Court Opinion

ID: 9545990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:23:15.052138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:52.389838
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(concurring specially) — I have signed the majority opinion, but desire to make it clear that while I agree that the enrolled-bill doctrine is properly applied in the majority opinion, as it was in State ex rel. Bugge v. Martin (1951), 38 Wn. (2d) 834, 232 P. (2d) 833, I still adhere to the views expressed in Power, Inc. v. Huntley (1951), 39 Wn. (2d) 191, 235 P. (2d) 173, and in the concurring opinions in Derby Club, Inc. v. Becket (1953), 41 Wn. (2d) 869, 252 P. (2d) 259, to the effect that there may be occasions when the court will not be bound thereby.
Particular attention is directed to page 39 of the majority opinion where it is said that we place no reliance on the reasoning of the opinion in the Gruen case (Gruen v. State Tax Comm. (1949), 35 Wn. (2d) 1, 211 P. (2d) 651) to support the conclusion in this case that there is no violation of the fourteenth amendment to the state constitution involved. I would make it unequivocally clear that, so far as I am concerned, the Gruen case holding on the issue of what constitutes a state debt and what constitutes a surrendering or contracting away of the power of taxation is at least suspect and may not be followed, should those questions arise again in a situation not governed by the eighteenth amendment to the state constitution.
Weaver, J., concurs with Hill, J.