Opinion ID: 1191335
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Formation of Corporation by Special Laws

Text: Appellants next argue that the act and the creation of the association was in violation of the Washington State Constitution which prohibits the formation of corporations by special laws. [9] They contend that the association is the creature of a special act. We do not agree. The source of the prohibition denying the grant of corporate powers and privileges to public or private corporations by private or special laws, found in the Washington State Constitution, article 2, section 28, is an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution, article 4, section 31 (1871). The Journal of the Washington State Constitutional Convention 1889, 542 (1962). In Madison Metropolitan Sewerage Dist. v. Stein, 47 Wis.2d 349, 177 N.W.2d 131 (1970), the Wisconsin Supreme Court, quoting with approval its earlier decisions in State ex rel. La Follette v. Reuter, 36 Wis.2d 96, 153 N.W.2d 49 (1967) and Kimball v. Rosendale, 42 Wis. 407 (1877), discussed the historical objective and purpose of article 4, section 31 of the Wisconsin constitutional provision which, so far as the granting of corporate powers and privileges is concerned, is identical to that of article 2, section 28(6) of the Washington Constitution: `the amendment of 1871 was adopted; in order, so far as it went, to confine legislation to its legitimate objects, to substitute general for special enactments, and to restore order and uniformity to municipal law. Madison Metropolitan Sewerage Dist. v. Stein, supra at 358. The Madison court went on to emphasize, at page 359, that: It is not required that all general laws shall be equally general. A law legislating for a class is a general law when it is for a class `requiring legislation peculiar to itself in the matter covered by the law.' A law relating to particular persons or things as a class is said to be general; while a law relating to particular persons or things of a class is deemed special and private. Whether such laws are to be deemed general laws or special laws depends very much upon whether the classification is appropriate. (Emphasis supplied.) [] [8] We have stated the difference between a special law and a general law as: A law is special in a constitutional sense when, by force of an inherent limitation, it arbitrarily separates some persons, places or things from others upon which, but for such limitation, it would operate. The test of a special law is the appropriateness of its provisions to the objects that is excludes. It is not, therefore, what a law includes that makes it special, but what it excludes. If nothing be excluded that should be contained the law is general. Within this distinction between a special and a general law the question in every case is whether any appropriate object is excluded to which the law, but for its limitations, would apply. If the only limitation contained in a law is a legitimate classification of its objects it is a general law. (Italics ours.) YMCA v. Parish, 89 Wash. 495, 498, 154 P. 785 (1916). [9] Since we have earlier in this opinion found that the legislative classifications found in the guaranty act have a legitimate and reasonable basis, we are compelled by the reasoning in YMCA v. Parish, supra , to hold that the act here before us is not a special act and grants no corporate powers or privileges by special act to any entity. [10]