Opinion ID: 1727196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Is The Local And Private Act of 1966 Unconstitutional?

Text: Objectors initially attack the authority of the Gautier Utility District to act at all, much less issue bonds. The argument presented is that the 1966 local and private act may not undergird the existence of the District consistent with Sections 87 and 90 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890. The former section prohibits the enactment of special or local laws for the benefit of private individuals or corporations. The latter sets forth certain matters which may be regulated only by general laws of statewide application. For the reasons set forth below, neither provision is sufficient to advance Objectors' cause. The District urges that attacks upon the legality of its creation and the validity of its existence are time barred. The Local and Private Act of 1966 contains in Section 1(f) a proviso that, if no appeal from the creation of the District is taken to the circuit court within 15 days, such creation shall be final and beyond attack. No such appeal was taken. With respect to questions having to do with whether there has been compliance in the course of creation with the strictures of the enabling legislation, the District is correct. On this record, the Gautier Utility District became on July 18, 1973, a lawfully created and viable utility district insofar as the local and private act may empower such a district to exist. The un-appealed from actions of the Board of Supervisors in creating the District are not subject to collateral attack here. Biloxi-Pascagoula Real Estate Board, Inc. v. Mississippi Regional Housing Authority No. VIII, 231 Miss. 89, 98-99, 94 So.2d 793, 796-97 (1957). The District's position, however, misses the thrust of Objectors' argument. Objectors say that the local and private act itself (as distinguished from the District) is unconstitutional for a variety of reasons. By reason of the purported lack of constitutional validity of the act, Objectors argue that it has no enabling power. Any utility district purportedly created thereunder is necessarily without the foundation of a constitutionally valid enabling act, Objectors continue. If that be so, it matters not with what precision the i's have been dotted and t's crossed per the requisites of the enabling act. Nor may the enabling act effectively provide that upon the occurrence of certain conditions or the passage of a certain period of time questions regarding the constitutionality of the act may become barred. If the local and private act of 1966 be unconstitutional in whole or in part, there can be no doubt of our authority and responsibility to so declare at this time. See Alexander v. State Ex rel. Allain, 441 So.2d 1329, 1333 (Miss. 1983).
Section 87 of our constitution provides in substance that no special or local law shall be enacted for the benefit of private individuals or corporations with respect to matters for which provision may be made by general law. The prohibitions of Section 87 are wholly inapplicable to public entities such as the Gautier Utility District. Section 87 prevents the enactment of local and special laws for such corporations as were not public in their nature. Feemster v. City of Tupelo, 121 Miss. 733, 743, 83 So. 804, 806 (1920); In re Validation of $15,000,000 Hospital Revenue Bonds, 361 So.2d 44, 48 (Miss. 1978). To be sure we have heretofore recognized a rule of constitutional proportions prohibiting local and private county-wide laws, applicable to one or more counties only and exempting the rest, differing from county to county without a rational basis therefor. See Rolph v. Board of Trustees of Forrest County General Hospital, 346 So.2d 377, 379 (Miss. 1977); Smith v. Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp., 310 So.2d 281, 285 (Miss. 1975). Smith grounds this rule in the general scheme provided in our constitution for local legislation. See Miss. Const. §§ 87-90 (1890). The result in Smith could have been predicated upon Section 87 alone, because the law there found to be local and private was for the benefit of private individuals. Rolph, however, involved an attempt by the Legislature to create different substantive rules with respect to the power of the Forrest County General Hospital to waive governmental immunity  rules differing from those in force in the rest of Mississippi. Rolph quite correctly applied the general constitutional proscription on local and private county-wide laws announced in Smith and struck down the local and private bill there in issue. [4] Matters appropriate for legislative attention do not divide themselves into two neat categories  those which legally may be dealt with only by general laws and those which may only be subject to local and private laws. There is obvious overlap  a concurrent jurisdiction, if you will  for many subjects may lawfully be dealt with and acted upon by either form of legislation. It is ingrained in us all that general laws are to be preferred over private laws. Harris v. Harrison County Board of Supervisors, 366 So.2d 651, 654 (Miss. 1979); Smith v. Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp., 310 So.2d 281, 283-84 (Miss. 1975). Where Objectors' argument founders is in their failure to understand who in law is vested with the primary responsibility of determining whether a particular matter will be dealt with by general or local laws. Subject to the strictures mentioned above, that responsibility is vested in the legislature. As we put the point in Harris v. Harrison County Board of Supervisors, 366 So.2d 651 (Miss. 1979): Although general laws are preferred over private laws, the function of deciding the wisdom and propriety of enacting special laws is in the legislature and not in the courts, and courts will not refuse to enforce such [private] laws merely because it may be felt that a general law would have been more suitable. 366 So.2d at 654 This idea of legislative authority emanates from Article IV, Section 89 which sets forth the procedure for enactment of a local and private act. When the legislature has complied with those requisites, the courts shall not, because of its local, special, or private nature, refuse to enforce it, unless it contravenes Section 90 (which, as will be explained below, this act does not). Under our constitutional scheme, there is no prohibition upon the Legislature's enacting upon a given subject matter by both a general law and a local and private law. This is particularly so where the object and purpose of each act is consistent with the other and where the differences between them are primarily procedural or minor. [5] Such was the situation confronted by the court in In re Validation of $15,000,000 of Hospital Revenue Bonds, 361 So.2d 44 (Miss. 1978), wherein both a general act of the legislature, Miss. Code.Ann. §§ 41-13-1, et seq. (1972) and a local and private act, Miss. Local & Private Laws, Chapter 947 [House Bill No. 1232] (1977) provided alternative methods for raising funds for acquisition of hospital facilities in a municipality. In the face of a challenge that the local and private act was unconstitutional under Section 87, this Court held that the local and private act provided to the City of Hattiesburg an alternative method of raising funds for the purpose of acquiring hospital facilities in that municipality. It is clear that the municipal government might have proceeded under the general law or, at its election, might have proceeded under the terms of the Local and Private Act. 361 So.2d at 49. Nothing said here, of course, invalidates or calls into question the substantive holding of cases such as Smith and Rolph wherein this Court struck down legislative attempts to enact significantly differing rules of substantive law regulating the important rights and interests of citizens in one county to the exclusion of all other counties.
Objectors next argue that the local and private act of 1966 runs afoul of the provisions of Article IV, Section 90 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890. Section 90 enumerates various matters with respect to which the Legislature has no authority to enact local, private or special laws. The prohibitions invoked by Objectors, in the express language of Section 90, are (d) regulating the rate of interest on money;       (h) exemption of property from taxation or from levy or sales;       ( o ) creating, increasing, or decreasing the fees, salary or emoluments of any public officer;       (r) conferring the power to exercise the right of eminent domain ... in any other manner than that prescribed by general law; These points may be dispatched seriatim as they are wholly without merit. Subsection (d) of Section 90 prohibits the enactment of local and private usury laws. It has nothing to do with the rate of interest on bond obligations of a local governmental unit. Subsections (h) and ( o ) regarding the exemption of property from taxation and increasing fees and salaries of public officials on their face have no application to the case at bar. Objectors cite no authority nor argument that these subsections in any way advance their cause. Why they are even mentioned escapes us. Subsection (r) states that no local, private or special law may confer the power of eminent domain in any other manner than that prescribed by general law. True, the local and private act in question confers upon the Gautier Utility District the right of eminent domain, but nothing in that act confers any authority on the district to exercise the right of eminent domain in any manner other than that prescribed by general law. Nothing in the local and private act of 1966 contravenes Section 90(r). See Loden v. Mississippi Public Service Commission, 279 So.2d 636, 639-640 (Miss. 1973). The assignments of error to the effect that the creation of the Gautier Utility District and/or the enactment of the local and private act of 1966 contravene the provisions of Article IV, Sections 87-90 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 are without merit and are denied.