Court Opinion

ID: 9671802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:43:33.774543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:12.164578
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, PAUL H„ Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the result reached by the majority and the reasons stated for that result. Nevertheless, I write separately to first acknowledge the attraction of certain aspects of the dissent’s position and second, to explain why I believe it is inappropriate to reach the dissent’s conclusion given the record in this case.
The dissent would have us hold that Minn.Stat. § 31A.10(4) is unconstitutional as applied to the Hartmanns. It may be possible to reach that conclusion, but, to reach it here, it is necessary to go outside of the parameters of the arguments made by the Hartmanns — a concern that has been articulated by the majority. Therefore, I believe the majority is exercising the proper degree of judicial restraint when it declines the dissent’s invitation to expand the reach of this case by sua sponte declaring Minn.Stat. § 31A.10(4) unconstitutional.
The question of whether a statute is unconstitutional is one of “much delicacy, which ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative in a doubtful case.” Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 128, 3 L.Ed. 162 (1810).1 We must always proceed on the assumption that a statute is constitutional and “we are required to place a construction on the statute that will find it so if at all possible.” Kline v. Berg Drywall, Inc., 685 N.W.2d 12, 23 (Minn.2004). We exercise our power to declare a statute unconstitutional “with extreme caution.” State v. Harris, 667 N.W.2d 911, 919 (Minn.2003) (quoting State v. Larsen, 650 N.W.2d 144, 147 (Minn.2002)). “Due respect 'for the coequal branches of government” requires us to exercise this restraint. State v. McCoy, 682 N.W.2d 153, 160 (Minn.2004) (quoting State v. Willis, 332 N.W.2d 180, 184 (Minn.1983)).
When the basis for declaring a statute unconstitutional is not argued by the par*460ties in either their briefs or at oral argument, it should be a very rare occasion where we proceed to consider the constitutionality of the statute on unargued and unarticulated grounds. See Maytag Co. v. Comm’r of Taxation, 218 Minn. 460, 462, 17 N.W.2d 37, 39 (1944) (declining to consider the constitutionality of a tax statute when the plaintiff did not argue the issue in its brief or at oral argument). We should not “anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it.” Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 346-48, 56 S.Ct. 466, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (quoting Liverpool N.Y. & Phila. S.S. Co. v. Emigration Comm’rs, 113 U.S. 33, 39, 5 S.Ct. 352, 28 L.Ed. 899 (1885)) (Brandeis, J., concurring); see also In re Senty-Haugen, 583 N.W.2d 266, 269-70 n. 3 (Minn.1998) (declining to sua sponte declare a statute unconstitutional); Lisa A. Kloppenberg, Avoiding Constitutional Questions, 35 B.C. L.Rev. 1003 (1994).
Here, neither party specifically raises or argues the specific constitutional grounds that are necessary for the dissent to reach its conclusion that section 31A.10(4) is unconstitutional as applied to the Hartmanns. Without having those arguments presented to us and in the absence of any competing legal analysis of these arguments, I believe the dissent’s conclusion is inappropriate. Therefore, I concur with the majority opinion.

. See the comments of Chief Justice John Marshall in Fletcher v. Peck, where Chief Justice Marshall said:
The question, whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the constitution, is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative, in a doubtful case. The court, when compelled by duty to render such a judgment, would be unworthy of its station, could it be unmindful of the solemn obligations which that station imposes. But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.
10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 128, 3 L.Ed. 162 (1810).