Court Opinion

ID: 9790524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:54:22.600669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:30.001032
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
concurring.
I join with two members of the court in affirming the decision on the explicit basis of stare decisis. In no way can the essential controversy and critical issue be differentiated from Haddenkam II, Haddenkam v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of Carbon, Wyo., 679 P.2d 429 (1984), a case which is only two years old.
A matter of intrinsic philosophy is raised in that as a jurist I have no reluctance to vote for rehearing when a case is initially before this court. Thereafter, when that issue is once decided, stability of the law and propriety of acceding to legislative lawmaking mandate reluctance for reversal of a prior case in which I did not servé , to either dissent or approve the decision. See State v. Carter, Wyo., 714 P.2d 1217, 1221 (1986), Urbigkit, J., dissenting. Having said this, it should also be understood that the extension to counties of implied police powers is neither recognized nor to be justified from this concurrence.
I do not agree with Haddenkam II, and would have voted to the contrary if then on this court. However, the kind of imperative social problem or constitutional issue that should now justify reversal as to the particular issues involved, is not to be found in selling or not selling fireworks, which, after Haddenkam II, I would now leave for the legislature to accept or change. In the hackneyed phraseology of numerous appellate discussions, “We do not now write with a clean slate.” Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Company, 285 U.S. 393, 52 S.Ct. 443, 76 L.Ed. 815 (1932); Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986). See, however, Kelley v. Rhoads, 7 Wyo. 237, 51 P. 593, 605 (1898) (“after mature reflection and a profound sense of an imperative necessity”).
On the substantive issues, excluding a reversal of the prior case, I would concur in *172reasoning with the thoughtful, succinct and explicitly phrased dissent.
I specially concur in affirming the decision of the trial court.