Opinion ID: 853063
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Determining Whether a General Law Can Be Made Applicable

Text: Moseley, Williams, and Hoovler, were not revolutionary in viewing the threshold issue as identifying a law as special or general. Gentile v. State, 29 Ind. 409 (1868), which was decided seventeen years after Article IV was adopted, included some useful insight on that point: [Article IV, Section 23] was intended to prohibit the passage of any law applicable only to one or more counties, or other territorial subdivisions of the State, where a general law on the same subject could be made which would properly apply to the entire state.... It is clearly implied by that section, and we know it to be true in fact, that in many cases local laws are necessary, because general ones cannot, properly and justly, be made applicable. There are cases where a law would be both proper and necessary in a given locality or part of the state, where its subject is local, or where, from local facts, it is rendered necessary; but which, if made general, would either be inoperative in portions of the state, or from its inapplicability to such portions, would be injurious and unjust. Id. at 411-12. As Gentile reveals, legislation must be classified as general or special before the focus turns to whether a general law can apply, i.e., whether there are inherent characteristics of the affected locale that justify local legislation. Thus, the reasonableness of a classification does not answer whether the law is general or special in the first place. Nor does it provide a complete answer to the question whether a general law can be made applicable, although one branch of that inquiry may resemble an Article I analysis. A statute general in form can be made applicable only if it does not violate Article I, Section 23. Thus, if population classifications are arbitrary or unrelated to the characteristics that define the class, a statute general in form is nevertheless unconstitutional as a violation of Article I. This can be true under Collins either because there is no defining characteristic of the classified area, or there is such a characteristic but it is shared with areas not in the class. A second consideration in whether a general law can be made applicable is whether in fact it is meaningful in a variety of places or whether relevant traits of the affected area are distinctive such that the law's application elsewhere has no effect. This second consideration turns on whether local facts exist, not on whether those facts are reasonably related to the particular legislation that is actually imposed, a question that is left to Article I. Article IV issues, though distinct from Article I considerations, remain closely related to them. If special legislation passes the first test of Collins, i.e., the legislation is reasonably related to inherent characteristics of the affected locale, and it also passes the second by applying wherever the justifying characteristics are found, then the statute necessarily passes Article IV muster because the presence of those inherent characteristics means a general law cannot be made applicable. Otherwise stated, if the conditions the law addresses are found in at least a variety of places throughout the state, a general law can be made applicable and is required by Article IV, and special legislation is not permitted. Applying these principles, assuming the facts of the affected area are distinct, Long, Dortch, and other cases relying on the proposition that Article IV, Section 23 challenges are resolved by addressing the reasonableness of the classification embodied in the statute are nevertheless correct in their ultimate result.