Court Opinion

ID: 9532520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:22:00.035369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:46.396367
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Sutton
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The statute in question is invalid. Clearly it discriminates between dealers who sell only motor vehicles and “ * * * farm tractors and other machines * * The term “machine” by definition can include vehicles (see Webster’s Complete Reference Dictionary and Encyclopedia 1945 and Dorset v. State, 144 Okla. 33, 289 Pac. 298). This court has held that whether a passenger vehicle used on a farm is a farm wagon and implement exempt from execution is a jury question. People v. Corder, 82 Colo. 318, 259 Pac. 509.
The Act also violates Section 1 of the Fourteenth *203Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which expressly provides in part that no state shall “ * * * deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law” and it forbids any state from denying “ * * * to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It also violates Article V, Section 25 of the Constitution of the State of Colorado which expressly states in part: “The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say; * * * (none applicable cited). In all other cases, where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.” (Emphasis added.)
I would expressly overrule Rosenbaum v. Denver, 102 Colo. 530, 81 P. (2d) 760, and all other Colorado decisions of this type which fetter, without constitutional justification, some of our citizens.
Clearly a general law could be enacted requiring a surcease from labor on Sundays which would apply equally to all businesses. It could omit with propriety those which in fact sell necessaries and those engaged in charitable works and religious activity. Such a law would apply equally to all our citizens. Properly legislatively defined businesses such as those selling liquor are of course subject to separate restrictions because of their direct effect on the public morals, health, safety and welfare.
This court said in Denver v. Bach, 26 Colo. 530, 58 Pac. 1089, that the business (clothing store) which the city was attempting to close on Sundays was not “ * * * unlawful; it does not in any manner interfere with morality, or tend to create disorder, nor has the city any special control over it different from that which it may exercise over other avocations of the same general character.” The court then went on to point out why that ordinance was unconstitutional and why it violated Article V, section 25 of the Colorado Constitution. That case is in point here and expresses what the law was in *204Colorado before this court was led down the primrose path of piecemeal shackling of personal rights. It is high time we got back on the track.
Fundamentally Sunday closing laws when not in conflict with our Constitutions are deemed by many people to be sound and for the general welfare of mankind. It is for the legislature to decide whether it will adopt the precept of Sunday closings. It must not, however, adopt it in violation of guaranteed rights or in any discriminatory manner.
In the barbershop closing case of McClelland v. Denver, 36 Colo. 486, 86 Pac. 126, this idea was expressed better than I can when the court said in part:
“The experience of centuries has demonstrated the necessity of periodical cessation from secular labor. This rule of conduct with respect to secular pursuits is recognized by the entire civilized world as essential to the physical and moral welfare of society. Sunday ordinances are, therefore, generally sustained as constitutional upon the theory that for the purpose of promoting the general welfare of the inhabitants of a city it is necessary that their usual and ordinary avocations, except those of necessity or charity, should be suspended upon the Sabbath day, and that for this reason such ordinances are within the domain of the police power of the municipality enacting them.”
However, there this court then strayed and began to uphold the piecemeal discrimination between lawful harmless pursuits which has resulted in the instant case.
Neither logically nor legally can I see the difference between selling motor vehicles or tractors, or horses or boats on Sunday. They are all personal property. There is no necessity or reason for any discrimination or classification between them when it comes to the question as to which businesses selling such property may stay open on any given day. Clearly the reasoning of Denver v. Bach, supra, applies.
Originally fundamental error, was committed by this *205and many other courts when their decisions fathered the doctrine of minute class distinction. It does not always follow that a lawful subject for legislation of this type can be broken down into its component parts. This is particularly true where it erodes the fundamental rights of a free citizenry. It seems to me that the principles of law advanced by the majority have been those urged on this court in most of the cases where this tribunal has had the unpleasant but necessary task of declaring a statute unconstitutional.
It is our duty to declare an act unconstitutional- when it clearly and beyond reasonable doubt violates the constitution as this one does. Stare decisis binds us except when there is a fundamental error of law defeating justice and where no substantial injury will be worked or no great harm will come to vested property rights. (See People v. Cassidy, 50 Colo. 503, 117 Pac. 357; Wolf v. People, 117 Colo. 279, 187 P. (2d) 926.) “Courts are not bound to perpetuate errors merely upon the ground that a previous erroneous decision has been rendered on a given question. If it is wrong it should not be continued, unless it has been so long the rule of action, and relied upon to such an extent, that greater injustice and injury will result by reversal, though wrong, than to observe and follow it. Black on Interpretation of Laws, paragraph 152; Sutherland’s Stat. Const., paragraph 316; Boon v. Bowers, 30 Miss. 246.” Calhoun Gold Mining Co. v. Ajax Gold Mining Co., 27 Colo. 1, 59 Pac. 607. I note that recently the Supreme Court of the United States overruled some sixty years of active precedent because it believed the cases were based upon a mistaken concept. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483.