Court Opinion

ID: 9527433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:30:32.75371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:47.392875
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice
(dissenting).
Two classes of applicants are established by the legislation under contest here: (1) those who must produce satisfactory. evidence to the Commission that they are graduates of a college or university and have a major in entomology, and (2) those who have completed at least four years of “satisfactory work” under the supervision of a pest control operator who is recognized, approved and licensed by the Struc*155tural Pest Control Commission.1 La.R.S. 40:1265, subd. C.
• One or the other of these two conditions must be fulfilled.before the “applicant” is permitted by the Commission to fake the required Written examination for a license to do pest control work.. The scope of the examination is set out in Section 1265, subd. A of Title 40 of the Revised Statutes. It requires a knowledge of the practical and scientific facts underlying the practice of structural pest control, control of wood-destroying insects and fumigation, and the necessary knowledge and ability to recognize and control those hazardous conditions which may affect human life and health.
Perhaps it could be conceded that satisfactory evidence that the applicant is a graduate of a college or university and has a major in entomology is a sufficiently definite guideline or standard the Commission may impose as a prerequisite to the right to take'an examination for a license. But I cannot agree that completion of at least four years of “satisfactory work” ttnder the supervision of a licénsed pest control operator furnishes a sufficiently definite guideline tc escape the charge that the Legislature has unlawfully delegated its authority and responsibility.
In the case of the university or college degree requirement, satisfactory evidence of this attainment is the degree or diploma or a certificate from the university or college concerned. And definite curricula and standards are established in universities and colleges to make those requirements reasonably ascertainable by any party desiring to prepare himself for a license. But since the Structural Pest Control Law recognizes an alternate to this qualification, under which appellee falls, that requirement, too, must provide a reasonably ascertainable standard and guide to the qualifications requisite for. a license to do pest control work in order to escape the charge that the Legislature has -unlawfully delegated its authority to an administrative body. In my firm view 'this alternate method does not satisfy these requirements. Quoted in full it simply states that an applicant :
“ * * .*. must have completed at least four year.s'of satisfactory work under the supervision of a pest control operator who is recognized, approved and licensed by the Structural Pest Control Commission in that phase or special Jield of work for which a license is desired;”.
By making the requirement “satisfactory work” the Legislature has, in effect, established a vague and indefinite requirement as a prerequisite to taking the examination to do pest control work. With this delegation of authority the Commission has no guide or standard to control its regulation *157of the prerequisite requirements. What is “satisfactory work” furnishes no ascertainable standard to a prospective applicant desiring to satisfy the prerequisites for taking the examination.
The Commission may, under this vague and indefinite grant of authority, leave the determination of the satisfactory character of the applicant’s work to his employer, to his coworkers, to a majority of his employers, where several are involved, to standards the Commission may impose which would be discriminatory, or to arbitrary standards imposed by the Commission which have no relation to pest control work. The list could be prolonged indefinitely; it is for this reason the act is unconstitutional as applied to the appellee. In order to qualify for the examination appellee must work four years without knowing what “satisfactory work” will mean to the Commission at that time. The prospective applicant is thrown upon the unlimited discretion of the Commission and when this happens due process is abandoned. Appellee has, therefore, properly invoked the State and Federal constitutional guarantees against deprivation of his liberty and property without due process of law. U.S.C.A.Const. amend. XIV, § 1; La. Const, art. 1, § 2.
It is an elementary principle of constitutional law that legislative power conferred under constitutional provisions, cannot be delegated by the Legislature either to the people or any other body or authority. La.Const. art. 3, § 1. City of Alexandria v. Alexandria Fire Fighters Ass’n, Local No. 540, 220 La. 754, 57 So.2d 673 (1952).
Delegation of unlimited discretionary powers to the Commission without fixing any standard or guidelines for carrying out the legislative will amounts to a surrender of legislative power. State v. Morrow, 231 La. 572, 92 So.2d 70 (1956).
Though the Legislature is free to choose among conflicting considerations and, in so doing, mold the law according to its own will, that prerogative is subject to constitutional restrictions. And the freedom of choice which the Legislature enjoys may not be delegated to an administrative officer. When a delegation of power occurs it can only legitimately take place when proper guidelines are erected which make the legislative will reasonably ascertainable. See State v. Morrow, ibid.
In conclusion I wish to quote at length from Banjavich v. Louisiana Licensing Board for Marine Divers, 237 La. 467, 111 So.2d 505 (1959) for the lesson taught there has not been observed in this decision.
“That the pursuit of a legal occupation is a property right cannot be gainsaid. This court, buttressed by authorities of the Supreme Court of the United States, has recognized that the right to engage in a lawful calling is of such a basic *159nature that the curtailment of the right by oppressive or arbitrary legislation effectuates a deprivation of the complainant’s property without due process and denies him equal protection of the law.
“In Allgeyer v. State of Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578, 589, 17 S.Ct. 427, 431, 41 L.Ed. 832, 835, the Supreme Court of the United States, referring to the Fourteenth Amendment, declared:
‘The “liberty” mentioned in that amendment means, not only the right of the citizen to be free from the mere physical restraint of his person, as by incarceration, but the term is deemed to embrace the right of the citizen to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties; to be free to use them in all lawful ways; to live and work where he will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling; * * *.’
“This Court, in State v. Chisesi, 187 La. 675, 175 So. 453, 457, after quoting the above language from the Allgeyer case, said:
'In the course of the opinion in the case cited, the court quoted with approval from the opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley, in Butchers’ Union S. H. & L. S. Co. v. Crescent City L. S. L. & S. H. Co., 111 U.S. 746, 765, 4 S.Ct. 652, 28 L.Ed. 585, 590, to the effect that to deprive a person of his right to pursue his chosen calling deprives him of his liberty, and to prevent his continuing in a lawful business or pursuit in which he is already engaged deprives him of his property, in the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’ (Italics ours.)
See also Mongogna v. O’Dwyer, 204 La. 1030, 16 So.2d 829, 152 A.L.R. 162; 28 Am.Jur. Verbo ‘Injunctions’, Sections 74 and 182; Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 42 S.Ct. 124, 66 L.Ed. 254; Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U.S. 495, 42 S.Ct. 397, 66 L.Ed. 735, 23 A.L.R. 229 and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070, 39 A.L.R. 468.”
I respectfully dissent.

. A special proviso for foreign applicants makes similar requirements.