Court Opinion

ID: 9779402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:49:47.230724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.139041
License: Public Domain

*395BILLINGS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Because I do not agree that Section 537-053, RSMo 1986, is consistent with the mandates of the constitutional provisions which guarantee open courts, Mo. Const art I, § H, separation of powers, Mo. Const art. II, § 1, and equal protection of the laws, U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1 and Mo. Const, art. I, § 2, 1 dissent.
The open courts provision declares:
That the courts of justice shall be open to every person, and certain remedy afforded for every injury to person, property or character, and that right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay.
This provision was “designed to protect the citizen in the use of the courts to enforce such rights and remedies as were recognized by the law at the time of its adoption and as might thereafter be created by law.” State ex rel. National Refining Co. v. Seehorn, 344 Mo. 547, 557, 127 S.W.2d 418, 424 (1939). The provision generally renders invalid legislative restrictions on recognized common law rights of redress, such as tort law causes of action. See Strahler v. St. Luke’s Hosp., 706 S.W.2d 7, 11-12 (Mo. banc 1986); State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem. Hosp. for Children v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107, 110 (Mo. banc 1979).
Any legislative restriction on a common law right of redress, including abolition of the right, is valid if it is not arbitrary or unreasonable and it provides for an adequate alternative course of action. See Strahler, 706 S.W.2d at 12. Such a restriction would also be valid if the legislature showed an overpowering public necessity for the abolition or restriction and no alternative method of meeting such public necessity. Smith v. Department of Ins., 507 So.2d 1080, 1088 (Fla.1987).1
The court in Carver v. Schafer, 647 S.W.2d 570, 575 (Mo.App.1983), recognized a common law cause of action against commercial sellers of liquor by the drink who serve alcohol to noticeably intoxicated patrons who subsequently injure third persons. Although this common law right of action was not explicitly established until 1983, it is still a recognized common law right. The common law is not static, but, rather, it is ever evolving. Lambing v. Southland Corp., 739 S.W.2d 717, 718 (Mo. banc 1987). Given the common law cause of action recognized in Carver, the National Refining Co. decision requires that the legislature’s subsequent attempt to abolish that right be reviewed under the dictates of the open courts provision.
Section 537.053 provides a conditional alternative to the cause of action recognized in Carver. A person injured by an intoxicated patron of an establishment licensed to sell liquor by the drink may sue the seller if it has been convicted of selling alcohol to that patron after he became obviously intoxicated. Section 537.053(3). Suit may also be brought if the seller is convicted of serving a minor who subsequently causes injury to someone. Id. This alternative remedy, however, is not adequate.
Prosecutors in Missouri have unbridled discretion in their decisions as to whether *396or not to prosecute cases, State v. Smith, 422 S.W.2d 50, 66-67 (Mo. banc 1967), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 895, 89 S.Ct. 150, 21 L.Ed.2d 176 (1968), including cases against sellers of liquor. State ex inf. McKittrick v. Wallach, 353 Mo. 312, 322-23, 182 S.W.2d 313, 318-19 (banc 1944). “The prosecutor retains sole discretion to determine whether to initiate prosecution....” State ex rel. Norwood v. Drumm, 691 S.W.2d 238, 240 (Mo. banc 1985). Factors other than sufficiency of the evidence enter into the decision to prosecute. A prosecutor may decide not to bring criminal charges because he believes the action against the seller’s license by the Division of Liquor Control sufficiently insures compliance with the state liquor laws. There is also the possibility that the prosecutor will refuse to prosecute a culpable seller of liquor either because of his relationship to the seller or because of enmity he holds against a particular injured person who is thereby prevented from bringing suit. Thus, the conditional alternative provided in § 537.053(3) is inadequate because it could well permit sellers subject to liability under Carver to avoid civil suits simply because the local prosecutor decides not to prosecute the seller. See State ex rel. Schultz v. Harper, 573 S.W.2d 427, 431 (Mo.App.1978). Neither is it apparent that this restriction of the right to sue sellers of liquor is justified by an overpowering public necessity or that there is no other method of meeting any necessity. Because its alternative remedy is not adequate and it is justified by no public necessity, § 537.053 violates the open courts provision.
Section 537.053 is also contrary to the Missouri Constitution’s separation of powers provision, Mo. Const, art. II, § 1, which prohibits persons vested with powers under one branch of government from exercising any power belonging to either of the other two branches. This is because that statute impermissibly delegates to executive officers the discretionary authority to determine when an injured person will have a cause of action.
The principal opinion seeks to avoid this conclusion by finding that § 537.053 does not delegate authority to the executive, but, rather, creates a new, limited cause of action. The statute, however, does both. Whether or not the statute explicitly delegates any authority to the executive, its effect is, in fact, a delegation of authority. The prosecutor has the power either to set into motion the process which might eventually permit a suit by an injured party against the seller or not to set the process into motion at all. The prosecutor also has the power to terminate the process after he has initially started it. Norwood, 691 S.W.2d at 240-41 (recognizing the prosecutor’s power at common law, and in Missouri, to enter a nolle prosequi of a criminal case but limiting the power after a jury verdict of guilty). This is discretionary authority by an executive officer which determines when a suit may be brought.
That the delegation of discretionary authority to executive officers to determine when an injured party may bring a suit is contrary to the separation of powers provision is shown by State ex rel. Consolidated School Dist. C-4 v. Blackwell, 254 S.W.2d 243 (Mo.App.1952). In that case, a county clerk had decided which of two school districts claiming the same territory was legally organized and which was entitled to have taxes levied by him for its support. The court concluded that the clerk, by undertaking these decisions, had improperly assumed judicial powers. Id. at 246. Similarly, prosecutors who make decisions which result in some injured persons becoming entitled to bring a suit, and in others not becoming so entitled, are improperly exercising judicial powers. It is no difference that the clerk in Blackwell assumed the power on his own initiative while the prosecutors will assume it under the authority of § 537.053. The legislature has no power to grant authority to an executive officer to do that which in itself violates the constitution.
Section 537.053 is also unconstitutional under the equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution, U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1, and the Missouri Constitution, Mo. Const, art. 1, § 2.
Under § 537.053, some persons injured by intoxicated persons who were served *397alcohol by commercial sellers of liquor by the drink may bring suit against the seller and others may not. As the right to bring suit for the recovery of damages is not a fundamental right, see Crane v. Riehn, 568 S.W.2d 525, 530 (Mo. banc 1978) (right to bring suit for wrongful death not a fundamental right), and no suspect class is involved, this classification made by § 537.-053 is violative of the equal protection clauses only if it is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest. See Belton v. Board of Police Comm’rs, 708 S.W.2d 131, 139 (Mo. banc 1986).
The legislature’s goal in making the classification found in § 537.053 was to confine the liability of sellers of liquor to those injured in their patrons’ accidents to those cases in which the seller’s conduct was so flagrant that it is provable by criminal conviction. This goal is not reasonably reached by the means provided in the statute because of the prosecutor’s discretion. It is quite likely that many sellers of liquor who have violated the law will avoid civil suits because they avoid criminal pros ecu-' tion for reasons not related to their conduct. Thus, many injured persons to whom the legislature intended to grant a cause of action against a seller of liquor will not obtain that right of redress by the means provided in § 537.053. Given the discretion of prosecutors to file charges in some cases of flagrant conduct and not to do so in other such cases and the possibility that some prosecutors will diligently prosecute flagrant offenders and others will not, the means provided by the legislature to meet its goal is palpably arbitrary. Because the classification made by the statute is not rationally related to the legislature’s goal, it violates equal protection.
The respondents in this case cannot avoid the impact of a finding that the cause of action established by § 537.053(3) violates the separation of powers provision or the equal protection clauses on the ground that subsection 3 is severable from the remainder of the statute. The rule on severability is that if part of a statute is invalid, the remainder of the statute is still to be upheld when what remains is a law which is complete and susceptible of constitutional enforcement and which the legislature would have enacted had it known that a portion of its original statute was invalid. State ex rel. Enright v. Connett, 475 S.W.2d 78, 81 (Mo. banc 1972).
When subsection 3 is severed from the remainder of § 537.053, that which remains completely immunizes sellers of liquor from liability for injuries caused by their patrons. While the legislature did intend to limit the liability of sellers of liquor by enacting § 537.053, it did not completely immunize them. The obvious reason the legislature did not completely do away with liability for sellers of liquor is that it did not want them to have the opportunity to take advantage of immunity by flagrantly and irresponsibly serving minors and the obviously intoxicated. I suggest that this concern about irresponsible behavior by sellers of liquor would have led the legislature to leave the law as it was rather than grant complete immunity to sellers of liquor for injuries caused by their patrons.
Because § 537.053 cannot withstand constitutional challenge, the judgment dismissing the suit in this case should be reversed.

. Strahler and Smith do not conflict with De May v. Liberty Foundry Co., 327 Mo. 495, 37 S.W.2d 640 (1931), which upheld the constitutionality of Missouri’s workers’ compensation law. De May, id. at 508, 37 S.W.2d at 647, does state that the legislature has the power to change or abolish existing statutory or common law causes of action. The De May decision, however, must be read in light of the issue before the court. In abolishing a worker’s right of action against his employer for on-the-job injuries, the legislature provided the reasonable alternative remedy established by the workers’ compensation statute. It was only after finding the existence of this alternative remedy that the Court in De May upheld the statute. See id. at 508-11, 37 S.W.2d at 647-48. Given the implicit importance of the alternative remedy to the decision in De May, it cannot be said to conflict with Strahler and Smith.
Neither do Strahler and Smith conflict with Holder v. Elms Hotel Co., 338 No. 857, 866, 92 S.W.2d 620, 624 (1936). This decision simply quotes a sentence from Silver v. Silver, 280 U.S 117, 122, 50 S.Ct. 57, 58, 74 L.Ed. 221 (1929), which states that the federal constitution does not forbid legislative abolition of common law causes of action. As the federal constitution has no open courts provision, Holder has no applicability to a construction of such a provision in Missouri’s constitution.