed to take of the entire question, it is unnecessary, at this time, to decide the point. This is because the petitioners' complaint is rooted in the assumption that we held § 2(b) to be discriminatory and unconstitutional. If that assumption is not correct, however, the conclusion reached by petitioners must necessarily be incorrect as well.
In an effort to now dispose of this entire matter in such manner as to leave no reasonable doubt as to the decision, this further expression of the court's views is given regarding what was said respecting the legislative classification upon which the constitutionality of § 2(b) depends and the court's holding with respect to the same.
A careful re-examination of our opinion discloses no statement was made that § 2(b) was discriminatory and unconstitutional. Nor was there a holding that the legislative classification was unreasonable or improper when it put merchants who issued their own stamps and redeemed them in cash or from their own merchandise in an excepted class and made trading stamp companies who sold their stamps to merchants and redeemed them from trading stamp company merchandise subject to § 1 of the Act.
The stipulated facts and the evidence clearly show the evil sought to be eliminated arose from the trading stamp company business rather than from the business of merchants who issued their own stamps and redeemed the same in cash or from their own merchandise. From this it must be concluded the paramount purpose of the Act was to eliminate the trading stamp company business which was causing trouble and which alone, at least in the legislative view, presented an evil to be dealt with. However, to hold § 2(b) unconstitutional would leave the balance of the Act going beyond the legislature's purpose and contrary to its expressed intent.
On the other hand, the opinion specifically held the Act in question valid and constitutional. Even the words 'except as hereinafter noted' , appended to that holding, were left meaningless as no different holding was thereafter made.
It is not overlooked that several other statements regarding the constitutionality of the statute were qualified by adding 'except as herein stated' or 'except as hereinafter noted'. But here again nothing followed to implement those phrases.
Possibly with some justification, but certainly without carefully considering all that was said in the opinion, petitioners assume § 2(b) was held unconstitutional, for in their brief they say:
'It was correctly held by this Court that the exception of trading stamps issued and redeemed by merchants made by section 2(b), chapter 84, S.L. of Wyoming, 1959, created a discriminatory classification contrary to Article 1, Section 34 of the...
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