Court Opinion

ID: 9721848
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:10:50.398523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.899925
License: Public Domain

Krivosha, C.J.,
concurring
I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case. However, I would have decided this case on the basis that the statute in question, Neb. Rev. Stat. §79-1370 (Cum. Supp. 1980), is invalid because it creates an unreasonable classification and is applied in an arbitrary manner and, therefore, violates Neb. Const. art. III, § 18. That provision of our state’s Constitution prohibits legislative enactment of local or special laws with regard to the several subjects listed therein. The prohibitions of art. III, § 18, are to an extent limited to the subjects listed in the Constitution, see, e.g., Stewart v. Barton, 91 Neb. 96, 135 N.W. 381 (1912), but we must also be guided by the plain and clear language of the constitutional provision. The last sentence of art. Ill, § 18, states, “In all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.” It is this constitutional directive which invalidates § 79-1370.
While it is true that the Legislature may classify the subjects, persons, or objects as to which it legislates, such classifications must rest upon differences in *420situation or circumstances between the things dealt with in one class and those dealt with in another. As we have said in State, ex rel. Cone, v. Bauman, 120 Neb. 77, 82-83, 231 N.W. 693, 695 (1930): “The rule is well established that the legislature may, for the purpose of legislating, classify persons, places, objects or subjects, but such classification must rest upon some difference in situation or circumstance which, in reason, calls for distinctive legislation for the class. The class must have a substantial quality or attribute which requires legislation appropriate or necessary for those in the class which would be inappropriate or unnecessary for those without the class.”
Legislative classification may not be done in an arbitrary or unreasonable manner. Arbitrary classification may result in special legislation. See United Community Services v. The Omaha Nat. Bank, 162 Neb. 786, 77 N.W.2d 576 (1956).
In this case, the Legislature has created a class consisting of electric utilities and made that class subject to assessments for the education of the children of persons engaged in constructing power plants. The basis for such charges appears to be the impact which a large influx of such students can have on a small school district’s finances. The Legislature has simply ignored the similar impact which can result from other types of large construction projects. Thus, § 79-1370 discriminates against some entities with construction projects and in favor of others. The purpose of the statute — to alleviate financial stress on local school districts — does not account for such discrimination in the class created by the act. “Exceptions contained in a legislative classification cannot be justified if the discrimination thus made has no reasonable relation to the purposes of the act in which it is found.” United States Cold Storage Corp. v. Stolinski, 168 Neb. 513, 526, 96 N.W.2d 408, 417 (1959). Thus, the statute at issue here creates a classification which includes electric utility companies constructing power *421plants but excludes any other company or organization engaged in large construction projects. There is no rational distinction which explains why the construction of a power generating facility should cause the utility district to pay for the education of residents of the school district any more than construction of an interstate highway system through a school district, or the construction of an airfield, or any other large construction project should trigger such a result. Simply because it is suggested that the construction of a generating facility may have an impact upon a local school district is not to say that any other large project may not have such an impact. Because the exclusion from the act of all entities except power districts has no discernible relation to the purpose of the act, the classification is unreasonable and in violation of art. Ill, § 18.
Furthermore, §79-1370 runs afoul of the Constitution on another ground. The statute provides no guidance for distinguishing between the children of construction workers who are residents of the local school district and those who are not. It would seem, if the purpose of the enactment was to diminish the financial impact on school districts which must educate the children of transient construction workers, that the statute should include some mechanism by which the assessment against the utility district would be based solely on the number of children who are members of these “transient families.” However, no such device can be found within the statute. It simply does not address the situation in which workers employed in constructing a power plant are also residents and taxpayers of the local school district. In such a circumstance, under § 79-1370, the school district would, in effect, be the beneficiary of double taxation. This unreasonable result is produced directly by the arbitrary application of the law called for by the plain language of the statute itself. The statute requires utility districts to pay an assessment for the educa*422tion of the children of workers employed in the construction of a power plant. It makes no distinction for those families — workers and school children — who lived in the local school district before construction was proposed or begun. The utility district would be required to pay for all. This application of the statute has no relation to the purpose of the act which, once again, was to ease the budgetary burdens caused by a sharp increase in the size of the student body due to an influx of new students into the local district.
I write today because I do not wish for the holding in this case to suggest to the Legislature that it may not, under any circumstance, require a public utility to make payments simply because such payments may not be voluntary and, therefore, have some of the characteristics of a tax or a payment in lieu of tax. If required payments are otherwise appropriate, mere resemblance to a tax will not invalidate them. There may be a host of situations where such a payment is not in violation of either Neb. Const. art. VIII, §2, or § 11, and also satisfies the prohibition of special legislation in Neb. Const. art. III, § 18.