Opinion ID: 1426747
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Due Process Test

Text: In a similar vein, the majority would ask in the name of that process which is due whether the ordinance is aimed at achieving a legitimate public purpose, whether it uses means reasonably necessary to achieve that purpose, and finally whether it is unduly oppressive upon individuals. Majority at 279-280; 286-287. Although there may be differences in outcome depending upon which of the two police power tests may be employed in any given situation, I posit this ordinance exceeds the legitimate scope of the police power under either formulation. Such is a judicial question in at least the same sense as would be any alleged transgression of government beyond its constitutionally defined limitations. See, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 176-80, 1 Cranch 137, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) (Marshall, C. J.). [16]
I have no doubt that the use or misuse of personal watercraft is quite capable of invading private rights and public interests in a particular, as well as a global, sense under a host of imaginable circumstances. However we must shape the answer to fit the parameters of the question posed by this particular ordinance. At the threshold the court must recognize the ordinance is a two-year temporary measure passed coincident with a resolution to study the effects of personal watercraft in San Juan County. Resolution 19-1996, ex. 250. However since the ordinance constitutes a virtual prohibition of such watercraft, it seems illogical in the sense that it clears the laboratory of the very specimen alleged to be the object of study. Thus a negative inference flows that this ordinance is not based upon a demonstrable police power interest, at least one sufficiently broad in scope to justify to total prohibition, but rather a possible interest not sufficiently identified absent further study. From this inauspicious beginning one notes the ordinance affirmatively finds that the effect of PWC operation on marine life in San Juan County is unknown. Ordinance Finding 24. Although there is no constitutional rule which requires the ordinance to include findings, Petstel, 77 Wash.2d at 151, 459 P.2d 937, I know of no rule of law which requires us to disregard findings which have in fact been made. Certainly the majority does not. (Majority at 276-278.) I would therefore posit a demonstrably unknown effect on an interest of otherwise legitimate concern to the police power is no basis for its exercise. We are then left to consider the effect of PWC operation on shoreline property owners or, possibly, other marine craft. Although these craft admittedly make noise, that noise is strictly regulated by state statute in the same manner as any other watercraft, and there is nothing in this ordinance to support discrimination between the two. Moreover, this ordinance does not purport to regulate noise. Of course, these personal watercraft might be problematic if operated adjacent to coastal residents; however, the ordinance does not prohibit only that but absolutely prohibits the operation of these craft even where there are no residents to be found and even when operated at considerable distance from shore in the most reasonable manner. Nor does the ordinance require any particular reasonable mode of operation. Its prohibitions are absolute. Thus, I would conclude the ordinance lacks a legitimate purpose to protect a private interest, or even a public one, as I am unable to articulate one, or even imagine one, as broad in scope as is the prohibition which must be justified. Here I must acknowledge my imagination is somewhat challenged by the perception that an exercise of the police power, to be proper, must be at least hypothetically protective of a legitimate interest. Not all interests, however, are indeed legitimate for police power purposes. For example, courts have held community displeasure cannot be a legitimate constitutional predicate for governmental action. Maranatha Mining, Inc. v. Pierce County, 59 Wash.App. 795, 804, 801 P.2d 985 (1990); Marks v. City of Chesapeake, 883 F.2d 308, 311 (4th Cir.1989) (`[p]rivate biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect' (citations omitted)). Cf. Anderson v. City of Issaquah, 70 Wash.App. 64, 82, 851 P.2d 744 (1993) ([W]hether a community can exert control over design issues based solely on accepted community aesthetic values is far from `settled' in Washington case law.) (citing Polygon Corp. v. City of Seattle, 90 Wash.2d 59, 70, 578 P.2d 1309 (1978) and Duckworth v. City of Bonney Lake, 91 Wash.2d 19, 30, 586 P.2d 860 (1978)). If the purpose of the ordinance were in reality an effort to enforce the cultural preferences of the island majority to the quiet prosperity (Ordinance Finding 13) of island living at the expense of the recreational preferences of those less prosperous, I would also find a paucity of legitimate police power. Such a prohibition on this economical means of recreation brings to mind those sumptuary laws imposed on the display of a pauper's wealth during the middle ages. Such laws purported to limit extravagance in expenditures [a]nd the common people were subjected to the control of these sumptuary laws, in order that by reducing their consumption they may increase the sum of enjoyment of the privileged classes. Christopher G. Tiedeman, supra, at 187. The existence of such laws caused Judge Cooley to remark: [T]he ideals which suggested such laws are now exploded utterly, and no one would seriously attempt to justify them in the present age. The right of every man to do what he will with his own, not interfering with the reciprocal right of others, is accepted among the fundamentals of our law. Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union 476-77 (5th ed. 1883); Christopher G. Tiedeman, supra, at 187. In the same vein it might well be argued this ordinance by design, or at least effect, reserves and prohibits the use of a public resource, marine waters, simply to appease the cultural or aesthetic values of the riparian landowners or interior residents. If so, such would exceed the legitimate scope of the police power, as well. If there are other legitimate police power objectives served by this ordinance, I am unenlightened by the majority opinion as to their existence.
If the purpose of the ordinance is to preserve public safety, abate a nuisance, or preserve the environment, I cannot find the means employed by this ordinance reasonably necessary to accomplish its objective. If the ordinance is related to study of a possible problem with an eye toward possible future action, then I would find the prohibit-now and study-later provision irrational. If the ordinance is aimed at alleviating a problem associated with shoreline residents, then I would expect it would limit its scope, at the least, to regulation of operation close to a populated shoreline. If its purpose is to save the environment (notwithstanding an affirmative ordinance finding that the effect of PWCs on the environment is unknown), then I would expect that the ordinance would focus its regulation upon areas of particular environmental concern. But the scope of the ordinance knows no boundaries and, concomitantly, the requirement that it promote its legitimate objectives is similarly boundless. To find this absolute sweeping ban necessary to promote a legitimate police power interest is an act of fantasy reserved for the majority.