Title: Smith v. Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp.

State: mississippi

Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court

Document:

310 So. 2d 281 (1975) Claude SMITH et al. v. TRANSCONTINENTAL GAS PIPELINE CORPORATION. No. 47948. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 24, 1975. L.A. Pacific, Collins & Tew, Laurel, for appellants. Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, Edmund L. Brunini, Jr., Jackson, Robert H. McFarland, Bay Springs, M.M. Roberts, Hattiesburg, for appellee. Before RODGERS, SMITH and SUGG, JJ. SMITH, Justice: Claude Smith, and others, citizens of Jones County, have appealed from an order of the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, reversing certain orders of the State Oil and Gas Board whereby that body had declined to accept jurisdiction of two petitions of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corporation for leave to use the depleted Eutaw Gas Pool of the Sharon Gas Storage Field in Jasper and Jones Counties for the injection, storage and withdrawal of gas as provided in Chapter 436, Laws of Mississippi of 1971, (Section 53-3-151 et seq., Mississippi Code Annotated 1972). Section 8 of Chapter 436 purports to exclude from the operation *282 of the Act "a county having two judicial districts and being intersected by U.S. Highway 84 and Interstate 59. This section is not brought forward or codified in Mississippi Code Annotated (1972), apparently because considered local and private in character, it being conceded that it refers to Jones County only. The Legislature declared its purpose and policy in the enactment of the statute in the following language: When Transcontinental presented its petitions to the State Oil and Gas Board, that body declined to accept jurisdiction, basing its refusal upon the exception of Jones County expressed in section 8 of the Act, Sharon Field lying partly in Jasper County and partly in Jones County. From the Board's orders declining jurisdiction, Transcontinental appealed to the Circuit Court. That court reversed the State Oil and Gas Board, and declared that section 8 was an unconstitutional attempt to exclude a single county, Jones, from the general law, and ordered the cases remanded to the State Oil and Gas Board. The circuit court held: "This Court is of the opinion that § 8 of Chapter 436 of the Mississippi Laws of 1971 is a violation of § 1 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and is in further violation of the Mississippi Constitution, §§ 87 and 90, in that § 8 is a private and local exception suspending the operation of the general legislative act." The question presented by the present appeal is, therefore, whether the circuit court was correct in so holding. Section 87 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 provides: The general rule is stated in 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 155 (1953): It appears to be beyond question that Chapter 436 of the Laws of 1971, is a general law, intended to apply throughout the *283 State, in all of the 82 counties, excepting only, Jones County, identified in the Act as "a county intersected by U.S. Highway 84 and Interstate 59 and having two (2) judicial districts." Chapter 436, supra, among other things, provides: Section 90, Mississippi Constitution of 1890, prohibits the enactment of local, private or special laws, in certain areas, among them being laws: "(r) Conferring the power to exercise the right of eminent domain, or granting to any person, corporation, or association the right to lay down railroad tracks or street-car tracks in any other manner than that prescribed by general law;" The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States provides: The constitutional challenge in this case is directed solely at section 8 of Chapter 436, supra, which undertakes to exclude the single county of Jones because it is a county (the only one) having two judicial districts and intersected by U.S. Highway 84 and Interstate 59. In State ex rel. Newell v. Brown, 162 Ohio St. 147, 122 N.E.2d 105 (1954), the Supreme Court of Ohio dealt with a statutory provision, the constitutionality of which was challenged upon the ground that it was local and private in character, singling out one county in the state for different treatment, and came within a prohibition contained in the Ohio Constitution, against local and private legislation. Article 2, section 26, of the Ohio Constitution provided: "All laws of a general nature, shall have a uniform operation throughout the state... ." The Ohio Court, in holding a statute, which dealt with nominating petitions, unconstitutional, said: "Cuyahoga County is the only county in the state which has a population of one million or more," and pointed out that the provision was unconstitutional as an attempt, by local, special or private law, to provide a different standard for Cuyahoga County, the only county fitting the description of "a county having one million population." The Ohio Court cited with approval State ex rel. English v. Industrial Commission, 160 Ohio St. 443, 448, 449, 117 N.E.2d 22, 25, wherein it was said (we think correctly) that the "essential elements necessary to make a general law operate uniformly," are: In Toombs v. Sharkey, 140 Miss. 676, 106 So. 273 (1925), this Court distinguished between a local and private act and a general law. Chapter 211 of Laws of Mississippi of 1924 provided for salaries to be paid county prosecuting attorneys, the amounts to be dependent upon a classification of counties according to assessed property valuations. The following exception was included in the act: Only two counties, Washington and Bolivar, fulfilled the requirements as to being in a levee district and imposing a cotton tax for levee purposes. The constitutionality of the exception of Washington and Bolivar from the general provisions of the Act, was challenged. This Court said: Also: In Toombs, supra, the Court said, further: In the case now before us, the exclusion of a county intersected by U.S. Highway 84 and Interstate 59, and having two judicial districts, was, in effect, no different from excluding "a county named Jones." Obviously, the basis upon which it was sought to exclude Jones, as stated in section 8 of the Act, did not amount to a classification "germane to the subject matter of the legislation." The artificiality of the distinction is emphasized when it is considered that the proposal was to store gas underground in the depleted Eutaw Gas Pool of the Sharon Gas Field which lies partly in Jasper and partly in Jones County. Appellants cite Board of Education v. State Educational Finance Commission, 243 Miss. 782, 138 So. 2d 912 (1962), as supporting their contention that the section 8 exclusion of Jones County was not unconstitutional. *285 In Board of Education v. State Educational Finance Commission, supra, the Court dealt with an amendment to an act relating to school districts and pupil assignments in the school system. The amendment was as follows: It seems obvious that the amendment, in fact, was germane to the Act in that case, in the sense that it was "closely allied; appropriate; relevant." That Jones County had two judicial districts and that U.S. Highway 84 and Interstate 59 intersect it bears no identifiable or rational relationship whatever to the general provisions and purposes of Chapter 436 nor does it supply any reasonable basis for the exclusion of Jones rather than Jasper or any other county of the 82. Manifestly, the attempted exclusion was arbitrary and runs counter to every one of the four essential elements enumerated by the Ohio Court in State ex rel. Newell v. Brown, supra. The provision of the Ohio Constitution, construed by the Ohio Court in Newell v. Brown, supra, states the proposition more succinctly, perhaps. But it is none the less clear from the quoted provisions of the Mississippi Constitution that it likewise imposes the restriction. Both Ohio and Mississippi Constitutions prohibit the enactment of a patchwork of local and private "county wide" laws, each applicable to one or more counties only, and exempting the rest, differing from county to county, without regard to any rational or even recognizable classification. Finally, it is argued that using the depleted underground gas fields in Jones County would expose its citizens to "danger of explosions." Such a danger, if there is any, would not be peculiar to Jones County but would exist in any county where gas is stored under the provisions of Chapter 436. After all, storing natural gas in the natural underground spaces from which the natural gas which had formerly reposed there has been exhausted, is merely to restore a condition that had existed for centuries. We have concluded, and so hold, that the circuit court correctly declared section 8 of Chapter 436 of the Laws of Mississippi of 1971, purporting to exclude Jones County from the general Act, unconstitutional and void. Section 9 of the Act expressly provides that if any part of the Act should be declared unconstitutional, the remainder of the Act shall continue to be valid, and this decision, therefore, shall not be construed as affecting the other provisions of the Act. The order of the circuit court appealed from is affirmed and the case is remanded to the State Oil and Gas Board, there to be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 436 of the Laws of Mississippi of 1971, and in a manner not inconsistent with this opinion. Affirmed and case remanded to State Oil and Gas Board to be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 436 of the Laws of Mississippi of 1971, in a manner not inconsistent with this opinion. The case was considered by a conference of the Judges en banc. All Justices concur.