Court Opinion

ID: 9847477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:00:20.185975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:15.608393
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the majority opinion and believe it to be in direct conflict with our opinion in the Application of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority for Approval of its Bonds, Okl. 272 P.2d 1027.
The first question presented by the application is:
Are the bonds as authorized to be issued an indebtedness of the State of Oklahoma in violation oí Section 23, Article 10 of the State Constitution as amended on March 11, 1941, and Sections 24 and 25, Article 10, State Constitution ? I am of the opinion that this question should be answered in the affirmative.
In 74 O.S. 1951 § 356.1, which pertains to the Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board, the following language appears:
“For the purpose of this Act, the Board is hereby declared to be a governmental agency and instrumentality of the State of Oklahoma * * ”
'And in 74 O.S.Supp. § 356.2, we find the following provisions:
“The Board shall have and is hereby authorized to exercise the following powers, rights and privileges:
“1. To have the exclusive possession and control of, and to control, operate and maintain for the benefit of the people of the State of Oklahoma all state parks and all lands and other properties now or hereafter owned by the State for park or recreational purposes.
“2. To acquire by purchase, lease, gift, condemnation or in any other manner and to maintain, use and operate any and all property, real, personal or mixed, necessary or convenient to the exercise of the powers, rights, privileges and functions conferred upon it by this Act. Title to all such property-shall be vested in the State of Oklahoma, although such property is sometimes herein referred to as property ‘of the Board.’ ” (Emphasis added.)
74 O.S. 1951 § 351k, creates in the State Treasury a revolving fund to be known as the State Park Fund which is to consist of all moneys that are received from the sale of permits, penalties, fees, fines, forfeitures or licenses collected by the State or any subdivision thereof, or any public officer or any other person for the violation of the laws or regulations pertaining to State Park laws of this state.
*6774 O.S.1951 § 351Z, contains the following pertinent provisions:
“The Board is hereby empowered to operate, rent, or lease any and all concessions, cottages, buildings, etc., necessary or desirable for the pleasure of park visitors, and may set fees and make rules governing their use; * * Provided further, that no building or structure or improvements other than State-owned buildings, or structures, may be constructed on any State park at any time. * * * Provided further, that all fees or rentals collected shall be deposited in the State Treasurer monthly on the first of each calendar month to the credit of the State Park Fund.”
74 O.S. 1951 § 356.11 provides that nothing in the statute shall be construed to authorize the Board to mortgage or otherwise encumber any of its property of any kind except that the revenue thereof may be pledged as provided by statute.
The last paragraph of Sec. 23, Art. 10 of the State Constitution as amended on March 11, 1941, provides in pertinent part:
“The State shall never create or authorize the creation of any debt or obligation, or fund or pay any deficit, against the State or any department, institution or agency thereof, regardless of its form or the source of money from which it is to be paid * *
The word “debt” is defined as “That which is due from one person to another, whether money, goods, or services; that which one person is bound to pay to another, or to perform for his benefit; thing owed; an obligation or liability.”
It is clear that the Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board is a department, institution or agency of the State, since the statute specifically so provides. The first sentence of each of the bonds proposed to be issued reads as follows:
“Know All Men By These Presents, that the Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board for value received promises to pay to bearer,”
I am unable to conceive how such a bond could constitute anything other than a debt of the Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board and thereby be in direct contravention of the plain provisions of the Constitution above quoted.
The Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board is not only a State institution or agency but it is one supported by State appropriated funds and is not a self-liquidating agency such as the Grand River Dam Authority or the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority. This is well illustrated by the fact that the total appropriations for all functions of the Board for the fiscal year 1954-55 was in the amount of $1,371,800. In approving the bonds issued by the Grand River Dam Authority in State ex rel. Kerr v. Grand River Dam Authority, 195 Okl. 8, 154 P.2d 946, this Court said the defendant authority did not operate in whole or in part on State revenue and was therefore not embraced within the terms of the constitutional provision in question. Such a statement cannot be made concerning the Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board, however, as it obviously operates to a great extent on State revenue.
Furthermore, the resolution of the Board and the proposed bonds pledge all revenue and income of every nature derived from the operation of the State parks, which includes many fees and rentals which are required by law to be paid into the State Park Fund. In effect the bonds create a debt against the State Park Fund. In application of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority for approval of its Bonds, supra, we held the attempt to create a debt against the Public Building Fund unconstitutional. I can see no valid distinction, so far as constitutionality is concerned, between a debt against the Public Building Fund and one against the State Park Fund.
We have in the past held certain bond issues to be non-violative of the constitutional inhibition against debt on the grounds that the bonds were completely self-liquidating in that the only funds pledged for their payment were those constituting the income received from the facility constructed with the proceeds of the bonds. Such a situation does not exist here, however, as the proposed bond issue pledges receipts from already existing State-owned facilities. In fact, the openly avowed pur*68pose of the bond issue is to build facilities which may not be self-liquidating at the expense of proven self-liquidating facilities.
Furthermore, under the proposed bond issue, the Board is obligated to keep all buildings and structures in all the parks insured in an amount equal to the face value of all outstanding bonds and to repair or restore same in case of damage or destruction and is required to carry use and occupancy insurance. There is no provision as to the source of the funds to pay the cost of these obligations and they are made absolute obligations, obviously, compliance with these obligations might require the expenditure of State funds, and such provisions therefore constitute a pledging of State funds in violation of the constitutional prohibition.
It is urged that this court has already passed on the contentions hereinabove set forth and held bond issues of the same nature as the one considered here to be valid. Research on the question reveals that this court has considered so-called self-liquidating bond issues in seven cases, prior to the Television authority case, supra, namely, Baker v. Carter, 1933, 165 Okl. 116, 25 P.2d 747; Sheldon v. Grand River Dam Authority, 1938, 182 Okla. 24, 76 P.2d, 355; State v. Grand River Dam Authority, 1945, 195 Okl. 8, 154 P.2d 946; Application of Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 1945, 195 Okl. 641, 161 P.2d 447; Application of Board of Regents for Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges, 1946, 196 Old. 622, 167 P.2d 883; Application of Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board, 1949, 201 Okl. 178, 203 P.2d 415; and Application of Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, 1950, 203 Okl. 335, 221 P.2d 795. The opinions in the first two cases, Baker v. Carter, supra, and Sheldon v. Grand River Dam Authority, supra, were promulgated prior to the adoption of, the 1941 amendment to Sec. 23, Article 10 of the Constitution, and are therefore not relevant to the present case. The first case considered after the adoption of the 1941 Constitutional Amendment was that of State v. Grand River Dam Authority, supra. The court held there that the amendment to section 23, article 10 of the Constitution adopted in 1941 did not apply to an agency of the State which was created without the appropriation therefor of State revenue and which operates on revenues that are not in whole or in part derived through or under the taxing power of the State and which is without right to incur indebtedness for the payment of which resort, but for said amendment, might properly be had to the taxing power of the State and that the authority of the defendant to issue bonds under prior legislative authority was not impaired by the adoption of the constitutional amendment.
The next case to arise was that of Application of Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, supra. In that case we said that there was no material distinction between it and the Grand River Dam Authority case, supra, and approved the bond issue accordingly. Such holding was obviously in error since there is a very apparent distinction in the two cases. The Board of Regents of the University cf Oklahoma is not an agency of the State which was created without appropriation therefor of State revenue and operates on revenues that are not in whole or in part derived through or under the taxing power of the State, as was the Grand River Dam Authority — nor. had the authority of the Board of Regents to issue the bonds there in question been granted by legislative enactment prior to the adoption of the 1941 constitutional amendment. The whole basis for the holding in the Grand River Dam authority case did not even exist in the Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma case and yet this court said there was no distinction.
The next case to arise was that of Application of Board of Regents for Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges, supra, in which the bonds involved were approved on the authority of Application of Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, supra, without further comment.
The case of Application of .Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board, supra, which involved the Lake Murray Board issue, was the next case to arise, and in it this court disposed of the constitutional question by merely saying that the right uf the legislature to provide for the carrying *69out of self liquidating projects by state agencies had been upheld in numerous cases and citing in support thereof two cases which were decided prior to the 1941 constitutional amendment and Application of Board of Regents for Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges, supra. It is true that this case is quite in point with the one at bar, but it is also true that the opinion is quite patently in error and completely ignores the plain provisions of the 1941 constitutional amendment.
The same holding was made in Application of Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, supra, citing all of the cases above discussed as authority therefor. The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is an agency which would qualify as an exception under the rule laid down in State v. Grand River Dam Authority, supra, and that opinion is therefore probably not in error, although the statement of law contained therein is erroneous.
Not until the opinion in Application of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority For Approval of Its Bonds, supra, was promulgated was any serious consideration given in any case to the effect of the •1941 constitutional amendment. There for the first time it was pointed out that the 1941 constitutional amendment applied to all debts and not to just those which might look to the taxing power for payment, thoroughly demonstrating the incorrectness of prior holdings to the contrary.
A careful review of all of these cases leads me to the conclusion that only the cases of State v. Grand River Dam Authority, supra, and the Television Authority case, supra, contain any pertinent law on the question before us, and that the proposed bond issue should be disapproved.
The proposed bond issue is also objectionable on other grounds, which I will mention but briefly.
Such bonds provide that in the event of default the bondholders may apply as a matter of right for the appointment of a receiver who may enter and take possession of all of the parks or any part thereof and operate and maintain the same. Such a provision is clearly violative of 74 O.S. 1951 § 356.11, above mentioned which prohibits the Board from mortgaging or otherwise encumbering any of its property of any kind, except that the revenues may be pledged. The right to have a receiver take over State owned property surely must constitute an encumbrance of such property.
The bond resolution in question provides for the charging of entrance fees to the improved areas of the parks, as defined in Section 7 of said Bond resolution. Such a provision is obviously in violation of the prohibition against the collection of rates, tolls or charges for use of highways, bridges, entrance to park sites, or waterways found in Section 3, Chapter 12a, Title 74, Oklahoma Session Laws 1953. Furthermore, the authority of' the Board to levy and collect fees and charges is set out in 74 O.S.Supp. §§ 356.2 and 356.8 and by no stretch of the imagination includes any authority to impose an entrance fee to any so-called improved area.
The bond resolution and proposed issue is also objectionable in that it proposes to refund presently outstanding State Park Bonds payable from the revenues of the facilities at Lake Murray State Park into this issue of bonds, which are dated July 1, 1954, payable from the combined revenues of the parks of the state, and provides that overlapping interest be paid to January 1, 1955. While 74 O.S.1951 § 356.16 authorizes refunding of bonds and is relied on here as authority for the proposed action, it specifically provides:
“Nothing herein contained shall be construed to authorize the refunding of any outstanding obligations which are hot either maturing, callable for redemption under their terms, or voluntarily surrendered by their holders for cancellation.”
The only possible purpose of this provision is to prevent the paying of double interest such as is sought to be paid here. The outstanding State Park Bonds are' not maturing and are not callable for'redemption prior to January 1, 1955. They are therefore obviously not subject to refunding now unless voluntarily surrendered by: their holders for cancellation. The fact that *70they will become callable January 1, 1955, does not authorize the issuance of refunding bonds on July 1, 1954.
The statute authorizing the Board in question to issue its so-called revenue bonds, places no limit upon the amount of issue and virtually no control upon the purposes for which same may be expended. This, to my mind, absolutely condemns the Act as unconstitutional, as being an improper attempt to delegate legislative authority. In 11 Am.Jur. Constitutional Law, Sec. 240, at page 957, it is said:
“Although there is no standard, definite or even approximate, to which legislation must conform, ‘it is not validly enacted where it produces a ■delegation of legislative authority which is unconfined, vagrant, and not canalized within banks to keep it from overflowing.’ ”
In Smithberger v. Banning, 129 Neb. 651, 262 N.W. 492, 100 A.L.R. 686, the first paragraph of A.L.R. Editor’s syllabus, is as follows:
“A statute which appropriates $4,000,600 for ‘work relief, direct relief, old age assistance, assistance to dependent mothers and children, unemployment insurance, health of mothers and children, public health or related matters of security and welfare, and public works, especially roads, by the use of work relief labor,’ to be expended by an administrative board, without providing rules and standards of guidance and leaving the distribution of the fund among the various purposes set out in the act to the arbitrary discretion of the administrative board, is an unconstitutional attempt to delegate legislative authority.”
Further authorities dealing in a general way with the subject may be found in A.L. R. Constitutional Law, Sec. 71, (13) and A.L.R. Bonds, 130.
I therefore respectfully dissent.