Court Opinion

ID: 9533031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:27:41.267444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:53.998942
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
The sole contention on rehearing raises, for the first time, the constitutionality of the substantive provisions embodied in 20 O.S. 1961 § 182. As construed in our opinion herein, the first sentence of that enactment effects an abolition of superior courts in counties having a population of less than 52,000 “at any given time”, while the proviso excepts from the operation of the section superior courts in counties which did have a population of 52,000 (or more) in 1930, regardless of any future losses in population.
According to our construction of Sec. 182, respondent now urges, its abolition provisions are prospective only “as to some counties” but not so as to those which fall within the class excepted by the proviso. This feature alone, the argument follows, operates to create an unreasonable classification and taints the entire enactment with the “imprint” of discrimination between counties without any justifiable basi-s or reason therefor. The rule invoked by respondent in support of his contention is stated in Hudgins et al. v. Foster et al., 131 Okl. 90, 267 P. 645, where we held:
“Where an act of the Legislature excepts from the operation of the genera! *332laws of this state one or more counties without any fixed basis for such discrimination, and no good reason is shown why all should not be subject to the same rule, it is invalid under section 59, article 5, of the state Constitution which provides (that) laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation throughout the state.”
Respondent concedes that our former decisions unequivocally uphold as “general nature and uniform in its operation” a legislative act creating or abolishing a superior court in a single county of the state. See, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company v. Coryell, Okl., 346 P.2d 935; Leatherock v. Lawter et al., 45 Okl. 715, 147 P. 324. The argument urged upon us is that this judicial sanction should not be extended so as to uphold statutes purportedly general in form when in fact based on a “patently arbitrary and capricious” classification of counties.
The proposition here advanced appears to have been resolved contrary to respondent’s contention in Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. et al. v. Carroll, Brough, Robinson & Humphrey, 114 Okl. 193, 245 P. 649. In the cited case this court upheld the establishment of a superior court by a legislative act which, although appearing to be general in form, rested in fact upon an arbitrary classification of county population. Our opinion therein, which was based largely on the previous decisions in Leatherock v. Lawter et al., supra, and in Diehl v. Crump, 72 Okl. 108, 179 P. 4, 5 A.L.R. 1272, states (at p. 651 of 245 P.):
“* * * The Legislature, in passing said act, no doubt, was familiar with the decision of this court holding that the creation of a court was general legislation, and it had a right to rely upon the rule therein announced.
"It is true, of course, that the Legislature placed the provisions relative to population in said act, hut this was done, no doubt, through abundance of caution, to show that a general act was intended(Emphasis ours).
Our holding in the Chicago case, supra, was followed and reiterated in Hudgins et al. v. Foster et al., supra, where we drew a distinction between legislation creating and abolishing superior courts and an act which dealt with abolition of township officers in some counties but excepted others without any basis or justification. See also, Excise Board of Washita County v. Lowden, 189 Okl. 286, 116 P.2d 700, 703.
All these pronouncements rest upon the theory that statutes having for their object the creation or abolition of superior courts, “to which all citizens might repair for redress of their grievances,” affect the people as a whole rather than any particular county territory in which such a court may be required to hold its sessions. The authority to create or abolish these tribunals finds its sanction in Sec. 1, Art. 7 of the Constitution which confers upon the Legislature the power to establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court. See Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company v. Coryell, supra, and cases cited therein.
In view of these authorities, we are constrained to hold that territorial distribution of the superior courts over the counties of the state is not within the inhibition of the rule invoked here by respondent, and the Legislature is entirely free from constitutional restraint to establish or abolish such tribunals without any rational relation to the population of each county affected by its act.
An “equal” or uniform distribution of statutory courts among the counties of the state is not required by the Constitution. Their creation or abolition need not be related to population classification. A statutory court, once established by an act based on city population classification, will not be terminated when that city has acquired a population in excess of the limit fixed in such act, in the absence of a specific indication that such court should cease to exist when the limit is exceeded. Ex parte Haley, 202 Okl. 101, 210 P.2d 653, 658, 12 A.L.R.2d 416.
*333We therefore hold that the substantive provisions of 20 O.S.1961 § 182, are not violative of the State Constitution. We further hold that Section 59, Article 5, is not applicable to superior courts.