Court Opinion

ID: 9723645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:24:50.430807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:14.381300
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Emmert, J.
The majority opinion and its reasoning open up a Pandora’s box of constitutional doubts as to the validity of many statutes in Indiana which were enacted by the General Assembly in appreciation of the *339patriotic sacrifices made by the men and women in the armed forces during a time of national peril. It applies a rule of strict construction in a matter affecting veterans when, as stated by this court in State v. Dudley (1910), 173 Ind. 633, 635, 91 N. E. 228, to invoke such a rule “is unpatriotic and impolitic.” Under the reasoning of the majority opinion of the Veterans Bonus Law, Ch. 277, Acts 1949, and amendments thereto, §59-1401, Burns’ 1951 Replacement, et seq., which was approved by the voters of this state in a referendum (870,195 votes yes, 250,318 votes no), is of doubtful constitutional validity, for with equal force it could be asserted that it grants to a “class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms,” do “not equally belong to all citizens.” Section 23, Article 1, Constitution of Indiana.
From Colonial times it has been established legislative policy to grant to veterans of certain wars or campaigns material benefits in appreciation of their military services. On January 2, 1781, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia enacted a statute granting to the veterans of General Clark’s Illinois campaign, which accomplished the capture of Fort Sackville at Vincennes, 150,000 acres of land located in what is now Clark, Floyd and Scott Counties of this state. Wm. H. English, Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio and Life of General George Rogers Clark, Vol. 2, Ch. XXI, et seq. Henthorn V. Doe (1822), 1 Blackf. 157.1 General *340Clark conducted other campaigns against our common enemies in the Northwest Territory during the Revolution, after which the veterans thereof were not so compensated ; so from the earliest times in this state it has always been assumed that it was a proper legislative function to classify veterans by reason of wars, or by reason of particular campaigns.
The General Assembly of Indiana, in accord with the ancient legislative policy of this state, has enacted many statutes for the benefit of veterans. The reasoning of the majority opinion cast a cloud of unconstitutionality over all of these, a partial list being as follows:
Renewal of Barber Certificate. §63-3138, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Burial Allowance. §59-1009, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Certificate of Birth or Death. §35-2102, Burns’ 1949 Replacement.
Certified Copies of Public Records. §59-1018, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Tuition Exemption to State Colleges and Universities. §28-5732, Burns’ 1948 Replacement.
Disability Exemption on Taxable Property Assessment. §64-205, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Recording of Discharge. §59-1004, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Ten percent Disability Tax Exemption. §64-223, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Preferential Employment by Fire Departments. §48-6125(a), Burns’ 1950 Replacement.
Special Automobile License Plates and Parking Privileges for Disabled Veterans. §§47-2626 to 47-2629, Burns’ 1952 Replacement.
Tenure of Employment in Second Class Cities. §48-6610, Burns’ 1950 Replacement.
*341Equal Veterans Rights for Nurses. §59-1008, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Free Vending License. §62-510, Burns’ 1952 Replacement.
Gross Income Tax Exemption During Service. §64-2606(a), Burns’ 1951 Replacement (Supp.).
Poll Tax Exemption for Disabled Veterans. §64-220, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Civil Service Appointments. §49-301, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Employment Preference Under Personnel Act. §60-1319, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
School Privileges for Children of Members of the Armed Forces. §28-3716, Burns’ 1948 Replacement.
Preservation of Teachers Contract Rights During Service. §28-4322, Burns’ 1948 Replacement.
Additional Inheritance Tax Exemption for Veterans’ Estate Dying in Service. Chapter 103, Acts 1945.
World War II Veterans Bonus Act. Chapter 277, Acts 1949, and amendments, §59-1401, et seq., Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
Armed Forces Mortgage Exemption. §64-227, Burns’ 1951 Replacement.
The eightieth session of the General Assembly enacted Ch. 21 of the 1937 Acts, which was a comprehensive law on fish and game and the taking thereof, §11-1424, Burns’ 1942 Replacement (Supp.), which provides for the issuance of free permits to hunt, trap and fish to veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurrection, The Mexican Border Expedition in 1916 and 1917, World War I and World War II. The exemption statute required each permittee to have his permit upon his person when hunting, trapping or fishing. There is nothing in the statutes which gives any of the veterans a right to violate any law with respect to the preservation of fish or game, and their permits are subject to revocation under the same terms *342applicable to any other licensee or permittee. No veteran is authorized to hunt, trap or fish during a closed season, or to take any fish or game in an unlawful manner. There can be no unreasonable classification because of these provisions.
However, §51 of the 1937 Act, §11-1803, Burns’ 1942 Replacement, provides that all license fees be paid into the state treasury to become a part of the fish and game protection and propagation fund, to be used “in the propagation of, protection, and purchase of fish, frogs, mussels, wild birds, wild animals, or game, and all other expenses connected therewith.” Rhetorical paragraph 13 of the appellant’s complaint states as follows: *343In other words, the argument is presented that because the State of Indiana gets less federal aid the law is unconstitutional. The short answer to that is that if the legislature chooses to place considerations of patriotism higher and of greater value than the protection and purchase of “fish, frogs, mussels, wild birds, wild animals, or game,” it has the constitutional right to do so.
*342“That a Tax of the United States Government (U. S. C. A. Title 26, Sections 3406 and 3407) is imposed upon the manufacture of hunting and fishing equipment. That an amount equal to these monies for each fiscal year are apportioned to the States, including the State of Indiana, for the propagation and preservation of fish and game and distributed upon the basis of (1) size of the State (2) number of licenses sold, and that this plaintiff has purchased both hunting and fishing equipment within the past six (6) months and thus paid such Federal Tax thereon and that he is deprived, as other hunters and fishermen in this State, and denied his fair and proper share of the amount being apportioned as aforesaid for the reason that the Federal Government does not consider the issuance of a free permit as a license in distributing said funds, (Title 16, Sec. 777 et seq. and 669 et seq.) ; and accordingly the issuance of such free permits causes the amount spent on such preservation and propagation of fish and game in the State of Indiana by the United States Government to be less than if such free permits were not issued. That these circumstances deny to this plaintiff, the equal protection of law, takes his property without due process of law and grants a privilege and immunity to certain citizens of this State and Country, all in conflict with the Constitutional provisions set out in Rhetorical Paragraph 11 above.”
*343This court has the power to declare constitutional acts unconstitutional, but it does not have the right to do so. Unless an act is clearly unconstitutional, the doubt must be resolved in favor of its constitutionality. It is not for this court to substitute its judgment as to what may be good, wise or just legislation for that of the legislature, and this temptation is ever present in the consideration of the constitutionality of every statute under attack. Stating a well recognized rule, and then proceeding to ignore it cannot justify the result of the majority opinion. As was stated by Judge Frazer in Brown v. Buzan (1865), 24 Ind. 194, 196, 197:
“The constitution is paramount to any statute, and whenever the two are in conflict the latter must be held void. But where it is not clear that such conflict exists, the court must not undertake to annul the statute. This rule is well settled, and it is founded in unquestionable wisdom. The apprehension sometimes, though rarely, expressed, that this rule is vicious, and constantly tends toward the destruction of popular liberty, by gradually destroying the constitutional limitations of legislative power, results from a failure to comprehend the character of our forms of government, and the fundamental basis upon which they rest. The legislature is peculiarly under the control of the popular will. It is liable to be changed, at short intervals, by elections. Its errors can, therefore, be quickly cured. The courts are more remote from the reach of the people. If we, by following our doubts, in the absence of clear convictions, shall abridge the just *344authority of the legislature, there is no remedy for six years. Thus, to whatever extent this court might err, in denying the rightful authority of the law-making department, we would chain that authority, for a long period, at our feet. It is better and safer, therefore, that the judiciary, if err it must, should not err in that direction. If either department of the government may slightly overstep the limits of its constitutional powers, it should be that one whose official life shall soonest end. It has the least motive to usurp power not given, and the people can sooner relieve themselves of its mistakes. Herein is a sufficient reason that the courts should never strike down a statute, unless its conflict with the constitution is clear. Then, too, the judiciary ought to accord to the legislature as much purity of purpose as it would claim for itself; as honest a desire to obey the constitution, and, also, a high capacity to judge of its meaning. Hence, its action is entitled to a respect which should beget caution in attempting to set it aside. This, with that corresponding caution of the legislature, in the exercise of doubtful powers, which the oath of office naturally excites in conscientious men, would render the judicial sentence of nullity upon legislative action as rare a thing as it ought to be, and secure that harmonious co-operation of the two departments, and that independence of both, which are essential to good government.”
It would be futile to try to reconcile all the cases from other jurisdictions involving veterans’ benefits, yet the better reasoned cases clearly recognize the rule that when a veteran enlisted in the Armed Forces of the United States, he not only served the federal government but also his state. State ex rel. Atwood v. Johnson (1919), 170 Wis. 218, 175 N. W. 589, 7 A. L. R. 1617 and authorities cited therein.
In Veterans’ Welfare Board v. Riley (1922), 189 Cal. 159, 168, 208 Pac. 678, 22 A. L. R. 1531, the Supreme Court of California considered the constitutional validity of the Veterans’ Education Act of California, *345which provided educational aid to veterans of World War I by a payment of the cost of transportation to educational institutions, annual tuition fees, costs of books and supplies, and $40.00 per month for living expenses. In upholding the Act the court said:
“However, in the case at bar the government receives the highly important advantage of the stimulation of patriotism by a definite recognition of the magnificent, unhesitating, and courageous service of the World War veterans, whose valor and spirit turned the tide of history in favor of our form of government, based, as it is, upon the fundamental principles of the freedom and equality of all men and upon their equal right to participate in the government and to the advantages of such government. This advantage derived from the stimulation of patriotism is sufficient to justify outright gifts of money by way of bonus and pension, and is universally recognized as a sufficient ground for such expenditures.”
The realities of modern military service make absurd the holding in State v. Shedroi (1903), 75 Vt. 277, 54 Atl. 1081, 63 L. R. A. 179, 98 Am. St. Rep. 825, that military service furnishes no basis for classification. In Farley v. Watt (1933), 165 Okla. 6, 7, 8, 23 P. 2d 687, 689, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, in disagreeing with the so-called Vermont rule, said:
“We do not agree with this view. In the first place, the soldiers of the late war were selected from a particular class. It was a governmental classification. The government selected male citizens of a particular age. The vast majority of those who served were between the ages of 18 and 31. They were then in the formative stages of their lives. Many of them when discharged, did not, as the Vermont court said, become a part of the general mass of mankind. For far too many there was no Armistice, there was no discharge, but simply the padded cell, the hospital cot, the white cross. The war definitely interrupted the studies, the vocations, *346the businesses of those young men who were making essential preparations for occupational or professional careers. Those who were classified and called away were handicapped not only by an interrupted preparation, but by a tremendous inflation of values which met them upon their return. They were handicapped by physical disability incident to their governmental service and in wealth and opportunity. They constituted a distinct class distinguished from the mass of society—a class created by deprivation of equal opportunity in civil pursuits at home and marked by disability incident to defense of their country abroad. Marallis v. Chicago, 349 Ill. 422, 182 N. E. 394, 83 A. L. R. 1222.”
The court could well have added that time does not cure everything for the veterans. Even those who returned without being wounded or diseased bear the hidden scars in mind and body which will never change. Few escaped a permanent change of personality when suddenly taken from civilian life and necessarily trained to kill by every means of violence permitted by the rule of warfare. Nor will they ever regain the depletion of their reserve of nervous and physical energy, nor can they ever fully recover from the heavy strains of training or battle. Excessive strain, according to modern medical science, may be responsible for much undue shortening of the life span. To hold that military service per se does not furnish an adequate and reasonable basis for classification is to consider modern warfare no different than that waged before the Napoleonic wars, when its practice was more gentlemanly than aggressive.
There has never been any doubt as to the validity of federal pensions. “Power to grant pensions is not controverted, nor can it well be, as it was exercised by the States and by the Continental Congress during the war of the Revolution; and the exercise of the power is *347coeval with the organization of the government under the present Constitution, and has been continued without interruption or question to the present time.” United States v. Hall (1878), 98 U. S. 343, 346, 25 L. Ed. 180.
If then the reasoning of the majority opinion is valid, then any resident of Indiana who had a gross income over $1,000 a year when the bonus surtax was in effect, could claim that the Indiana Bonus Act was unconstitutional, because he had to pay tax for the benefit of a veteran of World War II. A veteran of World War I could assert that he was discriminated against because he never received any bonus compensation from Indiana. A veteran of the Korean war, who paid the surtax, could equally assert that he was discriminated against because he was as much entitled to a bonus as World War II veterans.
There is no legal reason or basis in experience for putting a veteran’s preference on a different basis than a pension act. As was stated in State ex rel. Reclamation Board v. Clausen (1920), 110 Wash. 525, 542, 188 Pac. 538, 14 A. L. R. 1133:
“Some contention is made that the law is unconstitutional in that it violates the equal privileges and immunities guaranty of our constitution, because it contemplates, in the disposition of the lands, the giving of preference rights to soldiers. All arguments that could be made against the law upon this ground could, with equal force, be made against every pension law that was ever enacted by the Congress of the United States, or any of the states. Manifestly this contention is without merit.”
With equal persuasion the same logic applies to a veteran’s exemption, such as involved in the appeal at bar.
The basic error of the majority opinion lies in its unwarranted assumption that, under the conservation act of 1937 and its amendments, the public health, *348morals, order, safety or welfare could only be protected by the protection and purchase of “fish, frogs, mussels, wild birds, wild animals, or game.” But the public welfare also includes the promotion and appreciation of patriotism.2 What greater patriotic service can be found than the defense of our state and nation in time of peril? There is no constitutional barrier prohibiting one act from regulating hunting, trapping and fishing, and at the same time rewarding patriotic service, so long as the title is broad enough to cover both objects.
The statutory price for a yearly license to hunt, trap and fish is $2.00. If the General Assembly, by statute, had provided that each veteran buying such a permit, be reimbursed from the general fund the sum of $2.00 for each license purchased, the lawsuit would never have been commenced. Such reimbursement would not be materially different than a bonus. But the federal aid, which was the motivating cause for this litigation, would have been forthcoming. The state gives the veteran a piece of paper in one case, worth $2.00 a year, and, in another case under the Bonus Act $400 or $500. Simply because the General Assembly chose to accomplish a public purpose by way of an exemption in obtaining the license, *349the act is unconstitutional, because Indiana gets no federal aid by this method.
The trend of veterans’ legislation since World War II, both in the states and in Congress, has been to grant more liberal benefits. Financial need was not a requirement for receipt of the Indiana bonus. Wealth or financial funds had nothing to do with a veteran’s eligibility to receive financial assistance under the G. I. Bill of Rights (Title 38, U. S. C. A.) for college or professional education. No patriotic citizen objected to additional taxes to give a veteran financial help for such additional education, even though in many instances the veteran or his parents were wealthy, or amply able to provide the entire cost. So far as my research extends, no case can be found where any party had the temerity to suggest the G. I. Bill of Rights was unconstitutional, or not in the interest of the public welfare. But a petty $2.00 license fee is of great moment, and a veterans’ exemption must be struck down in the interests of “fish, frogs, mussels, wild birds, wild animals, or game.” This court could well have applied the maxim, “de minimis non curat lex.”

. Even after Indiana became a state this court recognized certain jurisdiction of Virginia concerning this grant. “Congress has never attempted to make any regulation respecting the lands in this grant, nor have the United States, in any instance, claimed the right to legislate on the subject, or in any manner to interfere with Virginia respecting the primary disposal of the soil. If this is a fair construction of the compact, Virginia retained, and still retains ■ the sole and exclusive right of legislation, so far as respects the transfer from the Government to individual claimants of the legal title to lands in the Illinois Grant; and with respect to these lands, the acts of the General Assembly *340of Virginia have the same force and authority as the acts of Congress have with respect to the other lands in these states.” Henthorn v. Doe (1822), 1 Blackf. 157, 161.

. “Under the act [Wisconsin Bonus Act] the money appropriated as awarded ‘as a token of appreciation of the character and spirit of their patriotic service, and to perpetuate such appreciation as a part of the history of Wisconsin.’ ” Page 230.
“The gratitude due the soldier is no idle sentiment. He who leaves his home and kindred, enters upon the trials and hardships of a soldier, risks his life upon the battle-field for the good of his country, is certainly entitled to the gratitude of all citizens.” Page 233.
“We feel warranted in holding upon principle and authority that the purpose of the act is a public purpose within the meaning of the constitution.” Pages 234, 235.
State ex rel. Atwood v. Johnson (1919), 170 Wis. 218, 175 N. W. 589, 7 A.L.R. 1617.