Court Opinion

ID: 9854750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:13:20.625343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:19.908049
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
concurring specially. While I concur fully in the judgment, I believe I do so for a different reason, or, for the same reason stated differently. I believe the decisions of this court, including McCutcheon v. Smith, 199 Ga. 685 (35 SE2d 144); Thompson v. Talmadge, 201 Ga. 867 (41 SE2d 883); Sirota v. Kay Homes, Inc., 208 Ga. 113 (65 SE2d 597); Northside Manor, Inc. v. Vann, 219 Ga. 298 (133 SE2d 32), have made it unmistakably clear that while the legislative *664department alone can enact laws, the judicial department alone can define and construe those laws. This means that the judiciary alone can define what constitutes “practice of law.” But the legislative department can fix terms and conditions upon which “practice of law” is permitted, and fix penalties for violations thereof. It means that the legislature can constitutionally authorize anyone to perform acts that clearly come within the judicial definition of practicing law without a license and without punishment.
Therefore, I believe the present case is soundly and comprehensively dealt with and decided when we hold, as we must, that despite the fact that the activities authorized by non-lawyers in the 1931 Act, as amended (Ga. L. 1931, pp. 191, 194; Code Ch. 9-4; 1937, pp. 753, 754), may come within the judicial definition of “practice of law,” — bearing in mind that one can charge for the use of his records, and can practice law in his own case even in courts — they can be lawfully engaged in, and courts have no right or power to prevent them or penalize them.
I do not agree with anything said or implied in the majority opinion to the effect that the legislative department can invade the constitutionally reserved exclusive jurisdiction of the judicial department to define, construe and fix the meaning of the practice of law either to aid or to hinder the courts in the free and full exercise of their exclusive jurisdiction. None of the legislation dealing with the learned profession of medicine can or does contradict what I have said. Of course, as pointed out above the legislature can constitutionally permit non-lawyers or non-doctors of medicine to engage in activities which courts hold to constitute the practice of law or medicine; but such permission in no degree affects or changes the definitions the courts give to those professions, which definitions are beyond the constitutional reach of the legislature. On the other hand, courts can not invade legislative jurisdiction to prevent what the legislature authorizes. Both departments of government must be kept within their own exclusive jurisdictions. In this case courts can not prevent what the legislature authorized by the 1931 law, as amended, supra, for to do so would be to violate the Constitution by invading the exclusive jurisdiction of that de*665partment. The legislature can constitutionally define what portion of the practice of law or medicine it will prohibit by those not qualifying as members of such professions as judicially defined, but it can likewise specify so much of such practice by non-members of the professions as it chooses to allow without penalty. That is precisely what we have in the law which is the basis of this complaint. For the courts to attempt to penalize or prevent what the legislature has authorized would be judicial invasion of legislative jurisdiction. Courts can enforce laws, lawfully enacted, and they must not violate them. Courts and lawyers must recognize that the practices authorized by non-lawyers by this law, supra, are not matters carried on before courts, hence are outside the court's authority to control and, hence, the court has no authority to control those acts not committed before them. I would affirm on both the appeal and the cross appeal.