Court Opinion

ID: 9810699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:56:37.358918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:09.788715
License: Public Domain

AvéRY, J.
(concurring): I concur in the conclusion reached by the Court, but not entirely in the reasons upon which it is made to rest. "While much of the discussion in Scarborough v. Robinson, 81 N. C., 409, was entirely obiter, the Court construed a clause of the Constitution (Art. II, Sec. 23) as making ratification an essential prerequisite to the validity of an act of the Legislature, and the decision of the question involved depended upon that construction. The purpose of the plaintiff in bringing that action was either to have a declaration from the Court that the bill should, in view of the facts shown, be deemed to have the force and effect of an act passed and ratified in the ordinary way or that the presiding officer should be required to sign.
*593It seems to me that the Court did not transcend the proper limit of logical argument in discussing and passing upon the questions whether it was competent for the defendant to still impart vitality to an inchoate act or whether, if the compulsory power of the Court could not be invoiced for such a purpose, it could nevertheless declare that under the peculiar circumstances, the unsigned bill should be deemed a complete legislative enactment.