Opinion ID: 1766983
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: is this legislation private/local legislation?

Text: The Secretary of State also argues that this tidelands legislation was enacted for the sole benefit of a few private coastal landowners who had influence in the Legislature. He insinuates that since this legislation deals primarily with the tidelands on the Coast, it will benefit this area while being detrimental to the remaining citizens of the State. He argues that the 1989 tidelands legislation is violative of §§ 87 and 90(u) of the Mississippi Constitution, which state: Section 87. No Special or local law shall be enacted for the benefit of individuals or corporations, in cases which are or can be provided for by general law, or where the relief sought can be given by any court of this state; nor shall the operation of any general law be suspended by the legislature for the benefit of any individual or private corporation or association, and in all cases where a general law can be made applicable, and would be advantageous, no special law shall be enacted. Miss. Const. art. IV, § 87 (1890). Section 90. The legislature shall not pass local, private, or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, but such matters shall be provided for only by general laws, viz: (u) Granting any lands under control of the state to any person or corporation. Miss. Const. art. IV, § 90 (1890). We have held that it is the substance, rather than the form, which determines whether a law is general or local or private. Toombs v. Sharkey, 140 Miss. 676, 106 So. 273 (1925). In Vardaman v. McBee, 198 Miss 251, 21 So.2d 661 (1945), this Court defined local and private legislation as: Class legislation, also often called local or private legislation, is legislation limited in operation to certain persons or classes of persons, natural or artificial, or to certain districts of the territory of the State, and statutes which make unreasonable or arbitrary classifications or discriminations violate provisions of Constitutions prohibiting special laws granting any special or exclusive privileges, immunities, or franchises, or passed for the benefit of individuals inconsistent with the general law of the land. 12 C.J. § 885, p. 1128; 16A C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 489. It is said in Ruling Case Law, `Where a law is broad enough to reach every portion of the state and to embrace within its provision every person or thing distinguished by characteristics sufficiently marked and important to make them clearly a class by themselves, it is not a special or local, but a general, law, even though there may be but one member of the class or one place on which it operates.' [Emphasis added]. Vardaman, 198 Miss. at 260, 21 So.2d at 664 ( quoting Toombs, 140 Miss. at 693, 106 So. at 274). See also Lovorn v. Hathorn, 365 So.2d 947, 949 (Miss. 1979); State ex rel. Pair v. Burroughs, 487 So.2d 220, 223 (Miss. 1986). A law is classified as general when it operates uniformly on all members of a class of persons, places or things requiring legislation peculiar to that class. State ex rel. Jordan v. Gilmer Grocery Co., 156 Miss. 99, 121-22, 125 So. 710, 717 (1930). Although this legislation is geographical in nature, geography alone should not serve to pigeonhole a law as being local or private. Different areas of the State have different needs. Surely, a general State problem, though confined to a specific geographic area, may require and benefit from State action, without that action violating the constitution. A geographic statewide problem is not a prerequisite for a statewide law to be enacted. The mere fact that the northern counties of this State do not have Gulf front tidelands, should not prohibit the Legislature from enacting general laws of general effect which address the needs of the southern-most counties. The present legislation being challenged is general law, attacking a problem of statewide import, and setting out an implementation of public policy and management of public lands through a constitutionally elected public official. Indeed, the public trust is for the benefit of every citizen, statewide. The present legislation is neither local nor private, nor does it benefit one owner over another with a planned or intentional bias. To argue that this is local legislation or legislation to favor a private person over another is ludicrous. Because the tidelands legislation will be applied to all members of the class of persons whose lands border tidelands, it constitutes a general law. Furthermore, because the legislation is an effort to manage and protect the public trust lands, it is a general law. The Secretary of State also asserts that by donating public trust lands to private parties, the State has violated its duty as trustee. In stating such, the Secretary of State applies the basic principles of trust law. In Hill v. Thompson, 564 So.2d 1 (Miss. 1989), this Court held that the common law rules of private trusts are to be applied to public school lands trust, thereby prohibiting a trustee from giving away or otherwise disposing of the corpus of that trust in derogation of the rights of the beneficiaries. Id. at 6. To donate public trust lands to private citizens for little or no consideration would breach the fiduciary duty owed to the citizens of the State of Mississippi, who are the owners of the corpus. See Tally v. Board of Supervisors, 353 So.2d 774 (Miss. 1978). Even applying basic trust principles to the present situation, as long as the Act is for a higher public purpose and results from a legislative enactment, the tidelands legislation can be upheld. Again we note the legislative resolve to deal with varied land problems; the 1973 Coastal Wetlands Act and the 1980 Sixteenth Section Reform Act wherein the Legislature astutely dealt with protection of the public interest in the Sixteenth Section Lands through statutory direction to the Secretary of State and the selling of so-called lieu lands [2] . The 1989 Act for an appropriate establishment of the mean high tide line through the use of this same constitutional officer, the Secretary of State, is an extension of the legislative effort to deal with problems in regard to public land ownership.