Court Opinion

ID: 9675778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:05:45.335434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:39.111996
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. I concur. The majority does not decide the following question: Whether ARCP Rule 23, the class action rule, is applicable in an illegal exaction suit. This court in the City of Little Rock v. Cash, 277 Ark. 494, 644 S.W.2d 229 (1982), answered this question in the affirmative. In a proper case, we should review that part of the holding in Cash, and in my view, reverse it. However, because this issue was not fully developed at trial, I agree with the majority’s reluctance to decide this important issue in this appeal. Here, the appellee brought this case as a Rule 23 class action suit. On appeal, however, she argues forcefully that, because this is an illegal exaction suit, all the requirements of Rule 23 need not be met. She points out that Ark. Const. art. 16, § 13, the state’s illegal exaction provision, is self-executing and imposes no terms or conditions upon a citizen to bring it. In Price v. Edmonds, 231 Ark. 332, 330 S.W.2d 82 (1959), this court held one need only show he is a citizen, property owner, taxpayer, rate payer or consumer to maintain an exaction suit. Such illegal exaction cases have been filed for decades prior to the promulgation of Rule 23 or its earlier comparable statute without requiring more than those matters stated in Price. Nor had this court recognized Rule 23’s application to illegal exaction suits until its 1982 ruling in Cash. Without unduly lengthening this concurrence on a point not decided, I suggest that the application of Rule 23 to illegal exaction suits makes little sense except that the notice requirement afforded under Rule 23 does assure notice to all taxpayers, thus guarding against the so-called “friendly lawsuit” filed by parties attempting to protect their private or vested interests in what is basically an action involving the public’s interests. Such notice, however, can be afforded by a well-drafted rule or law without also requiring all the impediments presented under Rule 23. Clearly, an illegal exaction proceeding differs from the type class action contemplated under Rule 23 where the primary objective is a suit for damages. While there is much to say on this subject, the majority is correct to defer its consideration of this important issue in a case where it is properly developed at trial and argued on appeal.