Court Opinion

ID: 9544177
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:52:57.726374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:18.692471
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
concurring in result.
Both parties recognize that the constitutional rights of the Shimalas are at stake in this appeal and they largely agree on the formulation of the legal claim before us: does applying the re-enacted reservation of powers statute to the Shimalas violate their constitutional rights under the federal Contract Clause?
*1230Working from briefs in which the parties join this Contract Clause issue very ably, the majority instead disposes of the case on the basis of "inadvertence" and "clerical error," legal grounds which have little or no foundation in Contract Clause furispru-dence.*
The Dartmouth College case of 1819 and In re Pennsylvania College Cases, 1871, are good places to begin the analysis of a Contract Clause claim. Our decision in Clem v. Christole (1991), Ind., 582 N.E.2d 780, however, recognized that modern federal Contract Clause law is best described by reference to the principles outlined in Allied Structural Steel v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 98 S.Ct. 2716, 57 L.Ed.2d 727 (1978), and, we might have said, by its immediate predecessor, United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 1505, 52 LEd.2d 92 (1977). The parties before us recognize this reality, and they both provide us with an excellent discussion of those cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that absolute application of the Contract Clause would strip modern governments of their ability to adopt general regulatory measures because people could avoid statutes simply by signing contracts. I think the Shimalas' claim should be resolved by acknowledging that the Shimalas' contract rights were impaired. I join in the judgment of the Court, however, because I believe that this impairment occurred as the result of enactments "necessary to meet an important general social problem" and that the law in question was "enacted to protect a broad societal interest rather than a narrow class." Spannaus, 438 U.S. at 249, 98 S.Ct. at 2724.
Today's use of clerical error and legislative intent, an intent articulated and divined many years after the fact of repeal, looks like standard legal analysis when examined in a judicial opinion. Examined from the vantage point of the people by whose grace we govern, however, it is pretty unattractive. The General Assembly did actually repeal the reserved powers clause by passing a bill which was signed by Governor Bowen. Citizens like the Shimalas invested their money in business arrangements in reliance on the only law available to them, the law passed by the legislature. I am reluctant to tell such citizens that they now lose those business opportunities because "the legislature said it but they didn't really mean it," and I can imagine future applications of this technique which I hope we will find unacceptable.

The cases cited for the proposition that even repealer clauses may be subject to interpretation involve more benign uses of statutory interpretation than the present one. Indianapolis Union Ry., 169 Ind. 448, 82 N.E. 1030 (statute construed to save right of appeal); State ex rel. Milligan, 221 Ind. 456, 48 N.E.2d 993 (statute construed to collect support for insane person). Furthermore, as other authority cited by the majority teaches, such interpretation is only appropriate when the meaning of a statute is doubtful, and later legislative construction cannot control over the express language of a former act. Bettenbrock, 185 Ind. at 607, 112 N.E. 771.