Court Opinion

ID: 9619409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:27:27.22955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:47.038462
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
dissenting.
At the 2002 regular session of the General Assembly, the Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate and the Democrat-controlled Kentucky House of Representatives deadlocked on whether to appropriate funds for the election campaign fund created by the Public Financing Campaign Act, former KRS 121A.020,1 and adjourned sine die on April 15, 2002, without enacting a budget bill for the 2002-04 biennium for either the executive or judicial departments. Nor did the General Assembly suspend any statutory mandates; specifically, it did not suspend KRS 18A.3S5(1), which provides:
(1) An annual increment of not less than five percent (5%) of the base salary or wages of each state employee shall be granted to each employee on his anniversary date. The employee’s base salary or wages shall be increased by the amount of the annual increment. When any increment due to a promotion, reallocation, reclassification or salary adjustment is granted an employee, the employee’s base salary or wages shall be increased by the amount of such increment. An employee’s base salary or wages ■ shall not be increased by the amount of lump-sum payment awarded under KRS 18A.110(7)(J).
On June 26, 2002, Governor Patton promulgated an “Executive Spending Plan” and authorized the Secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet to issue warrants against the treasury to implement that plan “and to assist the Court of Justice as may be necessary to implement lawful expenditures for its operation.”2 *599Exec. Order No.2002-727, para. 6, at 4. In essence, the Governor adopted his own executive department budget and ordered appropriations from the state treasury to fund it. The Executive Spending Plan also purported to suspend a number of state statutes, including KRS 18A.385(1), and substituted therefor an increase in salary and wages of state employees of only 2.7%. The legislative deadlock ultimately resolved itself when all potential gubernatorial candidates announced their intentions to reject public financing of the 2003 election. During its 2003 regular thirty-day session, the General Assembly enacted a budget bill for the 2002-04 biennium that did not fund the election campaign fund but purported to ratify the Governor’s expenditures under the Executive Spending Plan, nunc pro tunc, suspending KRS 18A.355(1) and granting state employees a 2.7% cost-of-living increase “in fiscal year 2002-2003.” 2003 Ky. Acts, ch. 156, Part IV-3. (eff. March 31, 2003, 2003 Ky. Acts, ch. 182) (emphasis added). See generally Fletcher v. Commonwealth, 163 S.W.3d 852, 857 (Ky.2005); Paul E. Salamanca, The Constitutionality of an Executive Spending Plan, 92 Ky. L.J. 149, 152-58 (2003-04).3
Section 15 of our Constitution provides: “No power to suspend laws shall be exercised unless by the General Assembly or its authority.” Since this provision is a part of the Bill of Rights, the Governor could not suspend statutes even if he possessed “emergency” or “inherent” powers under Sections 69 and 81. Ky. Const. § 26 (“To guard against transgression of the high powers which we have delegated, We Declare that every thing in this Bill of Rights is excepted out of the general powers of government .... ”). Thus, Governor Patton’s attempted suspension of KRS 18A.335(1) was unconstitutional and invalid ab initio. Fletcher, 163 S.W.3d at 872.
Where the General Assembly has mandated that specific expenditures be made on a continuing basis, such is, in fact, an appropriation. Id. at 865. Since the General Assembly did not suspend KRS 18A.355(1) prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, and since Governor Patton’s attempt to do so was invalid ab initio, KRS 18A.355(1) went into effect on that date and every state employee obtained a vested right to a 5% cost-of-living increase on that date or upon reaching that employee’s anniversary date, whichever date was applicable to that employee.
There is no need to jump through hoops to determine whether the language of the 2003 budget bill complied with the requirement of KRS 446.080(3) that “[n]o statute shall be construed to be retroactive, unless expressly so declared.” (I do not find the word “retroactive” anywhere in Part IV-3 of the budget bill. 2003 Ky. Acts, ch. 156, Part IV-3. If not, how could such be “expressly so declared”?) For even if the General Assembly had complied with KRS 446.080(3), it could not retrospectively divest those state employees of money in which they had obtained a vested right and which was owed to them after July 1, 2002, and prior to March 31,2003.
The moment he died her rights under his will attached. Her title was then vested, and no change in the law thereafter made could disturb such vested rights. The title to all his property was vested in her, subject to his debts.... It *600was not within the power of the state thereafter, by mere legislation, to impose upon her any additional obligation or to create any charge against her property. To do so would be a taking of her property without due process of law. The Legislature has the undoubted right to repeal all legislative acts which are not in the nature of contracts or private grants, but the repeal of a law cannot affect or impair rights which have been acquired under it. So of the adoption of a new law. It can have no retrospective operation so far as vested rights are concerned. Statutes are not to be given a retrospective operation except where it is manifest the Legislature intended they should have such operation, and it is not competent even for the Legislature to give such operation to an act where it will affect existing vested rights.
People v. Sears, 344 Ill. 189, 176 N.E. 273, 277 (1931) (emphasis added) (citations omitted). See also Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 266, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 1497, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994) (“The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause prevents the Legislature (and other government actors) from depriving private persons of vested property rights except for a ‘public use’ and upon payment of ‘just compensation.’ ”); Whitaker Coal Co. v. Melton, 18 S.W.3d 361, 364 (Ky.App.2000) (1996 General Assembly could not divest worker of vested right to RIB award, entitlement to which vested prior to 1996 enactment); Coco v. Miller, 193 Ark. 999, 104 S.W.2d 209, 211 (1937) (“[I]f section 2 is construed as giving to the act a retroactive effect that section must fall because rights conferred by statute are determined according to statutes which were in force when the rights accrued and are not affected by subsequent legislation. The Legislature has no power to divest legal or equitable rights previously vested.”).
Nor is there any need to delve into the immunity of legislators under the assumption that Appellants should have filed suit against the members of the General Assembly who allegedly voted to retrospectively divest them of their vested rights. The General Assembly appropriated the funds for the 5% cost-of-living increase when it failed to suspend KRS 18A.355(1). Fletcher, 163 S.W.3d at 865. Appellants needed only to demand payment from the State Treasurer of the appropriated amounts and, if denied, to bring an action for a writ of mandamus.
It is unknown why Appellants chose to sue the Governor instead of the Treasurer and/or the Secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet. Perhaps they did so because the Secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet works for the Governor. However, if the Governor thought he was an improper party to the action, he could have filed a motion to dismiss under CR 12.02(g). Failure to join a proper party is not jurisdictional, thus does not warrant a sua sponte dismissal. The same holds true for allegedly suing an improper party. CR 9.01; cf. Lawrence v. Marks, 355 S.W.2d 162, 163 (Ky.1961) (“improper party plaintiff’ is not grounds for dismissal of an action). If a motion to dismiss is made under CR 12.02(g), the court can order that the proper party be joined unless that party is not subject to service of process. CR 19.01; CR 19.02; Cabinet for Human Res. v. Ky. State Pers. Bd., 846 S.W.2d 711, 714 (Ky.App.1992) (“When one litigant believes there to be an indispensable party it should request the court to order joinder by the simple expedient of filing a motion. If the court concurs then service of process shall issue, but in any event, it should be accomplished by a pleading or motion and a brief is neither.”). To date, no one has filed such a motion or raised the issue by pleading or even brief. Thus, the “improper party” *601allegation, like the immunity of members of the General Assembly, is a non-issue in this case.
Accordingly, I dissent.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins.

. The statute was repealed, effective March 16, 2005.

. On June 27, 2002, the Chief Justice promulgated an order implementing a spending plan to cover the expenses of the judicial department from and after July 1, 2002, and issued warrants against the treasury to fund that plan. Ky. Const. § 120. Thus, nothing de*599cided in this case will affect the pay of any judicial branch employee.

. While the resolution of this dispute precluded the Court of Justice from ruling on the constitutionality of Governor Patton’s Executive Spending Plan, we later held in Fletcher, 163 S.W.3d at 860-65, that an attempt by the Governor to unilaterally adopt a budget for the executive department was unconstitutional. Ky. Const. §§ 27, 28, 230.