Court Opinion

ID: 9667732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:53:44.148542+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:40.248146
License: Public Domain

BIEGELMEIER, Chief Justice
(concurring).
■ I concur in both the opinions of Judges Hall and Fosheim, yet add these comments. Judge Hall’s opinion on Issue I assumes the standards or “commands” of Danforth v. City of Yankton, 71 S.D. 406, 25 N.W.2d 50, and, stating they have been met, approves and affirms the action of the circuit court in proceeding to the merits. I agree that those commands have been met and approve Judge Hall’s opinion, but I desire to comment on the Danforth opinion, as I believe it misconstrued the scope of the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (herein referred to as Act) and fixed greater limits for granting the relief than those intended by that Act. A statement of the situation then before the Court is pertinent. There, a statute authorized a city to purchase and operate a toll bridge and issue bonds for the purchase price. All proceedings leading to its purchase and authorizing the issuance of bonds were complied with, yet the city commissioners decided not to complete the transaction until it had been adjudicated that the statute and proceeding were valid.
*661Plaintiff’s action against the city and its officials resulted in a decree so declaring, and the defendants appealed. Stating the general rule to be that the defendant city and its officials, who were appellants, must not only have an interest in the subject matter of the controversy (which they did) but must be prejudiced or aggrieved by the decision from which they appealed, the court nevertheless assumed jurisdiction of the appeal instead of dismissing it and proceeded to inquire as to the jurisdiction of the trial court to grant the relief it did. After writing
“It may be admitted that a resident taxpayer has a sufficient interest under the Declaratory Judgment Law to test the constitutionality of a statute under which taxing authorities will proceed to levy taxes or make expenditures of public money”
the Court held the actions of defendants could “in no way increase the burden of taxation * * * [and] plaintiff cannot possibly be affected as a taxpayer.” That was one of the issues the circuit court was asked to determine — whether the bonds would “create a debt” of the city or whether they would be payable only out of the revenue, i.e., tolls collected from the operation of the bridge. The Court’s opinion referred to the rights of parties to “mandamus or other remedial writs” that apply to those special proceedings to limit the application of the Act.
Lest it be said the writer was one of counsel for defendants in the Danforth action (which is true) and therefore would not impartially view that decision or opinion, let us turn to Jie actions of this Court itself. The Danforth opinion was decided November 18, 1946; within 23 days thereafter, on December 11, 1946, the Court had commendably granted permission to commence an original proceeding therein to prevent or restrain the city from taking any further action with reference to the purchase of the bridge, heard oral arguments and handed down a unanimous opinion (Mettet v. City of Yankton, 71 S.D. 435, 25 N.W.2d 460) determining all the questions raised and attempted to be raised in the Danforth action. The purpose of the Act was to correct such circumvention, procrastination and resulting *662delay. It should be liberally construed. 22 Am.Jur.2d, Declaratory Judgments, § 8; 26 C.J.S. Declaratory Judgments § 9. The result reached in the Danforth opinion did not further, and is not in accord with the purposes of that Act and should not be accepted as being present authority for the apparent limitations it places on the application of that Act.
On Issue II, as to the opinion of Judge Fosheim on the merits, it is of interest that while the original Article IV, § 2 fixed the qualifications of the Governor as a citizen of the United States and a qualified elector of South Dakota, it also required a minimum age of 30 years and a residency of two years in this state; the present Article IV, § 2, retains the two-year residency requirement, but does not fix a minimum age. Even the word “elector” in the original § 2 does not appear in the present section.
At the time SDCL 12-6-2, which prohibits the nomination of a person for election to the office of Governor for a third successive term, was enacted, the Constitution provided the “Governor * * * shall hold his office for two years”. Article IV, § 1. Thus, by its wording, it appears that SDCL 12-6-2 barred nomination by a political party in a primary for a third successive term, thereby creating a limitation of four successive years. The term of office for Governor has now been extended to four years by the constitutional provision, so that by it a person may constitutionally serve eight consecutive or successive years. It appears to me that it would be an anomaly to hold that SDCL 12-6-2 (passed in 1947), limiting the nomination for Governor to two successive terms, which were constitutionally set at two years, or a total of four years, would apply to and limit a 1972 constitutional provision permitting the election of a Governor for two consecutive terms of four years each.
I am in agreement with the thesis that the present Article IV, § 2, has no retroactive effect. It speaks only of and as to the four-year term it creates, so that in effect it reads in part: “Commencing with the 1974 general election, no person shall be elected to more than two consecutive (four-year) terms as Governor”. Had plaintiff been elected in 1972 for the first time *663for the old two-year term, and elected for a four-year term in 1974, it could not be soundly contended that the present Constitution bars him from election for a second four-year term in 1978. The limitation of two successive, four-year terms is a limitation “[commencing with the 1974 general election”.