Court Opinion

ID: 9545692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:17:42.071139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:21.468125
License: Public Domain

BERRY, Justice
(dissenting).
As I read the majority opinion, it is bottomed on the premise that the purpose of Art. 22, Sec. 2 of the Constitution and vitalizing statutes, was to prevent corporations from engaging in ultra vires acts consisting of owning rural land where such ownership was not authorized by the corporations’ charters. I am unable to agree.
In my opinion, Oklahomans, since the advent of statehood, have considered that the public policy of this State was to encourage individuals to own land and make homes thereon and to, therefore, discourage the ownership of land by corporations which would tend to thwart said policy. Oklahomans have, therefore, construed the cited- Constitutional provision and legislation enacted pursuant thereto as both evi-' dencing and protecting said public policy and as prohibiting corporations from owning land “except such as shall be necessary and proper for carrying on the business for which it was chartered or licensed”, but which business could not lawfully consist of owning rural land other than that necessary to carry on a -business which did not consist of owning rural land. For example, a corporation engaged in the oil business could properly own land for office building purposes or warehouse purposes.
In pointing out the basis of Illinois public policy of prohibiting corporations from owning rural land in said State, the Supreme Court of Illinois in Carroll 'v. City of East St. Louis, 67 Ill. 568, 16 Am.Bep. 632, said in substance that the ownership of land by corporations tended to create a perpetuity and thereby give corporations special privileges not enjoyed by all; *570tended to permit-, concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and tended to take real estate off the market and thus prevent individuals from acquiring same for use of homes. , '
This Court, in Texas Co. v. State ex rel. Coryell, 198 Okl. 565, 570, 180 P.2d 631, 636, made this, observation:
“It is manifest from the quoted debates that there was a determination to prevent corporate ownership of farm lands because it was deemed to be inimical to home ownership and to promote tenancy in the farming class. * * *»
The rationale of the majority opinion is such as to permit a corporation to own any given number of acres of land and minerals underlying the land for any purpose irrespective of the character of the land, provided ownership of the land and-minerals is within the framework of the corporation’s charter. Therefore, that a corporation can .properly own and farm any given number of acres of agricultural land. It follows, and of necessity, that the majority opinion is directly contrary to the proposition heretofore recognized by this Court that the purpose of the cited Constitutional provision and vitalizing legislation “to prevent corporate ownership of farm lands (lands which could be used as homes) because it was inimical to home ownership” and to the construction that Oklahomans have placed on said Constitutional provision and vitalizing legislation.
The matter of- whether the construction that I have alluded to has any basis of course presents itself. If the people or the Legislature had intended to say that the ownership of land by corporations was only prohibited where such ownership was with-' out the corporation’s charter powers, then 'it would have been' a very easy task to have briefly so stated in the Constitutional provision and vitalizing legislation, and the considerable verbiage that was used in said? Constitutional provision and vitalizing legislation would not have been used. If the purpose of said law was to preserve agricultural land for homes and deny it for vast commercial undertakings, and that such was one of the purposes must be conceded, then the pertinent language of-the Constitution to the effect that “except such as shall be necessary and proper for-carrying on the business for which it was chartered or licensed” must be construed as excluding the ownership of rural land that can be used as homes except where the usé-is for office-building sites, warehouse sites,-, railroad right-of-ways, etc.
As I read Texas Co. v. State ex rel. Coryell, 198 Okl. 565, 180 P.2d 631, upon which the majority opinion is predicated, that opinion does not sustain the majority-opinion. In that case, as made clear at page 642 of 180 P.2d, this Court held that Texas Co. was only entitled to own the fee-to the land there involved if the surface-was “necessary to produce, save and transport the products from the premises,” and that since the surface was not necessary under facts of. the case for said purpose,the tracts of land owned in fee by Texas Co. were properly escheated to the State. This construction is in keeping with and not contrary to the construction that has been placed on the Constitutional provision and vitalizing statutes enacted . pursuant thereto since the advent of Statehood. If the referred-to law is a remnant of the ox cart or horse-and-buggy age, it is the province of the people or the Legislature' to change the law.
For the reasons herein stated, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that WILLIAMS, V. C. J., and' BLACKBIRD and IRWIN, JJ., concur in the foregoing views.