Opinion ID: 835450
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: validation of article vii (amended) by subsequent amendments

Text: Defendant's argument is directed at Article VII (Amended) as it was presented to the voters in 1910. [3] However, defendant first raised this issue in this case in 2004, when it moved to dismiss plaintiffs' appeal on the ground that the Court of Appeals was improperly established and therefore lacked jurisdiction to consider that appeal. Article VII (Amended), as it now appears in the Oregon Constitution, is not the same as it was when Article VII (Amended) was adopted in 1910. The article has been amended 10 times over the course of almost a century; it has been construed in dozens of decisions issued by this court; and the legislature has enacted many statutes based upon the authority conferred by that article. This case thus is different from Armatta v. Kitzhaber, 327 Or. 250, 959 P.2d 49 (1998), and other recent cases considering challenges to constitutional amendments based on alleged procedural irregularities in their adoption. Those cases all were filed relatively soon after the challenged amendments had been approved by the voters and before the voters had made changes to the challenged constitutional provisions or the legislature had enacted statutes based upon them. As the Court of Appeals noted in this case, The issue before us is not whether [the] challenge would have succeeded in 1910 but whether it will succeed today. Carey, 203 Or.App. at 408, 125 P.3d 814. Put differently, defendant's challenge to the validity of the Court of Appeals depends not on whether the Court of Appeals would have been a validly created entity if it had been established on the effective date of the 1910 constitutional amendment, but rather on whether the Court of Appeals is a valid entity now. [4] Accordingly, we first examine the changes that the voters have made to Article VII (Amended) since 1910. In doing so, we shall assume, without deciding, that the initial adoption of Article VII (Amended) in 1910 was defective in one or more of the particulars asserted by defendant. We shall then consider whether the post-1910 amendments, either because of the content of those changes themselves or with respect to their effect on Article VII (Amended) as a whole, provide a valid constitutional basis for the legislation creating the Court of Appeals. As adopted in 1910, Article VII (Amended) consisted of sections 1 through 7. [5] Section 1 provided, in part  in words that have not been changed since 1910  The judicial power of the state shall be vested in one supreme court and in such other courts as from time to time may be created by law. That section also provided for the election of judges to six-year terms and prohibited judicial compensation from being reduced during a judge's term. Section 2 provided that the existing judicial system, except as expressly changed by the adoption of Article VII (Amended), would remain as it had been and also granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in mandamus, quo warranto, and habeas corpus proceedings. Section 3 contained a number of provisions respecting the conduct of trials and appeals from trial court decisions, and section 4 dealt with terms and decisions of the Supreme Court. Section 5 provided that a verdict in a civil case could be rendered by three-fourths of the jurors and also established procedures for grand juries and for indictments. Section 6 dealt with misconduct by public officers, and section 7 prescribed the oath of office for judges of the Supreme Court. The people  the source of Oregon's Constitution  adopted Article VII (Amended), by initiative petition, in 1910. The people then made changes to that article on 10 separate occasions. They amended different sections of Article VII (Amended); they repealed and replaced other sections; and they added new sections, some of which they subsequently amended. [6] We turn to a discussion of those changes. Article VII (Amended) was first amended in 1958. Two years earlier, in State ex rel Madden v. Crawford, 207 Or. 76, 295 P.2d 174 (1956), this court had considered the constitutionality of a statute that authorized designating circuit court judges to sit temporarily as members of this court to assist the court with its workload. The court held that the statute was unconstitutional because it permitted circuit court judges to sit as members of the Supreme Court, even though Article VII (Amended), section 1, required that members of the Supreme Court be elected. The 1957 legislature then submitted to the voters a new proposed section 2a to Article VII (Amended) that authorized the legislature to empower this court to appoint retired judges to sit as temporary members of this court, to appoint members of the bar to sit as temporary members of inferior courts, and to assign judges of inferior courts to serve temporarily outside the district for which they were elected. Or. Laws 1957, SJR 30. The voters approved that proposal in 1958. The 1957 Legislative Assembly also submitted to the voters a proposed amendment to section 5 of Article VII (Amended) that authorized a person to waive indictment by a grand jury and instead to be charged by an information filed by the district attorney. Or. Laws 1957, SJR 23. That proposal also was approved by the voters in 1958. In 1974, the voters repealed amended section 5 and replaced it with the current version. That 1974 amendment revised the procedures for convening a grand jury and specified when a district attorney could charge a person by filing an information. Or. Laws 1973, SJR 1. The voters again amended Article VII (Amended) in 1960, adopting a proposal submitted by the legislature that required judges to retire at the end of the calendar year in which the judge attained the age of 75. Or. Laws 1959, SJR 3. That measure also authorized the legislature by law to fix a lesser age for mandatory retirement (but not earlier than the end of the calendar year in which the judge became 70); to provide for temporarily recalling retired judges to active service; and to authorize or require the retirement of judges for disability or other cause that rendered the judge incapable of performing judicial duties. The 1961 Legislative Assembly submitted to the voters and the voters in 1962 approved another addition to Article VII (Amended)  section 2b  which authorized the legislature, when it enacted laws creating courts inferior to the Supreme Court or dealing with court jurisdiction, to make such laws applicable to all judicial districts, to designated classes of judicial districts, or to particular judicial districts. Or. Laws 1961, SJR 34. [7] Although the new section 2b itself did not purport to authorize the legislature to establish courts, it explicitly referred to laws creating courts inferior to the Supreme Court and thus necessarily assumed that the legislature already had the authority under Article VII (Amended), section 1, to enact laws creating such courts. A provision authorizing the Supreme Court to remove a judge from office for misconduct was added to Article VII (Amended) as section 8 in 1968. Or. Laws 1967, SJR 9. That measure identified certain actions that could be grounds for removal, but, like many of the other amendments to Article VII (Amended), it provided that the specific procedures would be established by statute, by stating that removals would be [i]n the manner provided by law  . Section 8 of Article VII (Amended) was further amended in 1976, with the addition of suspension and censure as possible sanctions, in addition to removal from office, and with changes in the grounds for discipline. See Or. Laws 1975, SJR 48 (setting out text of proposed amendment to Article VII (Amended), section 8). The legislature proposed, and the people in 1972 approved, a new section 9 of Article VII (Amended), authorizing legislation to permit juries consisting of less than 12 but not less than six jurors. Or. Laws 1971, SJR 17. In 1974, the people amended Article VII (Amended), section 3, to increase the value in controversy that would entitle a party to a jury trial from $20 to $200. Or. Laws 1973, HJR 71. Section 3 was again amended in 1996 to increase the value in controversy requirement to $750. Or. Laws 1995, HJR 47.
We now consider whether, assuming that the initial adoption of Article VII (Amended) in 1910 was improper in one or more of the ways that defendant suggests, the people's repeated votes on specific changes to that article demonstrate that they impliedly have cured any such defect. We begin by considering cases from Oregon and other jurisdictions regarding the circumstances in which subsequent laws have been held to ratify or validate earlier laws that allegedly had been adopted improperly. Oregon courts long have held that defects in laws can be cured by subsequent legislative action, as long as the subsequent action does not impair vested rights or the obligation of contract. In Nottage v. City of Portland, 35 Or. 539, 58 P. 883 (1899), for example, the issue was whether the city could collect a street assessment when the petition for the improvement had not contained the names of one-half of the affected property owners, as required by the city charter. The city argued that the procedural defect in the assessment had been cured by a legislative amendment to the city charter enacted after the assessment had been made. This court agreed with the city: It is true, the [later ordinance] does not, in language, purport to validate or legalize irregularities in proceedings for the improvement of a street, but defects of this character may be cured by implication   . And when the legislature authorized the city to bring an action against the property owners to recover the amount of the assessments, notwithstanding any irregularity or defect in the proceedings, it necessarily intended to and did render immaterial such defects, and it can be no objection to the validity of the act that it does not used the words `ratify,' `confirm,' or `validate.' 35 Or. at 556-57, 58 P. 883 (emphasis added). See also State ex rel. v. School District No. 23, 179 Or. 441, 460-61, 172 P.2d 655 (1946) (dismissing challenge to defective school consolidation order on grounds of laches and stating that three elections  one for school district directors, another ratifying district's selection of school site, and a third approving the sale of bonds  were, in effect, successive ratifications by the voters of the consolidation order). Cases from other jurisdictions similarly hold that subsequent legislation can validate constitutionally defective laws by implication. In Wrought-Iron Range Co. v. Carver, 118 N.C. 328, 24 S.E. 352 (1896), the legislature had passed and the governor had signed a tax statute, but the president of the senate and the speaker of the house had not signed the bill, as required by the state constitution. However, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld assessments made under the tax statute, because a statute that was properly enacted at the same legislative session referred to the tax and treated it as effective. Similarly, in Comm'rs of Leavenworth Co. v. Higginbotham, 17 Kan. 62 (1876), the president of the senate failed to sign an 1865 bill that otherwise was properly adopted. Statutes passed in 1866 and 1867 treated the 1865 statute as valid, and the Kansas Supreme Court held that the subsequent statutes effectively validated the defective 1865 statute. In a more recent case, Beck v. Beck, 814 S.W.2d 745 (Texas 1991), the Texas courts had held that a statute authorizing certain prenuptial agreements was unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution in effect at the time that the statute was enacted. In 1980, the legislature proposed, and the people adopted, a constitutional amendment under which those agreements would be valid. Although the constitutional amendment did not refer to the earlier statute or to existing agreements, the Texas Supreme Court held that, under the doctrine of implied validation, the previously unconstitutional statute  and actions authorized by that statute  were validated, to the extent that validation did not interfere with vested rights or impair the obligation of contract. See Beck, 814 S.W.2d at 747 (describing doctrine of implied validation). The cases discussed above involve the subsequent validation of defective statutes, rather than defective constitutional provisions. However, the same rationale applies to the people's constitutional authority to amend that organic law, and we reach the same conclusion here: Irregularities in the people's adoption of a constitutional amendment may be cured by subsequent constitutional amendments that the people enact that implicitly validate the earlier, defective amendment. [8] We now consider the application of that principle to the unusual circumstances here. As discussed in detail above, since its adoption almost a century ago, the people have amended, through 10 different votes, the original version of Article VII (Amended). In adopting those 10 amendments, the people (1) necessarily viewed each amendment as a valid exercise of their authority to change the constitution, and (2) necessarily assumed that Article VII (Amended) was a valid part of the constitution that could be the subject of amendment or repeal. Moreover, each of those amendments necessarily was approved with the intent of the people to amend Article VII (Amended) as it had been presented to the voters in 1910 (or as amended by post-1910 amendments). The post-1910 amendments, of course, are of equal dignity as the 1910 amendment that adopted Article VII (Amended) and therefore could  and did  correct, modify, and repeal parts of that earlier constitutional provision. See In re Fadeley, 310 Or. 548, 560, 802 P.2d 31 (1990) (later-enacted constitutional provision was of equal dignity as earlier provisions and therefore modified earlier provisions). By properly adopting those amendments, the people necessarily, if implicitly, validated the 1910 adoption of Article VII (Amended) and cured any irregularities that might have accompanied its adoption. The people's assumption, in subsequently amending Article VII (Amended), of the validity of that article is consistent with the treatment of that article in several of this court's cases. Although not addressing the specific issue presented here, those cases implicitly relied on the validity of Article VII (Amended) and, particularly, the authority that that article conferred on the legislature to create inferior courts. In State v. Harvey, 117 Or. 466, 242 P. 440 (1926), for example, this court rejected the defendant's claim that the court of domestic relations did not have jurisdiction over his alleged crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The court began its opinion by quoting Article VII (Amended), section 1, providing for the creation of courts by law, and held that the legislature had created the court of domestic relations by law and that that court had jurisdiction over the defendant's case. Similarly, in State ex rel Madden v. Crawford , this court treated Article VII (Amended) as a valid part of the constitution and explained that it had authorized the legislature to create new and additional courts[,] even stating in dicta that the legislature may provide for an intermediate court of appeals   . 207 Or. at 83, 295 P.2d 174. As this court stated even more bluntly 80 years ago, That the whole judicial system may be changed by the legislative power is taught in Section 2[] of Article VII [(Amended)]. LaGrande v. Municipal Court et al., 120 Or. 109, 115, 251 P. 308 (1926). [9] For the reasons set out above, we conclude that the irregularities, if any, in the adoption of Article VII (Amended) in 1910 have been cured by the implicit subsequent validation of that article by the people. [10] We therefore hold that Article VII (Amended) is now valid. It follows that the creation of the Court of Appeals in 1969, pursuant to the authority granted by Article VII (Amended), section 1, was within the legislature's authority. The Court of Appeals had jurisdiction over plaintiffs' appeal in this case. That court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' appeal and proceeded to decide the merits of that appeal. [11] The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. The judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.