Title: City of Bismarck v. Materi

State: north-dakota

Issuer: North Dakota Supreme Court

Document:

177 N.W.2d 530 (1970) The CITY OF BISMARCK, a Municipal Corporation, Appellant, v. Al MATERI, Respondent. Crim. No. 394. Supreme Court of North Dakota. June 1, 1970. *534 John A. Zuger, Sr., and Frederick E. Saefke, Jr., Bismarck, for plaintiff and appellant. Rausch & Chapman, Bismarck, for defendant and respondent. ERICKSTAD, Judge, on reassignment. By complaint dated March 31, 1969, Mr. Materi was charged with having violated Subsection 13 of Ordinance 22.0401 of the City of Bismarck. Subsection 13 prohibits, with certain exceptions, the conducting of business or labor for profit on Sundays. On being tried for this offense, Mr. Materi was found guilty and sentenced. He thereafter appealed from the sentence of the municipal court to the district court. In the district court the case was tried on a stipulation of facts, the pertinent part of which reads as follows: The pertinent part of the motion to quash referred to in the stipulation of facts reads as follows: By order dated the 15th of December, 1969, the district court in effect granted the motion on the ground that that part of the ordinance which permits grocery stores operated by owner-managers who regularly employ not more than three employees to do business on Sunday, and thus prohibits those grocery stores operated by owner-managers who regularly employ more than three employees from doing business on Sunday, is unconstitutional as a denial of equal protection and due process of law. The City of Bismarck appeals from the judgment entered on the afore-described order of the district court to this court, but before we may consider the merits of the case on appeal we must determine a motion which has been made in our court to dismiss the appeal upon the ground that the City is without statutory or constitutional authority to perfect an appeal in this case. In considering this motion to dismiss the appeal we start with the proposition that appeals are statutory and that ordinarily unless a statute provides for an appeal, no right to appeal exists. In a decision rendered by this court in July of 1955, wherein this court held that the City of Minot had no right to appeal from a judgment of its police magistrate acquitting a defendant of a charge of violating its ordinance prohibiting driving a motor vehicle upon a highway of the City while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, this court quoted from Corpus Juris Secundum and McQuillin on Municipal Law as follows: In 62 C.J.S. Municipal Corporations § 364, p. 707 it is stated: In another case involving the City of Minot, decided later in the year 1955, this court said: Accordingly, this court held that under those circumstances the City had no right to move for a new trial after the defendant had been acquitted of violating an ordinance which prohibited an act also prohibited by State law. It is to be noted, however, that in neither of those cases was the dismissal based upon the unconstitutionality of the ordinance. There are two things then that distinguish this case from the two previously cited cases so strongly relied upon by the movant. The first distinguishing feature is that in this case the appeal that is being questioned is the appeal from the district court to this court, not an appeal from municipal court to district court, and the second distinguishing feature is that in this case the judgment appealed from is a judgment of dismissal based upon the ground that the ordinance itself is unconstitutional and not upon a finding that the ordinance was not violated. Noting those distinguishing features, are we nevertheless prohibited from considering the appeal on its merits for the reason that no statute appears to exist which specifically provides for an appeal on the part of a city from an adverse judgment rendered by a district court in a case involving an alleged violation of a city ordinance? Before we answer that question we think it important to note that if we were to apply the criminal procedure appropriate in an appeal by the State from an order granting a motion to quash an information or an indictment in district court, appeal would lie. See Section 29-28-07, N.D.C.C., the pertinent part of which reads: It is obvious that the ordinance under consideration is patterned after Chapter 12-21.1, N.D.C.C. The pertinent part thereof is Section 12-21.1-04(28), which reads: We see then that we have before us a City ordinance prohibiting an offense likewise prohibited by State law as against public welfare which provides a penalty that could include imprisonment. *537 Under the reasoning of Whitfield applying criminal procedure to municipal court, shouldn't the appeal by the City be allowed in this case? We think so, but we believe there is a more compelling reason for holding the City entitled to appeal in this case, notwithstanding that there is no specific statute providing for appeal by the City and that is based upon the application of Section 89 of the North Dakota Constitution to this case. It reads: Our legislature has authorized our cities to enact ordinances which, when properly adopted, may be enforced by fines, penalties, and forfeitures and have the same effect as a law enacted by our legislature. The pertinent part of Section 40-05-01, N.D.C.C., giving our municipalities such power, reads: Under Section 89 of our State Constitution only upon agreement of four of the five judges of our State Supreme Court may a statute enacted by our legislature be struck down as unconstitutional. Would it not grossly offend the spirit of that section of our Constitution to permit one district court judge to have the final say on the constitutionality of a city ordinance which is supposed to have the effect of law? We think so. This is not to say that a district court may not pass on the constitutionality of an ordinance, but it is to say that that decision may not be the last word. In other words, it appears to us that appeal must lie when properly taken from a decision of a district court holding a city ordinance unconstitutional, or Section 89 of our State Constitution would be thwarted. Accordingly, we so hold. We must now decide the merits of this appeal. The district court held that the Sunday closing ordinance violates Sections 1, 11, 13 and 20 of the North Dakota Constitution and Article XIV of the United States Constitution. Those sections read as follows: The trial court in holding this ordinance unconstitutional relied on the 1964 decision of Terry Carpenter, Inc. v. Wood, 177 Neb. 515, 129 N.W.2d 475 (1964). It is basically upon Carpenter that Mr. Materi relies in his efforts to uphold the trial court's order in this court. Our court looks to decisions of other states for guidance, but it is not bound by those decisions. In respect to questions involving the United States Constitution, not only does our court receive guidance from the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, but it is bound by those decisions. In 1966, two years after Carpenter, we sustained our Sunday closing statutes against the attack that they violated Article I, Article V, and Section 1 of Article XIV of the Amendments to the United States Constitution, and Sections 4 and 20 of the North Dakota Constitution. State v. Gamble Skogmo, Inc., 144 N.W.2d 749 (N.D.1966). When Senate Bill 63 became law during the 1967 session of our legislature, Sections 12-21-14, 12-21-15, 12-21-16, 12-21-17, 12-21-20, 12-21-21, 12-21-22, N.D.C.C., were repealed. In their stead out legislature enacted Sections 12-21.1-01 through 12-21.1-07. The legislative objective of providing a day of rest and recreation and the method of attaining that objective, of the pre-1967 Sunday closing statutes, were approved by our court in Gamble Skogmo. The 1967 legislation has the same objective as the pre-1967 legislation. It generally prohibits the doing of business or labor for profit on Sunday and, similar to the pre-1967 legislation, it provides certain exceptions. Section 12-21.1-03 exempts certain commodities from the prohibition against sale on Sunday which the legislature deemed essential to its objective of providing a day of rest and recreation. Section 12-21.1-04 exempts certain businesses from the prohibition of operating on Sunday which the legislature obviously also believed necessary to the accomplishment of the same objective. We think that the rules applied in Gamble Skogmo, based on the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court decisions referred to therein, are pertinent here. See McGowan v. State of Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S. Ct. 1101, 6 L. Ed. 2d 393 (1961); Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582, 81 S. Ct. 1135, 6 L. Ed. 2d 551 (1961); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 81 S. Ct. 1144, 6 L. Ed. 2d 563 (1961); and Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market, 366 U.S. 617, 81 S. Ct. 1122, 6 L. Ed. 2d 536 (1961). *539 Paragraphs 1 through 9 of the syllabus of Gamble Skogmo apply to this case: Applying that reasoning, we discern no basis for invalidating the general provisions of 12-21.1-03 and 12-21.1-04 of our code or the general provisions of Subsection 13 of Section 22.0401 of the *540 Ordinances of the City of Bismarck, which are similar thereto. This brings us to Subsection 28 of Section 12-21.1-04, N.D.C.C., which exempts "Grocery stores operated by the ownermanager who regularly employs not more than three employees * * *." This section is similar to that provision of E of 13 of Bismarck City Ordinance 22.0401, which exempts "Grocery stores operated by the owner-manager who regularly employs not more than three employees * * *." This type of exemption was not contained in our pre-1967 Sunday closing legislation. We are now, therefore, presented with the problem of determining whether this type of exemption is so unreasonable or arbitrary that it constitutes an improper classification or, in other words, amounts to invidious discrimination prohibited by both the United States Constitution and our State Constitution. It seems to be Mr. Materi's position that since we struck down a classification as being arbitrary and unreasonable in Melland v. Johanneson, 160 N.W.2d 107 (N.D. 1968), we must also strike down the classification here between those grocers who regularly employ more than three and those who regularly employ three or fewer persons. In Melland we said: "Legislation cannot arbitrarily divide a class into two parts and constitute a different rule of law governing each of the parts." Melland v. Johanneson, supra, Syllabus 7. Let us look briefly at Melland. We think that the classification found to constitute invidious discrimination in Melland was much different from the classification here involved. In Melland we were considering the validity of legislation intended to eliminate abuses that result from conflicts of interest on the part of persons elected to the legislature. Paragraphs 8 and 9 of the syllabus in Melland show what we struck down and why. They follow: In reaching the conclusion stated in No. 8 of the syllabus, we said: Melland v. Johanneson, supra, 115. In the instant case, however, size of the business as determined by the number of persons regularly employed would make a difference in the number of people working and thus being deprived of their day of rest and recreation and would affect the extent of disruption of the day to others. We do not think it unreasonable that the legislature, and in this case the City, concluded that it was necessary to permit for the benefit of the public the operation of certain small grocery stores on the day set aside for rest and recreation. As Justice Frankfurter pointed out in his special concurring opinion to McGowan in quoting Mr. Lloyd in the course of the debate in Commons on the English Sunday Closing Act of 1936, which we quoted in Gamble Skogmo, "* * * the problem is to strike a just balance between the reasonable needs of the public and the equally reasonable desire of the great bulk of those engaged in the distributive trades to enjoy their share of Sunday rest and recreation." State v. Gamble Skogmo, Inc., supra, 144 N.W.2d at 761. It is not unreasonable to assume that our legislature and the city government in this case had such an objective in mind. Accordingly, we do not find the classification incorporated in this exemption to constitute invidious discrimination. In State v. Miller, 129 N.W.2d 356 (N. D.1964), a case in which one of our game laws was under attack as being violative of Section 20 of our State Constitution, we pointed out that this court on numerous occasions has held that Section 20 of our Constitution does not prohibit the legislature from making classifications, provided the classifications are reasonable. No contention is made in the instant case and there was no contention in Miller that the legislature lacked authority generally to enact legislation covering the subjectin Miller, to protect big gamein this case to provide a day of rest and recreation. A pertinent part of Miller follows: Finding a reasonable basis in Miller for the classification, we held the classification not invalid. Thus far in this opinion we have referred to the fact that the trial court relied for its decision upon Terry Carpenter, Inc. v. Wood, 177 Neb. 515, 129 N.W.2d 475 (1964), but otherwise we have not discussed that opinion. From what we have said it is obvious that we do not agree with the philosophy behind the Carpenter holding that the exemption in the Nebraska Sunday closing statute which permits retail outlets who employ not more than two persons to do business on Sunday is unconstitutional. It is interesting that although that court was faced with the same constitutional issues *542 with which we are confronted, it made only a fleeting reference to the four United States Supreme Court decisions which are the landmark cases in this field of law. Its only reference was to a point which it acknowledged but did not apply. In discussing the difficulty involved in classification, it said: We think it is pertinent that decisions of state courts more recent than Carpenter have taken a position contrary to Carpenter and in accord with the position we have taken here today. In a November, 1967, decision the supreme court of Pennsylvania in Bertera's Hopewell Foodland, Inc. v. Masters, 428 Pa. 20, 236 A.2d 197 (1967), the majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the Pennsylvania Sunday closing statute against the attack that it was unconstitutional in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Article III, Section 7, P.S., of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Exceptions to the prohibition against Sunday sales which were upheld related to (1) stores which employed no more than nine persons; (2) stores owned and run by a person and members of the owner's immediate family; and (3) establishments which prepared food on the premises for eating purposes. In justifying classification that permitted establishments which employed fewer than ten persons to do business on Sunday, Justice Musmanno, writing the majority opinion, said: At a later page of the majority opinion Justice Musmanno said: In February of 1969 the Court of Appeals of Tennessee in Bookout v. City of Chattanooga, cert. denied, 442 S.W.2d 658 (1969), upheld an ordinance of the City of *543 Chattanooga against attack that it was too vague and so arbitrary and discriminatory as to make it unconstitutional. The ordinance prohibited variety stores from doing business on Sunday while permitting hobby shops to do business on Sunday. By a decision rendered in April of 1967, the supreme court of New Hampshire answered ten of eleven questions propounded to it by the House of Representatives relating to the constitutionality of the proposed act to regulate the operation of business on Sundays and certain annual holidays. See Opinion of the Justices, 108 N. H. 103, 229 A.2d 188 (1967). In discussing the issue pertinent to this part of this appeal, the New Hampshire court said: *544 This brings us to the last issue to be determined in this case and that is whether the provisions of paragraph C of Subsection 13 of Ordinance 22.0401 make the ordinance unconstitutional. Paragraph C reads: Incidentally, C of Subsection 13 of Ordinance 22.0401 is similar to 12-21.1-02, N. D.C.C., which reads: Opinion of the Justices, the April 1967 decision of the supreme court of New Hampshire, also covered the constitutionality of a similar exemption contained in the proposed New Hampshire legislation. We quote from that decision: It is not clear whether Mr. Materi has raised the constitutional issue that the Sabbatarian exemption is violative of Article I of the Amendments to the United States Constitution and Section 4 of the North Dakota Constitution, as a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. But if it is his view that he has raised such an issue, we are of the opinion that although we sympathize with the view expressed by the New Hampshire court, we need not consider the question in this case, as Mr. Materi alleges only economic injury and does not allege infringement of a specific religion embraced by himself, his employees, or his customers. As the general rule is that a litigant may assert only his own constitutional rights or immunities and as Mr. Materi has presented no weighty countervailing policies here, to cause an exception to the general rule, we hold that he has no standing to raise the contention that the statute prohibits the free exercise of religion contrary to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 4 of the North Dakota Constitution. See McGowan v. State of Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 429, 81 S. Ct. 1101, 6 L. Ed. 2d 393 (1961); State v. Gamble Skogmo, Inc., 144 N.W.2d 749, 769 (N.D.1966). Should it be Mr. Materi's contention that he is attacking the Sabbatarian clause not for the reasons which we have assumed to be his basis for attack, but for the reasons stated by the Nebraska court in Carpenter, we think it is sufficient to say that we reject that part of the Nebraska opinion as well as the other parts heretofore rejected. The Nebraska court summarily disposed of the issue relative to the Sabbatarian exemption as follows: We are not so easily convinced. The Minnesota supreme court found its 1967 statute prohibiting the Sunday sale of specified classes of commodities designated as restricted to be unconstitutional, being so vague and uncertain in its statutory scheme and criminal consequences as to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Notwithstanding, it found the Sabbatarian section valid. We quote: In any case that issue is not before us either, because of Mr. Materi's lack of standing to raise the issue, he having not alleged that he or his employees or his customers are Sabbatarians. Accordingly, we hold that Ordinance 22.0401 is not violative of any of the asserted constitutional provisions of the United States Constitution or the North Dakota Constitution. We therefore conclude that for the reasons stated in this opinion the judgment of the trial court is reversed and a new trial is ordered. STRUTZ and PAULSON, JJ., concur. TEIGEN, Chief Justice (dissenting). I dissent. The defendant was found guilty of an ordinance violation in the municipal court. He appealed to the district court under the provisions of Section 40-18-19, N.D.C.C. This section provides that an appeal may be taken from a judgment of conviction in the municipal judge's court to the district court in the same form and manner as appeals are taken and perfected from a judgment of conviction of a defendant in justice court. The appeal is taken in accordance with Sections 33-12-34, 33-12-35 and 33-12-39, N.D.C.C., and shall be tried in accordance with Sections 33-12-40 and 33-12-41, N.D.C.C., which statutes govern appeals from justice court. The appeal by the defendant transferred the action to the district court from the municipal judge's court for trial anew, regardless of any ruling of the municipal judge. The defendant, pursuant to the right granted under Section 33-12-40, N. D.C.C., moved for a dismissal of the complaint on the ground that the facts stated therein do not constitute a public offense. The motion for dismissal was premised upon the claim that the ordinance is unconstitutional. The district court granted the defendant's motion and ordered a dismissal of the complaint on the basis of its determination that the section of the ordinance under which the defendant was charged is unconstitutional. The city has attempted to appeal to this court from the district court's order of dismissal. The defendant moved, in this court, for a dismissal of the appeal upon the ground that the city is without statutory or constitutional authority to perfect an appeal to this court and, therefore, we do not have jurisdiction. Section 86 of the Constitution provides: Therefore, unless some method be prescribed by law whereby this court may exercise jurisdiction of this appeal, we cannot, by judicial fiat, assume jurisdiction. The right to appeal is not conferred by the Constitution but may be exercised only as prescribed by statute. There is no right to appeal in the absence of a statute conferring such right. State v. Bauer (N.D. 1967), 153 N.W.2d 895. The ordinance under which the defendant is charged provides for a penalty, which may be in the form of imprisonment, and prohibits an offense which is, likewise, prohibited by State law, as has been pointed out in the majority opinion. Such ordinance, therefore, is criminal in nature and criminal procedure applies. City of Minot v. Whitfield (N.D.1955), 71 N.W. 766. A criminal action for an offense prohibited by State statute is prosecuted in the *547 name of the State of North Dakota. Section 29-01-03, N.D.C.C. However, although Section 33-12-40, N.D.C.C., transfers the action to the district court for trial anew, it is not the exercise of original jurisdiction by the district court. City of Minot v. Davis (N.D.1957), 84 N.W.2d 891. Thus the city will continue to prosecute the action as plaintiff at the trial anew in the district court. For this reason, the statutes providing for appeal by the State in criminal actions are not applicable. There is no statute providing for appeal from the district court to the supreme court by the city in a case such as this. Therefore, there is no method prescribed by law whereby this court may exercise its appellate jurisdiction and it is my opinion that the appeal should be dismissed. The order dismissing the complaint, from which this appeal is taken, was made under Section 33-12-40, N.D.C.C. Therefore, if the criminal appeal statutes governing the State were applicable, the order, nevertheless, is nonappealable because of the limitations of Section 29-28-07, N.D. C.C. This question was settled in State v. Bauer, supra, in which we held that an order made by the district court dismissing the complaint, under Section 33-12-40, N. D.C.C., is nonappealable. I do not agree that Section 89 of our State Constitution would be thwarted because the Legislature has not conferred appellate jurisdiction upon this court by statute in every case where a constitutional question is involved. It appears to me that the same argument can be made as to any other question that may arise in a lawsuit. I see no magic in the number "four" as opposed to the number "three." It requires a majority of the five judges of this court to pronounce a decision in any case. KNUDSON, concurs in the dissent of the Chief Justice.