Opinion ID: 108350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Adolfo Perez

Text: Inasmuch as the case is before us on the motion of defendants below to dismiss the Perez complaint that alleged Adolfo's driving alone, the collision, and the judgment in favor of the Pinkertons, it is established, for present purposes, that the Pinkerton judgment was based on Adolfo's negligence in driving the Perez vehicle. Adolfo emphasizes, and I recognize, that under Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, of the Constitution, Congress has possessed the power to establish uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; that, of course, this power, when exercised, as it has been since 1800, is exclusive, New Lamp Chimney Co. v. Ansonia Brass & Copper Co., 91 U. S. 656, 661 (1876), and unrestricted and paramount, International Shoe Co. v. Pinkus, 278 U. S. 261, 265 (1929); that one of the purposes of the Bankruptcy Act is to relieve the honest debtor from the weight of oppressive indebtedness and permit him to start afresh . . . , Williams v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 236 U. S. 549, 554-555 (1915); and that a bankrupt by his discharge receives a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of pre&emul;xisting debt, Local Loan Co. v. Hunt, 292 U. S. 234, 244 (1934). From these general and accepted principles it is argued that § 28-1163 (B), with its insistence upon post-discharge payment as a condition for license and registration restoration, is violative of the Bankruptcy Act and, thus, of the Supremacy Clause. As Mr. Perez acknowledges in his brief here, the argument is not new. It was raised with respect to a New York statute in Reitz v. Mealey, 314 U. S. 33 (1941), and was rejected there by a five-to-four vote: The use of the public highways by motor vehicles, with its consequent dangers, renders the reasonableness and necessity of regulation apparent. The universal practice is to register ownership of automobiles and to license their drivers. Any appropriate means adopted by the states to insure competence and care on the part of its licensees and to protect others using the highway is consonant with due process. . . . ..... The penalty which § 94-b imposes for injury due to careless driving is not for the protection of the creditor merely, but to enforce a public policy that irresponsible drivers shall not, with impunity, be allowed to injure their fellows. The scheme of the legislation would be frustrated if the reckless driver were permitted to escape its provisions by the simple expedient of voluntary bankruptcy, and, accordingly, the legislature declared that a discharge in bankruptcy should not interfere with the operation of the statute. Such legislation is not in derogation of the Bankruptcy Act. Rather it is an enforcement of permissible state policy touching highway safety. 314 U. S., at 36-37. Left specifically unanswered in that case, but acknowledged as a serious question, 314 U. S., at 38, was the claim that interim amendments of the statutes gave the creditor control over the initiation and duration of the suspension and thus violated the Bankruptcy Act. The dissenters, speaking through MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concluded that that constitutional issue cannot be escaped. . . unless we are to overlook the realities of collection methods. 314 U. S., at 43. Nine years ago, the same argument again was advanced, this time with respect to Utah's Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, and again was rejected. Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U. S. 153, 158-174 (1962). There, Utah's provisions relating to duration of suspension and restoration, more stringent than those of New York, were challenged. It was claimed that the statutes made the State a collecting agent for the creditor rather than furthering an interest in highway safety, and that suspension that could be perpetual only renders the collection pressure more effective. 369 U. S., at 169. There was a troublesome jurisdictional issue in the case, the decision as to which was later overruled, Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 124-129 (1965), but on the merits the Court, by a five-to-three vote, sustained all the Utah statutes then under attack: [4] But the lesson Zavelo [v. Reeves, 227 U. S. 625 (1913)] and Spalding [v. New York ex rel. Backus, 4 How. 21 (1845)] teach is that the Bankruptcy Act does not forbid a State to attach any consequence whatsoever to a debt which has been discharged. The Utah Safety Responsibility Act leaves the bankrupt to some extent burdened by the discharged debt. Certainly some inroad is made on the consequences of bankruptcy if the creditor can exert pressure to recoup a discharged debt, or part of it, through the leverage of the State's licensing and registration power. But the exercise of this power is deemed vital to the State's well-being, and, from the point of view of its interests, is wholly unrelated to the considerations which propelled Congress to enact a national bankruptcy law. There are here overlapping interests which cannot be uncritically resolved by exclusive regard to the money consequences of enforcing a widely adopted measure for safeguarding life and safety. . . . At the heart of the matter are the complicated demands of our federalism. Are the differences between the Utah statute and that of New York so significant as to make a constitutionally decisive difference? A State may properly decide, as forty-five have done, that the prospect of a judgment that must be paid in order to regain driving privileges serves as a substantial deterrent to unsafe driving. We held in Reitz that it might impose this requirement despite a discharge, in order not to exempt some drivers from appropriate protection of public safety by easy refuge in bankruptcy.. . . To whatever extent these provisions make it more probable that the debt will be paid despite the discharge, each no less reflects the State's important deterrent interest. Congress had no thought of amending the Bankruptcy Act when it adopted this law for the District of Columbia; we do not believe Utah's identical statute conflicts with it either. Utah is not using its police power as a devious collecting agency under the pressure of organized creditors. Victims of careless car drivers are a wholly diffused group of shifting and uncertain composition, not even remotely united by a common financial interest. The Safety Responsibility Act is not an Act for the Relief of Mulcted Creditors. It is not directed to bankrupts as such. Though in a particular case a discharged bankrupt who wants to have his rightfully suspended license and registration restored may have to pay the amount of a discharged debt, or part of it, the bearing of the statute on the purposes served by bankruptcy legislation is essentially tangential. 369 U. S., at 170-174 (footnotes omitted). MR. JUSTICE BLACK, joined by MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissented on the ground that Utah Code Ann. § 41-12-15 (1953), essentially identical to Arizona's § 28-1163 (B), operated to deny the judgment debtor the federal immunity given him by § 17 of the Bankruptcy Act and, hence, violated the Supremacy Clause. 369 U. S., at 182-185. The Perezes in their brief, p. 7, acknowledge that the Arizona statutes challenged here are not unlike the Utah ones discussed in Kesler.  Accordingly, Adolfo Perez is forced to urge that Reitz and the remaining portion of Kesler that bears upon the subject be overruled. The Court bows to that argument. I am not prepared to overrule those two cases and to undermine their control over Adolfo Perez' posture here. I would adhere to the rulings and I would hold that the States have an appropriate and legitimate concern with highway safety; that the means Arizona has adopted with respect to one in Adolfo's position (that is, the driver whose negligence has caused harm to others and whose judgment debt based on that negligence remains unsatisfied) in its attempt to assure driving competence and care on the part of its licensees, as well as to protect others, is appropriate state legislation; and that the Arizona statute, like its Utah counterpart, despite the tangential effect upon bankruptcy, does not operate in derogation of the Bankruptcy Act or conflict with it to the extent it may rightly be said to violate the Supremacy Clause. Other factors of significance are also to be noted: 1. The Court struggles to explain away the parallel District of Columbia situation installed by Congress itself. Section 40-464 of the D. C. Code Ann. (1967) in all pertinent parts is identical with Arizona's § 28-1163 (B). The only difference is in the final word, namely, article in the Arizona statute and chapter in the District's. The District of Columbia statute was enacted as § 48 of Pub. Law 365 of May 25, 1954, effective one year later, 68 Stat. 132. This is long after the Bankruptcy Act was placed on the books and, indeed, long after this Court's decision in Lewis v. Roberts, 267 U. S. 467 (1925), that a personal injury judgment is a provable claim in bankruptcy. Surely, as the Court noted in Kesler, 369 U. S., at 173-174, Congress had no thought of amending the Bankruptcy Act when it adopted this law for the District of Columbia. See Lee v. England, 206 F. Supp. 957 (DC 1962). Congress must have regarded the two statutes as consistent and compatible, and cannot have thought otherwise for the last 35 years. [5] If the statutes truly are in tension, then I would suppose that the later one, that is, § 40-464, would be the one to prevail. Gibson v. United States, 194 U. S. 182, 192 (1904). But, if so, we then have something less than the uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States that Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, of the Constitution commands, for the law would be one way in Arizona (and, by the present overruling of Reitz and Kesler, in New York and in Utah) and the other way in the District of Columbia. Unfortunately, such is the dilemma in which the Court's decision today leaves us. 2. Arizona's § 28-1163 (B) also has its counterparts in the statutes of no less than 44 other States. [6] It is, after all, or purports to be, a uniform Act. I suspect the Court's decision today will astonish those members of the Congress who were responsible for the District of Columbia Code provision, and will equally astonish the legislatures of those 44 States that absorbed assurance from Reitz and Kesler that the provision withstands constitutional attack. 3. The Court rationalizes today's decision by saying that Kesler went beyond Reitz and that the present case goes beyond Kesler, and that that is too much. It would justify this by noting the Arizona Supreme Court's characterization of the Arizona statute as one for the protection of the public from financial hardship and by concluding, from this description, that the statute is not a public highway safety measure, but rather a financial one protective, I assume the implication is, of insurance companies. The Arizona court's characterization of its statute, I must concede, is not a fortunate one. However, I doubt that that court, in evolving that description, had any idea of the consequences to be wrought by this Court's decision today. I am not willing to say that the description in Schecter v. Killingsworth, 93 Ariz. 273, 380 P. 2d 136 (1963), embraced the only purpose of the State's legislation. Section 28-1163 (B) is a part of the State's Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act and does not constitute an isolated subchapter of that Act concerned only with financial well-being of the victims of drivers' negligence. In any event, as the Court's opinion makes clear, the decision today would be the same however the Arizona court had described its statute. 4. While stare decisis is no immutable principle, [7] as a glance at the Court's decisions over the last 35 years, or over almost any period for that matter, will disclose, it seems to me that the principle does have particular validity and application in a situation such as the one confronting the Court in this case. Here is a statute concerning motor vehicle responsibility, a substantive matter peculiarly within the competence of the State rather than the National Government. Here is a serious and conscientious attempt by a State to legislate and do something about the problem that, in terms of death and bodily injury and adverse civilian effect, is so alarming. Here is a statute widely adopted by the several States and legitimately assumed by the lawmakers of those States to be consistent with the Bankruptcy Act, an assumption rooted in positive, albeit divided, decision by this Court, not once, but twice. And here is a statute the Congress itself, the very author of the Bankruptcy Act, obviously considered consistent therewith. I fear that the Court today makes stare decisis meaningless and downgrades it to the level of a tool to be used or cast aside as convenience dictates. I doubt if Justices Roberts, Stone, Reed, Frankfurter, Murphy, Warren, Clark, HARLAN, BRENNAN, and STEWART, who constituted the respective majorities on the merits in Reitz and Kesler, were all that wrong. 5. Adolfo's affidavit protestation of hardship goes no further than to assert a resulting reliance upon friends and neighbors or upon public transportation or upon walking to cover the seven miles from his home to his place of work; this is inconvenience, perhaps, even in this modern day when we are inclined to equate convenience with necessity and to eschew what prior generations routinely accepted as part of the day's labor, but it falls far short of the great harm and irreparable injury that he otherwise asserts only in general and conclusory terms. Perez' professed inconvenience stands vividly and starkly in contrast with his victims' injuries. But as is so often the case, the victim, once damaged, is seemingly beyond concern. What seems to become important is the perpetrator's inconvenience. 6. It is conceded that Arizona constitutionally could prescribe liability insurance as a condition precedent to the issuance of a license and registration.