Court Opinion

ID: 9719461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:53:34.838137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:07.415264
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Achor, J.
The majority opinion correctly decides, first, that the annexation of the area in question was completed by the Common Council of Indianapolis under Acts 1905, ch. 129, §242, p. 219, and, secondly, that the residents of said area had the right to contest *581such annexation. However, I do not concur in that part of the opinion which holds that the right of the residents of the area to contest the annexation is now controlled by the Amendatory Act of 1955, ch. 269, §4, p. 720 [§48-703, Burns’ 1950 Repl. (1957 Supp.)].
Under the 1905 Act the right of annexation was made conditional upon the right to resist such annexation on the basis of specified standards stated as part of that act. Thus the right to resist annexation was a substantive right of equal force to the right of annexation itself. For this reason the right to contest the annexation under the 1905 statute was not merely a procedural matter relating to the mode, time and manner of contesting the annexation, it related to the right of annexation itself. Therefore, the cases involving the construction of amendatory, remedial or procedural statutes are not controlling. See 82 C. J. S., §421, p. 996.
The general rule regarding the retrospective effect of amendatory statutes has been stated as follows:
“Retroactive legislation changing rights is not favored, and the rule that statutes are not to be construed retrospectively unless such construction was plainly intended by the legislature applies with peculiar force. Hence, in so far as affecting vested rights, a statute will be construed as prospective only, and not as operating retrospectively or retroactively, unless that intention is made manifest either by express words or by a clear, distinct, necessary, plain, strong, or unmistakable, implication. . . .” 82 C. J. S., §417, pp. 994-995.
For these reasons, I am of the opinion that the appellees, having undertaken to resist the annexation under the act which authorized such annexation, are entitled to continue the prosecution of their action on the basis of the standards provided in the 1905 Act which authorized the annexation.