Court Opinion

ID: 9550652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:39:48.392952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:05.813823
License: Public Domain

Don worth, J.
(concurring in the result) — Ten individual appellants have been recipients of various types of public assistance under the provisions of initiative 172 (chapter 6, Laws of 1949).
The people of this state, acting in their legislative capacity, enacted initiative 178, which amended initiative 172 in the particulars described in the majority opinion. These appellants assert that these amendments are unconstitutional on three grounds:
■ (1) They constitute a delegation of legislative power without prescribing standards.
(2) They violate the due process and equal protection clauses of our state and Federal constitutions, and
(3) The title of the amendatory act and the ballot title are insufficient under Art. II, § 19, of the state constitution.
In my opinion, the ten individual appellants have no standing to raise the first two questions above stated. Obviously, appellant Senior Citizens League, Inc., cannot question the constitutional validity of these amendments on any ground.
With respect to the first claim of unconstitutionality, these recipients accepted assistance under initiative 172, which appears to me to contain a delegation of legislative power comparable, though stated somewhat differently, with the provisions of initiativé 178. The former act may be as vulnerable to attack in this respect as initiative 178. If their position be well taken, any rule which would render 178 unconstitutional on this ground, might also be applicable to 172. The majority opinion indicates that earlier relief acts gave far more discretion to the officers charged with their enforcement than is conferred by 178. *175Thus, these appellants, if their argument be followed to its logical conclusion, might be left without any public assistance. In any event, I do not think that they should be permitted to enjoin the operation of an amendatory act and to assume the validity of a basic act which has sufficiently similar delegations of legislative power to warrant testing its validity.
In passing on the constitutionality of a legislative act, this court cannot hold it to be unconstitutional unless it appears to be invalid on the face of the act itself or from facts of which the court may take judicial notice., Ajax v. Gregory, 177 Wash. 465, 32 P. (2d) 560.
If this question of improper delegation of legislative power is properly before us, I cannot find from initiative 178, or from anything of which the court can take judicial notice, that the problem confronting the people when they enacted it could have been dealt with as a practical matter without conferring upon the administrative agency the powers which are conferred upon it therein. For the reasons stated in the majority opinion, I concur in holding that there was no unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
The second ground, assuming these ten appellants are in a position to raise the question, is clearly without merit. The legislature, or the people acting by initiative measure, may grant or withhold the privilege of receiving public assistance as they see fit. There is no vested right of any individual to be cared for in any particular manner.
As this court said in In re Snyder’s Petition, 93 Wash. 59, 160 Pac. 12, 3 A. L. R. 1230:
“No individual or class of individuals can acquire a vested right to be cared for in any particular manner. Indeed, the state is under no legal obligation to care for its poor at all. While it undoubtedly has a moral obligation to do so, there is no such obligation as can be enforced in law. Such relief as it does provide is legally in the nature of a largess or bounty, which may be discontinued at the legislative will.”
*176A more recent decision on this subject is Adams v. Ernst, 1 Wn. (2d) 254, 95 P. (2d) 799, where the 1935 act relating to old age assistance was amended by a later act in 1939 to the disadvantage of the recipient involved in that case. In upholding the power of the legislature to so amend the prior act, we said:
“The term ‘vested right’ is not easily defined and has been used by the courts to express various shades of meaning. However, the term has been commonly held to connote ‘an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment’ and ‘an immediate right of present enjoyment, or a present fixed right of future enjoyment.’
“We think that the 1935 act did nothing more than to confer upon a certain class of persons a statutory privilege entitling them to receive assistance from the state under the provisions of that act. However, if that privilege is to be dignified by calling it a right, it is one which, by the very act which created it, is expressly subject to amendment or repeal. It is not a vested right in the sense that it is property or that it has become fixed and of which the beneficiary cannot be deprived without his consent; rather is it a qualified right, contingent upon the continued existence of the law which gave it original substance.
“Since, as we now hold, the right or privilege conferred by the 1935 act was not, in a legal sense, a vested right, but was, by § 21 of that act, expressly made subject to the provisions of any amending or repealing act, and since the state has exercised the prerogative reserved to it in § 21 and has, by the act of 1939, disclaimed liability for any and all claims of right based on need other than as defined in the later act, it follows that respondent’s claim cannot now be allowed or paid, except on the basis, and to the extent, of its recognition under the 1939 act. Even though there may have been accruals upon a claim preferred under either the 1935 act or the 1937 act, payment thereof has been rightfully disclaimed. Disbursements by the director are now controlled by the 1939 act.”
These decisions demonstrate that the due process and equal protection clauses of our state and Federal constitutions are not applicable to the situation here presented.
Turning to the third ground of unconstitutionality, these appellants are entitled to question the sufficiency of the title of initiative 178. While the legislature or the people *177may amend or repeal initiative 172, they must comply with applicable provisions of the state constitution as to the manner in which this may be accomplished. Until initiative 172 is so amended or repealed, persons who qualify under its provisions are entitled to assistance as provided therein. Consequently, these appellants may properly attack initiative 178 on the ground stated. However, the title of the amendatory act and the ballot title are sufficient for the reasons stated in the majority opinion.
As stated above, I entertain serious doubts as to whether these appellants may raise the first two questions presented. In my opinion, they are not entitled to declaratory relief (except as to the question of the sufficiency of the act and ballot titles) because there is no actual justiciable controversy. Conaway v. Time Oil Co., 34 Wn. (2d) 884, 210 P. (2d) 1012. Neither are they entitled to any injunction, since the act affords them an adequate remedy at law if any of them is not treated fairly by the director of social security in administering the act (Laws of 1949, §§ 8 and 9, chapter 6, providing for a fair hearing before the director and the right of appeal to the courts).
For the reasons herein stated, I concur in the affirmance of the judgment of the trial court.