Court Opinion

ID: 9686057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:21:59.636899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:13.671458
License: Public Domain

HAWTHORNE, Justice
(dissenting).
I do not think that the Legislature in the act which the majority of the court says is unconstitutional has surrendered legislative power or delegated unlimited discretionary powers to the Board of Examiners in Watchmaking without fixing any standards or guideposts for the board to carry out the legislative will. I concede that the act grants to the board some discretionary power, but a reading of the act shows that this grant is far from unlimited. In National Bank of Commerce in New Orleans v. Board of Supervisors, 206 La. 913, 20 So.2d 264, 270, this court quoted with approval from American Jurisprudence, as follows:
• “ ‘The modern tendency is to be more liberal in permitting grants' of discretion to administrative bodies or officers in order to facilitate the administration of laws as the complexity of economic and governmental *583conditions increases.’ 11 Am.Jur., Section 234, page 949.
“ ‘The policy of the law favors the placing of detailed responsibility in administrative officers. The courts uphold statutes vesting such power in such officers if it is possible fairly to do so, at least where the powers are merely ministerial.’ Ibid., Section 240, page 955.”
I think that this pronouncement is pertinent here.
I dissent.