Court Opinion

ID: 9768477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:05:24.379912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:41.216207
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Associate Justice (dissenting on Rehearing). In this case I am cast in the novel role of having written the opinion delivered on February 28,1955, and now dissenting from Justice Ward’s opinion on rehearing in the same case, even though the rehearing opinion impliedly concedes that the opinion of February 28, 1955 is correct. My dissent goes to that part of Justice Ward’s opinion on rehearing (hereinafter called “rehearing opinion”) which suspends until May 15,1955 the effective date of the February 28, 1955 opinion. The rehearing opinion is really the granting of a judicial indulgence1 on the theory that some litigants did not know that we were going to declare the law to be as we did in the majority opinion of February 28, 1955. The rule has always been the “ignorance of the law is no excuse”; but this rehearing opinion changes that rule and sets a dangerous precedent toward the overcoming of Constitutional and Statutory provisions. Some may say that the rehearing opinion is the same as the “caveats” which we issued in Hare v. General Contract Purchase Corp., 220 Ark. 601, 249 S. W. 2d 973, and O’Brien v. Atlas Finance Co., 223 Ark. 176, 264 S. W. 2d 839. But there is a great distinction between what was done in those cases and what is being done in the rehearing opinion in the ease at bar. In the Hare and O’Brien cases we were overruling prior decisions of this Court on which the public had relied, so we over-ruled those decisions prospectively. In Public Loan Corp. v. Peterson, 224 Ark. 22, 271 S. W. 2d 353, it was pointed out of the Hare case (and the same thing is true of the O’Brien case): “But there we overruled several earlier decisions whieh had sanctioned an artificial distinction between a cash sale and a credit sale. Inasmuch as the Finance Company in the Hare case, and others similarly situated, had presumably relied upon our prior eases in making their loans we were unwilling to give a retroactive effect to our ruling, even though we were at liberty to do so.” In short it is only where a person relies on a prior decision of the Court that it is overruled prospectively —i. e. by caveat. But in the case at bar we are not overruling any prior decision of this Court: we are declaring for the first time what a Legislative enactment (Act 555 of 1953)2 means in the situation here presented. We held oil February 28, 1955 that the said Act made a certain definite requirement. Now in the rehearing opinion the same definite requirement is reiterated: yet an indulgence is granted until May 15,1955 before the law will be put into effect3, oven though the Legislative enactment— Act 555 of 1953 — by the Constitution went into effect in June, 1953, 90 days after the adjournment of the 1953 Legislature. In short, the Supreme Court is now declaring Legislative Acts to go into effect some time after the Court passes on the matters. This is a novel idea and, as I say, it is the granting of a judicial indulgence. In Public Loan Corp. of Fayetteville v. Peterson, 224 Ark. 22, 271 S. W. 2d 353, we were asked to hold that transactions undertaken under Act 203 of 1951 should be held valid because the transactions were consummated before our opinion in Winston v. Personal Finance Co., 220 Ark. 580, 249 S. W. 2d 315, which declared the Act unconstitutional. In other words, we were asked to grant an indulgence in that case — not because the parties had acted under a prior decision of this Court but because they had acted under a Legislative enactment not theretofore considered by the Court. We refused to grant such an indulgence in Public Loan Corp. v. Peterson: yet now by the rehearing opinion this Court is doing the same thing — regarding Act 555 of 1953— that it refused to do in the Peterson case regarding Act 203 of 1951. I predict that the effect of the rehearing opinion will be a tendency to grant indulgence in future cases because some litigant did not understand the law; and thus the stability of our holdings will always be subject to attack on the theory ‘this is a new law and it was not known, so grant us an indulgence’. That is not the basis of our Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence; so I respectfully dissent from the rehearing opinion in this case.   Webster’s Dictionary defines “indulgence” as “an extension of the time for performance, granted as a favor”. It is with that meaning that I use the word in this dissent.    In General Box Co. v. Scurlock, 223 Ark. 967, 271 S.W. 2d 40, I dissented from the holding that Act 555 provided an exclusive method of appeal. I wanted to hold that Act 555 went along with our previous Statute as an alternative method of appeal. If my views had been accepted in General Box Co. v. Scurlock the litigants in West v. Smith (and the other cases mentioned in this rehearing opinion) might not have been hurt. Now apparently a way has been discovered to “soften” the holding in General Box v. Scurlock. I sympathize with the litigants but I think this Court should adopt a consistent course.    It is said that our previous rules did this. No — we made rules prospectively. Here we are making rules retrospectively.