Court Opinion

ID: 9631728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:47:47.374623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:59.962552
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring)—I cannot disagree with the result reached by the majority on either of the two grounds it states. My only concern is the holding that the initiative would impair the obligation of contract embodied in the already-issued stadium bonds be construed narrowly in light of the facts of this case.
The federal and state constitutional protection against impairment of the obligation of contract is not absolute as compared to some other constitutional guaranties. El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U.S. 497, 506-09, 13 L. Ed. 2d 446, 85 S. Ct. 577 (1964). It does not bar a proper exercise of the state’s police power. Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Jenkins, 297 U.S. 629, 634-35, 80 L. Ed. 943, 56 S. Ct. 611 (1936). Historically, exempting a contract from constitutional protection demands significant justification. Trustees of Dartmouth Col*831lege v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 250, 4 Wheat. 518, 4 L. Ed. 629 (1819).
The Supreme Court has consistently upheld legislation affecting contract rights. Thorpe v. Housing Authority, 393 U.S. 268, 280, 21 L. Ed. 2d 474, 89 S. Ct. 518 (1968). The court in El Paso v. Simmons, supra at 508, states decisions
“put it beyond question that the prohibition is not an absolute one and is not to be read with literal exactness like a mathematical formula,” . . . Not only are existing laws read into contracts in order to fix obligations as between the parties, but the reservation of essential attributes of sovereign power is also read into contracts as a postulate of the legal order. . . . This principle of harmonizing the constitutional prohibition with the necessary residuum of state power has had progressive recognition in the decisions of this Court.”