Court Opinion

ID: 9678205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:14:20.99467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:02.527784
License: Public Domain

HARWOOD, Justice
(concurring specially) .
I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion that this judgment is due to be affirmed. The basis of my concurrence in the result reached is that in my opinion the concluding proviso of Section 1 of Act No. 788, 1969 Acts of Alabama, p. 1418, is violative of Section 45 of our Constitution of 1901.
Both Act No. 788 and Section 45 of our Constitution have been set out in the opinion prepared for this court by Justice Jones, and for the sake of brevity neither will be repeated in full in this concurring opinion.
It is obvious from a reading of the title to Act No. 788 that it pertains only to the time within which actions of the nature here being considered may be brought. In other words, so far as revealed by its title Act No. 788 purports to establish a statute of limitations in the traditional and procedural sense. There is nothing in the title indicating that in addition (as provided in the Act by the above mentioned proviso) a substantive right would be abolished after seven years regardless of when such substantive right came into being prior to the effective date of Act No. 788.
The proviso contained in the body of Act No. 788, and above referred to, reads:
“ * * * provided further, that in no event may an action be commenced more than seven years after such act or omission.”
Thus the proviso creates not a statute of limitations as indicated in the title to the Act, but is in essence a statute of absolute immunity as to causes of action originating seven years before the passage of the Act. In substance it frees architects and builders from all liability for negligence in the design or construction seven years after the completion of their work regardless of the effective date of the Act. It relates to a substantive right, and not to procedure. Thus the proviso differs from the purpose and subject matter of the Act as stated in its title, i. e., “to regulate further the time within which actions against persons [architects and builders] must be commenced.”
I detect no warning or notice to the public or to the members of the legislature in this title that immunity from liability is also contained in the. body of the bill as set forth in the proviso above mentioned. Nor do I consider that the proviso is merely subsidiary to the elements of the bill, nor cognate thereto, but in effect is a new, different, and material element of the bill as substantial as those portions of the bill mentioned in the title. See Allen v. Walker County, 281 Ala. 156, 199 So.2d 854; Wilkins v. Woolf, 281 Ala. 693, 208 So.2d 74; Knight v. West Alabama Environmental Imp. Auth., 287 Ala. 15, 246 So.2d 903.
While I am fully aware that it is of paramount importance that courts seek to sustain enactments of the legislature, a co-ordinate branch of government, and indulge every intendment in favor of validity of an act, nevertheless when it appears certain that Section 45 of our Constitution has been violated, any portion of an act not meeting the requirements of Section 45, it is the duty of a court to so declare. City of Mobile v. Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co., 124 Ala. 132, 26 So. 902.
Although a part of an act or statute may be invalid or unconstitutional, the remaining valid portion will be sustained if after deleting the invalid part the remaining portions are complete within themselves, sensible, and capable of operation. Wilkins v. Woolf, supra, and cases cited therein.
*200It is my opinion that the proviso appearing at the conclusion of Section 1 of Act No. 788 is constitutionally impermissible because violative of that portion of Section 45 of our Constitution which mandates that the one subject of a law shall be clearly expressed in the title.
The issue of whether the appellant was rendered immune from liability by virtue of the proviso hereinabove referred to is wholly dispositive of this appeal, I confine my concurrence to this aspect.
Having concluded that the said proviso is invalid, it necessarily follows that the appellee’s suit was within the remaining limitations specified in Act No. 788.
BLOODWORTH, J., concurs.