Opinion ID: 1129643
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: is it simply a procedure statute?

Text: Although the legislature can neither enlarge upon nor curtail the jurisdiction of this court, it may adopt codes of procedure and enlarge or curtail legal and equitable remedies. It may, under the police power, as in the industrial insurance code, even remove causes of action from the area of private controversy. Or, the legislature may, for example, withdraw, alter or allow legal remedies as when it immunizes the state and its subdivisions from tort liability, or restores that liability in whole or in part. But these enactments granting or removing remedies, allowing them in whole or in part, or setting up procedures for the assertion of or creating new defenses are remedial and do not go to the essence of jurisdiction. They are statutes granting, curtailing, or changing the legal remedies and defenses available to the parties and do not delimit the court's powers to hear and determine all controversies which might otherwise lawfully come before it. Statutes which grant, disallow or alter the remedies available to the parties thus do not trench upon the ultimate power of the court as granted in the constitution. If the law allows the remedy, the legislature cannot deprive the courts of the power to enforce it; if the law denies the remedy, the courts may not grant it. Thus, the statute before us does not simply provide a procedure to implement the exercise of an existing function of the court, for this court up to now has been under no duty to either accept or pass upon questions presented to it from the federal courts nor has it been under any duty to treat the federal litigants as parties to a pending state action. Nor does the statute merely establish a procedure whereby the Supreme Court exercises its jurisdiction to carry out its constitutional functions, for the court has never had either the jurisdiction or inclination to declare the law except in cases coming before it in its appellate, revisory and original jurisdiction. Thus, in directing this court to answer questions put to it by the federal judiciary, the legislature has neither afforded the parties to actions in the state courts new legal and equitable remedies or defenses nor simply provided implementing procedural remedies, but, in my judgment, has sought to fundamentally change the function of the Supreme Court. If the legislature may require the Supreme Court to answer questions put to it by the federal judiciary, it may also in similar fashion foist upon the court all manner of duties and functions not in consonance with or in aid of the court's original, revisory or appellate jurisdiction. [7] It could, under the guise of enacting procedural or remedial legislation, even impose upon the court duties and functions which the court would be incapable of discharging. The certification statute, I would conclude, being neither procedural nor remedial, purports to run directly to and affects the jurisdiction of the court. It puts a duty upon the court derived neither from its power to issue writs of mandamus, review, prohibition, habeas corpus or any other writ necessary and proper for the complete exercise of its appellate and revisory jurisdiction (Const. art. 4, § 4), nor from any inherent powers said to repose in a constitutional court. This court never having been accorded revisory and appellate jurisdiction over the federal judiciary, cannot be granted or required to assume such powers by the legislature  even through a procedural statute. In brief, the legislature cannot constitutionally, in the guise of procedural legislation, curtail or enlarge the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. North Bend Stage Line, Inc. v. Department of Public Works, 170 Wash. 217, 16 P.2d 206 (1932); Darnell v. Noel, 34 Wn.2d 428, 208 P.2d 1194 (1949); State v. Estill, 55 Wn.2d 576, 349 P.2d 210 (1960). The court's power to hear and determine any cause properly cognizable by it under its revisory, appellate, or original jurisdiction  along with certain inherent powers  derives from the constitution and comprises the whole of its jurisdiction.