Court Opinion

ID: 9657214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:17:41.988381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:41.875438
License: Public Domain

*554Shanahan, J.,
concurring.
While reaching a correct result regarding school district No. 46, the majority has overlooked some basic premises and principles of constitutional law. The majority states: “School district No. 46 has no legal interest in the question presented by the case and, therefore, no standing to raise the constitutional issues set out in its petition.”
In these proceedings the plaintiffs’ petition commences: “COME NOW the plaintiffs, School District No. 46 . . . and David K. Kentsmith . . . and for their causes of action . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) The petition then sets out six causes of action, one of which claims that Neb. Rev. Stat. § 79-801 (Cum. Supp. 1984) violates “the equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution and the Nebraska Constitution” (sixth cause of action) and requests a declaration that § 79-801 is unconstitutional, while another cause of action asserts that § 79-801, possibly reducing the school district’s tax revenue and number of pupils, is “special legislation” in violation of Neb. Const, art. Ill, § 18 (first cause of action), and is, therefore, unconstitutional.
Among the safeguards of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the “equal protection” clause, namely: “[N]or shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Neb. Const, art. I, § 1, provides: “All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights ....” Further, according to Neb. Const, art. Ill, § 18: “The Legislature shall not pass local or special laws . . . [granting to any corporation, association, or individual any special or exclusive privileges, immunity, or franchise whatever ...” As this court expressed in City of Plattsmouth v. Nebraska Telephone Co., 80 Neb. 460, 464, 114 N.W. 588, 590 (1908): “A special privilege in constitutional law is a right, power, franchise, immunity or privilege granted to, or vested in, a person or class of persons to the exclusion of others and in derogation of common right.”
Recently, we pointed out:
The 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state from, among other things, denying any person *555equal protection of the laws and from depriving any person of property without due process of law.
Article I, § 1, of the Nebraska Constitution does not concern itself with equal protection of the laws. It is article III, § 18, which deals with disparate treatment by concerning itself with special legislation.
Porter v. Jensen, 223 Neb. 438, 443, 390 N.W.2d 511, 515 (1986).
A school district has been judicially recognized as a species of municipal corporation. See Nickel v. School Board of Axtell, 157 Neb. 813, 61 N.W.2d 566 (1953). There is a definite difference between a business corporation and a municipal corporation, a distinction recognized by the Supreme Court of Missouri in St. Louis v. Smith, 325 Mo. 471, 477, 30 S.W.2d 729, 730 (1930):
[A business corporation is] organized for the purpose of carrying on a business for profit; while [a municipal corporation] is organized with political and legislative powers for the local civil government and police regulation of the people of a particular district included within its boundaries; and that it is a subordinate branch of the domestic government of a state.
This court has employed a definition for association, namely, “ ‘The act of a number of persons in uniting together for some purpose. The persons so joining.’ ” In re Estate of Sautter, 142 Neb. 42, 52, 5 N.W.2d 263, 268 (1942).
A municipal corporation, as a subdivision of a state, is not a “person” guaranteed equal protection of the laws. See, Bd. Comm’rs v. Kokomo City Plan Comm., 263 Ind. 282, 330 N.E.2d 92 (1975); Shelby v. City of Pensacola, 112 Fla. 584, 151 So. 53 (1933); Warren County, Mississippi v. Hester, 219 La. 763, 54 So. 2d 12 (1951). As expressed by Justice Cardozo in Williams v. Mayor, 289 U.S. 36, 40, 53 S. Ct. 431, 77 L. Ed. 1015 (1932): “A municipal corporation, created by a state for the better ordering of government, has no privileges or immunities under the federal constitution which it may invoke in opposition to the will of its creator.”
Other jurisdictions have specifically held that a school district, being neither a natural nor artificial person, but being a *556legislative creation, is not a “person” within the meaning of any bill of rights or constitutional limitation. See, Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Board, 230 Iowa 924, 299 N.W. 440 (1941); Grasko v. Los Angeles City Board of Education, 31 Cal. App. 3d 290, 107 Cal. Rptr. 334 (1973); Dean v. Armstrong, 246 Iowa 412, 415, 68 N.W.2d 51, 53 (1955) (“[A] school district ‘is a legislative creation. It is not organized for profit. It is an arm of the state, a part of its political organization. It is not a “person” within the meaning of any bill of rights or constitutional limitation. It has no rights, no functions, no capacity, except such as are conferred upon it by the legislature. . . .’ ”). Therefore, the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the “special laws” provision of the Nebraska Constitution are not applicable to a school district, which is not a “person” protected by the Constitution, state or federal. Those constitutional guarantees providing equal protection and prohibiting special legislation contemplate an entity having existence independent of a legislature’s largess.
Kentsmith ostensibly asserts a claim on behalf of school district No. 46, alleging constitutional considerations of equal protection and special legislation, and thereby acts as a surrogate or alter ego for the school district, seeking redress for school district No. 46. Generally, one cannot assert the constitutional rights of another. See Blackledge v. Richards, 194 Neb. 188, 231 N.W.2d 319 (1975). Ordinarily, a challenge to constitutionality of a statute on the ground that the assailed statute denies equal rights and privileges by discriminating between persons or classes may not be made by one not belonging to the class alleged to be discriminated against. See Griffin v. Gass, 133 Neb. 56, 274 N.W. 193 (1937). See, also, Ritums v. Howell, 190 Neb. 503, 209 N.W.2d 160 (1973) (one who is not harmfully affected by a particular feature of a statute, alleged to be unconstitutional, may not urge the unconstitutionality of the statute in question). As this court announced in State ex rel. Nelson v. Butler, 145 Neb. 638, 651, 17 N.W.2d 683, 691-92 (1945):
It is firmly established as the universal rule that a person “may attack the constitutionality of a statute only when and so far as it is being or is about to be applied to his *557disadvantage; and to raise the question he must show that the alleged unconstitutional feature of the statute injures him and so operates as to deprive him of a constitutional right, and, of course, it is prerequisite that he establish in himself the claimed right which is alleged to be infringed.”
If a school district is not a person with constitutional stature to assert certain rights under the Constitutions, Kentsmith, as a protagonist for the school district, cannot by litigation enhance the school district’s stature and produce rights for the district greater than those existing in the constitutional realities of the situation before us.
Consequently, in situations such as the present and as the result of a school district’s existence as a municipal corporation and subdivision of the state, neither school district No. 46 nor Kentsmith on behalf of that school district has the capacity to raise constitutional questions concerning equal protection and special legislation. In approving a school district’s amorphous existence in relation to equal protection and special legislation, today’s decision introduces forensic fog into already clouded cases concerning a school district’s capacity to raise constitutional questions.