Court Opinion

ID: 9740585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:37:56.057888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.045327
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). Appearing in the first of these Supers presentations are those specific rules governing judicial review of administrative decisions which, so far, this Court has not disavowed openly (372 Mich 22, 41-44). By this separate opinion the undersigned means to point them up again lest judicial usurpation of the administrative functions of our many licensing boards and agencies become an unchallenged commonplace of random judicial choice.
When this original action was instituted, in 1962, the administrative functions of present concern were vested exclusively with the defendant hoard of pharmacy by the act of 1885 as amended. They are now so vested by the act of 1962 as amended. See PA 1885, No 134 as amended (CL 1948 and CLS 1961, § 338.401 et seq. [Stat Ann 1956 Rev § 14.721 et seq.]), which act was repealed and replaced by PA 1962, No 151 (CL 1948, § 338.1101 et seq. [Stat Ann 1965 Cum Supp § 14.757(1) et seep]) as amended by PA 1965, No 163. The defendant board has now been transferred “by a type I transfer” to the new department of licensing and regulation. See PA 1965, No 380, § 327, as amended by PA 1965, No 407 (CL 1948, § 16.427 [Stat Ann 1965 Cum Supp § 3.29 (327)]), and § 504 (CL 1948, §16.604 [Stat Ann 1965 Cum Supp § 3.29(504)]), effective, pursuant to executive order, January 1, 1966. I shall allude *480to all but the last of these cited statutes, and also to the constitutionally assailed act (PA 1927, No 359, CL 1948, § 338.481 [Stat Ann 1956 Rev § 14-.771]) according to the respective years of their enactment.
The administrative decision under present review1 should be reversed upon determination that the act of 1927, by force of which the defendant board denied plaintiff’s application for license, was from the beginning violative of the Federal guarantee of due process. Our order should be limited to reversal with remand for reconsideration of plaintiff’s said application in the light of such a determination of unconstitutionality. As against this view some yet unknown number of Justices propose by peremptory writ to compel issuance of a pharmacy license to plaintiff without regard for the defendant board’s continuing jurisdiction to grant, deny, withhold, revoke, suspend, or grant upon condition, pharmacy licenses and certificates according to the administrative authority which by the currently effective act of 1962 is vested exclusively with the board.
Such proposed writ will, if issued and served, brook no discretion of the board to consider or reconsider the already administratively ascertained “violations” by plaintiff which occurred in 1965 (see appendix for full quotation). It will determine that what the board found with respect to such 1965 violations is a nullity the board no longer may employ or consider so far as this plaintiff is concerned. Thus such an issued and served writ will provide for plaintiff an overt advantage over other licensees and future applicants; an advantage of the kind *481renounced by the Court in the presently cited Potts-ville Case.
Let us re-examine Federal Power Commission v. Idaho Power Company, 344 US 17, 20 (73 S Ct 85, 97 L ed 15) (quoted by the writer previously, 372 Mich at 41):
“When the court [court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit] decided that the license should issue without the conditions, it usurped an administrative function. There doubtless may be situations where the provision excised from the administrative order is separable from the remaining parts or so minor as to make remand inappropriate. But the guiding principle, violated here, is that the function of the reviewing court ends when an error of law is laid bare. At that point the matter once more goes to the commission for reconsideration (citiug cases).” ;
along with the principal decision upon which Federal Power’s quoted rule was based, that is, Federal Communications Commission v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 US 134 (60 S Ct 437, 84 L ed 656). In the Pottsville Case Mr. Justice Frankfurter, writing for the Court, declared that “On review the court may thus correct errors of law and on remand the commission is bound to act upon the correction.” Then he went on (p 145):
“But an administrative determination in which is imbedded a legal question open to judicial review does not impliedly foreclose the administrative agency, after its error has been corrected, from enforcing the legislative policy committed to its charge. * * *
“The court of appeals laid bare that error, and in compelling obedience to its correction, exhausted the only power which congress gave it. At this point the commission was again charged with the duty of judging the application in the light of ‘public *482convenience, interest, or necessity.’ The fact that in its first disposition the commission had committed a legal error did not create rights of priority in the respondent, as against the later applicants, which it would not have otherwise possessed. Only congress could confer such a priority. It has not done so.”
Note, in passing, the Supreme Court’s summary disposition of Pottsville’s objection “that if all matters of administrative discretion remain open for determination on remand after reversal, a succession of single determinations upon single legal issues is possible with resulting delay and hardship to the applicant.” Against that objection is arrayed the rather necessary rule that when judicial review of an administrative decision granting or denying license or permit is sought and obtained, the court limits its function to ascertainment of the presence or absence of assigned errors of law and correction of such errors when same are discovered. The short of it is that courts are not authorized to grant, deny, or revoke licenses and permits, directly or by the indirection of peremptory writs. In administrative cases they review and correct legal errors and leave the rest of the administrative process to the statutorily appointed administrator or administrators, subject always to further review as permitted by law.

First: The Grandfather Clause and the Administrative Findings Pertaining Thereto.

Quoted in Justice O’Hara’s opinion are such of the administrative findings and conclusions as to the defendant board were determinative that plaintiff’s insistence upon grandfather rights, under the Act of 1927, should be denied. The facts found in such regard are amply sustained by proof which *483the board, only tbe board, was entitled to weigh, evaluate, and record as factually determinative. Such findings legally support tbe board’s denial of plaintiff’s said application provided tbe final question, now here for tbe first time,2 is due for an affirmative answer. To this point of administrative law see Unemployment Compensation Commission of Alaska v. Aragon, 329 US 143, 153, 154 (67 S Ct 245, 91 L ed 136):
“Here, as in National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc. (1944), 322 US 111, 131 (64 S Ct 851, 88 L ed 1170, 1184), tbe question presented ‘is one of specific application of a broad statutory term in a proceeding in which tbe agency administering tbe statute must determine it initially.’ To sustain the commission’s application of this statutory term, we need not find that its construction is tbe only reasonable one, or even that it is tbe result we would have reached bad tbe question arisen in tbe first instance in judicial proceedings. The ‘reviewing court’s function is limited.’ All that is needed to support tbe commission’s interpretation is that it has ‘warrant in tbe record’ and a ‘reasonable basis in law.’ National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc., supra; Rochester Telephone Corporation v. United States (1939), 307 US 125 (59 S Ct 754, 83 L ed 1147).”

Second: The Constitutional Question.

Justice Adams has considered this question at length. I agree with bis view that tbe act of 1927 is unconstitutional, yet prefer to declare my concurrence in more limited terms; terms confined strictly to tbe intent of this pharmacy ownership statute tbe better to ascertain Avhether it alone, *484tested for Federal due process, bears a “real and substantial relation” to the public health.
From an unnumbered multitude of “reasonable relation” cases, wherein legislative purpose has been tested for evidence of protection of the public health, a judge may bolster his own adjudicatory purpose by selecting with care specific quotations of judicial discovery that this or that law does or does not disclose the constitutionally essential “reasonable” relationship. But when that judge is seated on the bench of a subordinate court, he is not free to thus pick and choose when a court to which he owes obedience has definitely determined the question he must decide, in the exact substance of fact which confronts him, and has not overruled that determination. Then the judge is constitutionally disabled from predicting, and from proceeding upon strength of such a prediction, that his superior will overrule or ignore what was supremely determined. Obedience, not forecast, is the order of the day.
The possibility of reversal by overrulement is no factor of persuasion in favor of prophecy. Things are just the other way around. Reversal in such instance spells honor rather than dishonor of the judge who stands upon law as it is written rather than his estimate of what the law might become on review. See the concluding paragraphs of Bricker v. Green, 313 Mich 218 at 236 (163 ALR 697).
The act of 1927 discloses no indicia of any legislative purpose except that of regulation of the ownership of pharmacies, drug stores and apothecary shops. The other and more mature act (of 1885), and now the successor thereof (of 1962), were designed alike to and have comprehensively regulated the practice of pharmacy. Hence from the beginning the acts of 1885 and 1962 have provided all — and much more — safeguards of the public health than any that might be claimed for the act of 1927. Here *485the controlling decision of Liggett Co. v. Baldridge, 278 US 105 (49 S Ct 57, 73 L ed 204) comes into play.
The parallelism of the 1927 Pennsylvania statute held mill by Liggett, with the 1927 Michigan statute examined here, is something more than striking. So is the parallelism of the earlier statutes of Pennsylvania (analyzed in Liggett at 112, 113) with the earlier (1885 as amended) statute of Michigan. These compared earlier statutes dictate our saying, of the circumstances subsisting when the legislature considered the act of 1927,3 the same as was said by the Supreme Court of the corresponding circumstances in Pennsylvania when that State’s assembly considered her said act of 1927 (Liggett at 113):
“Thus, it would seem, every point at which the public health is likely to be injuriously affected by the act of the owner in buying,' compounding, or selling drugs and medicines is amply safeguarded.”
This was the first point made by the Court in Liggett in support of its conclusion that the act of Pennsylvania bore no “real and substantial relation” to the public health. The next and final point made by the Court is disclosed best by quotation which requires no comment or discussion (Liggett at 113, 114) :
*486“The act under review does not deal with any of the things covered by the prior statutes above enumerated. It deals in terms only with ownership. It plainly forbids the exercise of an ordinary property right and, on its face, denies what the Constitution guarantees. A State cannot ‘under the guise of protecting the public, arbitrarily interfere with private business or prohibit lawful occupations or impose unreasonable and unnecessary restrictions upon them.’ (Citing cases.) * * *
“We take judicial notice of the fact that the stock in these corporations is bought and sold upon the various stock exchanges of the country and, in the nature of things, must be held and owned to a large extent by persons who are not registered pharmacists. If detriment to the public health thereby has resulted or is threatened, some evidence of it ought to be forthcoming. None has been produced, and, so far as we are informed, either by the record or outside of it, none exists. The claim, that mere ownership of a drug store by one not a pharmacist bears a reasonable relation to the public health, finally rests upon conjecture, unsupported by anything of substance. This is not enough; and it becomes our duty to declare the act assailed to be unconstitutional as in contravention of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.”
Pennsylvania’s act of 1927 appears in full at the margin of Liggett’s report, commencing with the initial paragraph of the Court’s opinion. It was approved May 13, 1927. Our Act of 1927 was approved 20 days later, June 2, 1927. Excepting for inconsequential variations of wording designed principally to fit one act to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the other to the State of Michigan, and excepting a requisite of 25% stock ownership by pharmacists in one instance and a requisite of 100% such ownership in the other, the two statutes as enacted were identical of purport, purpose, and *487designed intent. Too, the consistently duplicative phrasing of both acts leaves something more than an inference of coincidence. Another kind of grandfather — the hired kind — must have been at work in 1927, among the legislators of both States, selling a plan to regulate the ownership of drugstores.
The attorney general insists that Liggett should be discarded in favor of other more recent Supreme Court decisions cited by him. He alleges since Liggett was handed down that there has been an “obvious change in position of the United States Supreme Court.” Whether such change has taken place is a matter of controversial speculation drawn either from left or right reading of such recent decisions, no one of which is factually parallel to Liggett or to this case of Superx. Whatever the right of that speculation, the allegation thus made confronts this Court with still another demand that it predict a new interpretation and application of the Federal Constitution by the Supreme Court. I answer with the patience of impatience. When called upon justiciably to do so, an authoritative authority like Liggett should be followed and applied by every court of a State until the decision and its reasoning is overruled or modified by the only Court that is authorized to overrule or modify it. That Court is not this Court.
The Liggett Case governs today’s constitutional question. It is, perforce, something more than a precedent; a precedent which this Court might otherwise be free to accept or reject. Not having been overruled by the Supreme Court, and that Court having expressly distinguished the statute involved in Liggett from the one tested by the Court in Daniel v. Family Security Life Insurance Company, 336 US 220 (69 S Ct 550, 93 L ed 632, 10 ALR2d *488945),4 this Court upon oath is constraiued to apply Liggett to the aforesaid act of June 2, 1927.
To summarise: No part of the title or body of our said Act of 1927 hints at thought for the public health or anything except a legislative determination to regulate the ownership of pharmacies, drugstores, et cetera. The “one object” title to the act tells tersely what the exact legislative purpose was; “An act to regulate the ownership of pharmacies, drug stores and apothecary shops, and to provide a penalty for the violation of the provisions of this act.” The act discloses no constitutional relationship to the public health, substantial or otherwise; a subject of police power which, when the act was legislatively considered, had already been covered by a comprehensive statute regulating the practice of pharmacy. The act was and now is unconstitutional for the same reason as was given by the Supreme Court in Liggett. I therefore vote to reverse and remand for administrative reconsideration of plaintiff’s pending application for pharmacy license.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., concurred with Black, J.
Appendix.
(Findings and conclusions of defendant board in re 1965 violations as charged against plaintiff Superx)
*489“I. Considering now: Violation of PA 1962, No 151 and board rule 20,  as charged in notice of hearing dated September 7, 1965, and attorney general’s letter of September 20, 1965.
“1. On July 7, 1965, inspectors of this board Ippolito and Spayde filed a special repiort with the pharmacy board which was marked 65-1. In this report and in Ippolito’s testimony before the board it was stated that at 9:20 o’clock a.m.. on July 7,1965 they entered the Battle Creek store of the Superx Drugs Corporation and found a 21-year old clerk in charge and no registered pharmacist on duty; that the prescription section was blocked off by a short stepladder and three small tables; that there were signs in the store reading, ‘Sorry, no prescriptions or sundries sales. Pharmacist sick’; that at 10 o’clock a.m. they ordered the store closed; that they noticed that a door going into the restaurant area was of a canvas accordian type, with a clip lock, poorly locked.
“2. On July 22, 1965, inspectors Ippolito and Spayde made an inspection of the Superx Battle Creek store and filed a report with the board in which they charged that the registered pharmacist in charge of the store had no narcotic license although he had applied for one. They also charged that they found two bottles of outdated (1964) drugs, namely ‘Compocillin suspension.’ (Exhibit 65-2)
“3. The officers and management of Superx by their own testimony admitted 'to a complete lack of knowledge regarding the laws governing the practice of pharmacy in this State.
“Further, this testimony demonstrates that the supervision has been very lax. Also, Herbert Herman, previous owner and now store manager for Superx since their purchase to present time, had been arrested for violations of the dangerous drug act on October of 1962 and has yet to be tried.
*490“Conclusions ok Law, Regarding Foregoing Facts:
“1. Section 14 of PA 1962, No 151 as amended, requires every pharmacy when open for business to be under the personal supervision of a duly licensed and registered pharmacist. The Battle Creek pharmacy of Supers on July 7, 1965, was in violation of this section because no registered pharmacist was in charge while the store was open for business, noting that the whole store is licensed and not just the prescription area.
“2. Section 1(L) (1), Sec. 11, and Sec. 17(m) of PA 1962, No 151, as amended, and board rule 20, 4,  require the proprietor of a pharmacy to dispense only pure and unadulterated drugs, the quality of which has not been deteriorated by age. Keeping compocillin suspension which was 16 months outdated on the shelves was dangerous and a violation of the pharmacy act and the rules of the board.
“3. The lack of knowledge regarding the State pharmacy laws, the lack of control and supervision along with Herman’s alleged violations, does leave the board to conclude that the operation of the Battle Creek store was not being conducted in the best interest of the public health and safety.
“4. The aggregate of the forementioned violations prove to be a most serious complaint, especially when found in a pharmacy operating under such a delicate situation (re: pending application).
“5. This board has the legal right to withhold a pharmacy license from an applicant vdio has repeatedly violated the pharmacy statutes of this State, and the rules of professional conduct adopted by the board pursuant to section 6(h) of PA 1962, No 151, as amended. Therefore the foregoing violations could present sound grounds for denial of application, but not forever. However it is the decision of this board that a denial forever based on these grounds would not be well founded.”

 If the Court’s majority order of May 10, 1965 (375 Mieh 314) is to mean effectively what it says, the matter before us no longer is original mandamus. It has become a specially authorized “appeal’* from “the determination entered December 16, 1965 by the Michigan Board of Pharmacy.” The quotation is from plaintiff’s elaijn pf appeal to this Court, filed January 3, 1966,

 This “final question,” whether PA 1927, No 359, is constitutionally valid, was not raised before the board on the previous oeeasion. See 372 Mich at 30. Now, as all parties agree, it was raised below and is here for review.

 In Wayne County Board of Road Commissioners v. Wayne County Clerk, 293 Mich 229, 235, and again in Husted v. Consumers Power Co., 376 Mich 41, 54 this Court committed its view to that which seems to have been written for the first time in Platt v. Union Pacific R. Co., 99 US 48, 63, 64 (25 L ed 424) :
“There is always a tendency to construe statutes in the light in which they appear when the construction is given. It is easy to be wise after we see the results of experience. * * * But in endeavoring to ascertain what the congress of 1862 intended, we must, as far as possible, place ourselves in the light that congress enjoyed, look at things as they appeared to it, and discover its purpose from the language used in connection with the attending circumstances,”

 Daniel is the principal authority eited by the attorney general in support of his allegation that Liggett should not be followed. The main trouble with his contention lies with this concluding paragraph of Daniel (p 225) :
“The Liggett Case, however, was concerned with a statute far different from the one we are considering now. Pennsylvania required drug store owners to be licensed pharmacists. Because the statute was directed at owners, who might have no connection with the pharmaceutical brandies of modern drug stores, a divided Court thought the measure unreasonable. The Pennsylvania statute was clearly less adapted to the recognized evil than the provision now before us. The Liggett Case, on its faets, is not authority for the invalidation of the South Carolina mortuary act.”