Opinion ID: 2398709
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: nature of constitutional rights involved

Text: The portion of the act to which the strongest objections are addressed is that which limits an injured party's cause of action, based upon the claimed fault of another, for the recovery of general and special damages. The challenge to § 38-323, [2] initially, is grounded upon provisions of our state constitution, and thereafter and in addition thereto, upon provisions of the federal constitution. Article first, § 10, of the Connecticut constitution (formerly article first, §12) provides that [a]ll courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done to him in his person, property or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and justice administered without sale, denial or delay. This provision appears in the constitution of 1818 and in its several revisions and reenactments, and has been referred to as the right to redress. State v. Perkins, 88 Conn. 360, 368, 91 A. 265. Its importance in this dispute is illustrated by the following language from Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 134, 24 L. Ed. 77: A person has no property, no vested interest, in any rule of the common law. That is only one of the forms of municipal law, and is no more sacred than any other. Rights of property which have been created by the common law cannot be taken away without due process; but the law itself, as a rule of conduct, may be changed at the will, or even at the whim, of the legislature, unless prevented by constitutional limitations. Indeed, the great office of statutes is to remedy defects in the common law as they are developed, and to adapt it to the changes of time and circumstances. (Emphasis added.) The plaintiffs essentially contend that article first, § 10, restricts the power of the legislature to abolish a cause of action recognized at common law. They refer to the right to bring an action in tort to recover damages as a common-law right, but their analysis is incomplete. Clearly, if the nature of this right to sue is, in its fullest extent, a common-law right, then, with a possible limitation to be discussed shortly, the power of the legislature to abolish such a right is fundamental. If this right to sue, however, is a constitutional right, it is equally clear that the power of the legislature to abrogate it is curtailed by article first, § 10. There being no statutory right herein applicable, there remain three classes into one of which this right to sue in tort for damages from automobile mishaps must fall: (1) common-law right, (2) constitutional right, or (3) constitutionally incorporated common-law right. Some discussion of (1) and (2) is necessary before we consider (3), which we have referred to as a constitutionally incorporated common-law right. Early in the development of our system of jurisprudence we adopted from the English common law the action of trespass on the case. 2 Swift, System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut, p. 29. As stated by Zephaniah Swift in 1796, if any damage is caused to another, for the want of due care and attention, or by the folly of the defendant, this action [trespass on the case] lies. Id., 108. An action sounding in negligence for damages for personal injuries sustained in an automobile mishap is one modern manifestation of this ancient cause of action. Wright & Fitzgerald, Connecticut Law of Torts, § 4, p. 6. In its early form, it predates our constitution of 1818, and it is no great labor of logic to conclude that the framers of the constitution intended that our courts be available for redress of this type of injury. If viewed as a limitation on the right to redress for an injury caused by negligence, the restriction under consideration stands contrary to the mandate of article first, § 10, and thus must fall. Section 38-323, however, does not restrict the right to redress for an actionable injury but, rather, redefines the injury or the class of persons injured to which this constitutional right of redress attaches. What is of constitutional dimensions, then, is the right of redress and not the nature of the particular injury for which redress is sought. Stated differently, the right to redress in the courts must remain inviolate but it does not attach unless one suffers a recognized injury. To quote once again the language used by Swift almost 200 years ago: A wrong or injury is defined to be a deprivation, or infringement of right. In Taylor v. Keefe, 134 Conn. 156, 163, 56 A.2d 768, we defined injury as the term is used in article first, § 10 (then article first, § 12) to mean a legal injury, that is, one violative of established law of which a court can properly take cognizance. Support for this construction was found in the courts of Montana and Pennsylvania, states having like constitutional provisions. See Stewart v. Standard Publishing Co., 102 Mont. 43, 49, 55 P.2d 694; Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 263 Pa. 158, 168, 106 A. 238. The rule has been further modified in Benson v. Housing Authority, 145 Conn. 196, 201-2, 140 A.2d 320, to the effect that an injury is not compensable absent recognition of that injury either by our courts or by specific statutory provision. Thus refined, the phrase established law within the definition of injury encompasses legislative law as well as judge-made law. See Lockwood v. Wilson H. Lee Co., 144 Conn. 155, 159, 128 A.2d 330. Viewing injury, then, as the violation of a right established by law, we conclude that it is within the province of the legislature to redefine or abolish existing definitions of injury since it is within its province to create, abrogate or redefine the established law. Munn v. Illinois, supra. Thus the right of redress for injury is constitutional in its nature but the nature of a specific injury is a right derived from the common law or statute. Insofar as § 38-323 merely redefines injury it does not infringe upon the right to redress. As this court stated in Pierce v. Albanese, 144 Conn. 241, 250-51, 129 A.2d 606, appeal dismissed, 355 U.S. 15, 78 S. Ct. 36, 2 L. Ed. 2d 21, upholding the constitutionality of Connecticut's dram shop statute: The legislature in the exercise of its police power can alter or abolish accepted principles of common-law liability to pay compensation for injuries without violating constitutional mandates. We move then to a consideration of the third of the categories into which must fall this right to sue in tort for damages from automobile mishaps which we have termed the hybrid constitutionally incorporated common-law right. The limitation previously referred to upon the legislature's ability to abolish common-law rights arises from the incorporation of those rights into our constitution by virtue of the adoption of article first, § 10 (formerly article first, § 12). Simply stated, all rights derived by statute and the common law extant at the time of the adoption of article first, § 10, are incorporated in that provision by virtue of being established by law as rights the breach of which precipitates a recognized injury, thus being exalted beyond the status of common-law or statutory rights of the type created subsequent to the adoption of that provision. Kluger v. White, 281 So.2d 1, 4-5 (Fla.); 16A C.J.S., Constitutional Law, § 710, pp. 1218-19; Ruben & Williams, The Constitutionality of Basic Protection, 1 Conn. L. Rev. 44, 46 n.13, and cases cited therein. The adoption of article first, § 10, recognized all existing rights and removed from the power of the legislature the authority to abolish those rights in their entirety. Rather, the legislature retains the power to provide reasonable alternatives to the enforcement of such rights. Where such reasonable alternatives are created, the legislature may then restrict or abolish the incorporated common-law or statutory rights. Kluger v. White, supra; Ruben & Williams, supra. The defendants have argued that injury from the negligent operation of an automobile is a creature of the twentieth century and thus could not have been contemplated as an incorporable common-law right by the framers of the constitution of 1818. The argument is appealing but fails to recognize the jurisprudential underpinnings of the automobile negligence personal injury cause of action, which we noted earlier to be trespass on the case. Thus the classical theory upon which recovery is based in such actions was redressable under our first constitution, and the automobile negligence injury, being a specific modern manifestation of this theory, is well vested in our established law and therefore within the so-called hybrid status. Having thus concluded that the right to recover for injury from automobile negligence is a hybrid common-law right within the third of the three defined classes, we must next consider whether the legislatively created remedy by which it is in part replaced is a reasonable alternative. Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U.S. 219, 240-41, 37 S. Ct. 260, 61 L. Ed. 685; New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U.S. 188, 201, 37 S. Ct. 247, 61 L. Ed. 667; Kluger v. White, 281 So.2d 1, 4-5 (Fla.); Pinnick v. Cleary, 360 Mass. 1, 15, 271 N.E.2d 592.