Court Opinion

ID: 9768630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:12:57.964715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:42.682723
License: Public Domain

REED, Chief Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the majority opinion because I am unable to make an honest intellectual distinction between the constitutional construction made by this court in Wells v. Jefferson County, Ky., 255 S.W.2d 462 (1953), and that made by the majority opinion.
The Wells decision squarely held that Sections 54 and 241 of the Kentucky Constitution were not offended by our present Workmen’s Compensation statute which presumed acceptance of the Workmen’s Compensation Law by an employee’s failure to reject where an opportunity for affirmative rejection was afforded. In all frankness, I seriously question the correctness of that decision, but I am not prepared to declare the entire Workmen’s Compensation Law unconstitutional in view of the reliance placed on the decision. Although I am mindful of the judicial oath to support the Constitution of this State regardless of personal judgments concerning the wisdom of some of its provisions, I am, nevertheless, also so influenced by the legal principles of stability and predictability of judicial constitutional constructions that I am unable in this case to ignore a constitutional construction made by this court and on which affected parties, including the legislature, should be able to rely.
I am also impressed that by reason of the breadth given to state power in attempting to control conditions on its highways there *780is ample policy reason in the instant case to obey and respect the constitutional construction made in the Wells case.
My brother, Sternberg, has filed a separate dissenting opinion in which he undertakes to distinguish the Wells case. In my opinion the attempted distinction confirms rather than weakens my conclusion. In the Wells case, the question was whether a waiver of constitutional rights may be effected by means of the failure of the employee to elect affirmatively to retain those rights. Justice Sternberg appears to draw the distinction that Wells presented a case between contracting parties. ■ The present statute deals with a contract of insurance. I utterly fail to see any distinction in the applicable principle. Furthermore, Justice Sternberg’s dissent adopts the position that the operation of motor vehicles on public roads is a privilege rather than a right. This distinction has been recently, repeatedly rejected by the United States Supreme Court. The proper use of a highway has today become as much of a right as is the right to earn one’s living. Therefore, I am unable to follow this line of reasoning.
I join in the majority opinion only with the distinct understanding, however, that the wisdom of the applicability of the Wells doctrine to other areas is under serious scrutiny by this court as presently constituted, and any reliance upon that doctrine in other areas might turn out to be misplaced so far as I am concerned. It is useless, however, to speculate further in this regard because courts only speak when properly spoken to in the context of a contested case.