Court Opinion

ID: 9558618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:13:47.825133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:27.920688
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(dissenting) — The majority opinion accurately states that this appeal “confronts us with a query identical to that posed in State ex rel. Carroll v. Munro, 52 Wn.2d 522, 327 P.2d 729 (1958).” With this groundwork for a routine application of stare decisis, the majority proceeds *215(I think too routinely and rigidly) to follow the reasoning, and adopt the result, of Carroll v. Munro, supra. Adherence to precedent is, of course, a stellar premise in the firmament of common law jurisprudence. The result, apparently vouchsafed by this doctrine of the ages and the sages, is, at least theoretically, a symmetrical, seamless web of de-cisional law which is aesthetic, logical, and predictable, stable and permanent. But overlooked, in my view, or ignored, is the fact of life and experience that the doctrine of stare decisis can also, unfortunately, perpetuate error and injustice by automatic application of judge-made rules of law as to which objective analysis and reasoning may have been either deficient or absent altogether. The “seamless web” remains intact — but at the expense of truth and justice. Thus, is it so beautiful a thing to behold — and to be held, unquestionably, in such awe and deference?
Article 11, § 6, of the state constitution provides:
The board of county commissioners in each county shall fill all vacancies occurring in any county, township, precinct or road district office of such county by appointment, and officers thus appointed shall 'hold office till the next general election, and until their successors are elected and qualified.
RCW 36.32.070(3) provides:
Whenever there is a vacancy in the board of county commissioners, it shall be filled as follows:
(1) If there are three vacancies, the governor of the state shall appoint two of the officers. The two commissioners thus appointed shall then meet and select the third commissioner. If the two appointed commissioners fail to agree upon selection of the third after the expiration of five days from the day they were appointed, the governor shall appoint the remaining commissioner.
(2) Whenever there are two vacancies in the office of county commissioner, the governor shall appoint one commissioner, and the two commissioners then in office shall appoint the third commissioner. If they fail to agree upon a selection after the expiration of five days from the day of the governor’s appointment, the governor shall appoint the third commissioner.
(3) Whenever there is one vacancy in the office of *216county commissioner, the two remaining commissioners shall fill the vacancy. If the two commissioners fail to agree upon a selection after the expiration of five days from the day the vacancy occurred, the governor shall appoint the third commissioner. (Italics mine.)
The specific problem in the instant case is whether the statute, RCW 36.32.070(3), conflicts with or merely supplements the provisions of Const, art. 11, § 6. In other words, the question is whether the Governor should have and by judicial decision does have the power and authority to fill the vacancy on the Kitsap County Board of County Commissioners when the two remaining commissioners are unable to agree upon the appointment of a successor for a deceased member of the board.
The constitution is not explicit and clear as to what should happen upon the advent of a practical and political problem or hiatus such as in the instant case. Judicial interpretation of the constitution is essential to resolve the problem one way or the other. The statute, I think, is both clear and explicit as to the constitutional hiatus — or as to filling the apparent void in the constitution. It seems to me it offers and thus encourages a common-sense solution of the problem. On occasions too numerous to require citation, the courts in effect have said that legislative enactments should be given a common-sense interpretation and; should be upheld insofar as reasonably possible.
The majority, citing State ex rel. Carroll v. Munro, supra, state that the Governor cannot be authorized by statute to divest the two remaining members of the board of their constitutional appointive power. No mention is made of the fact that the cited case was a five-to-four decision. Judge Rosellini wrote an extremely persuasive and cogent dissent, concurred in by three other present members of this court, including the writer of this dissent. At the time of the decision in State ex rel. Carroll v. Munro, supra, I was strongly convinced that an unnecessary 'and wrong result was reached. I think the result is just as unnecessary and wrong today in the instant case. The reasons in support of these convictions are so clearly and effectively stated in *217the above-mentioned dissent by Judge Rosellini that I could not and shall not attempt to improve upon them.
Suffice it to say that the opinion in the instant case unfortunately utilizes the artificial and fictional distinction between a so-called “legal hiatus” and a “political hiatus”— incidentally, a new and novel distinction, first conceived by the majority in State ex rel. Carroll v. Munro, supra. A “political hiatus”, supposedly, is created by a disagreement between two duly elected county commissioners; while a “legal hiatus” is quite a different kettle of fish, said to exist only where there is an absence of a duly elected quorum membership on the board. In the words of the majority herein:
In the first situation, the two incumbent county commissioners make up a legally constituted board which can legally function and carry on the affairs of county government; whereas, in the second situation, no legally constituted board capable of lawful functioning exists. (Italics mine.)
In the area of local government this distinction between law and politics is, at best, an ephemeral one; and it is an obvious possibility if not a probability that a disagreement between the two remaining commissioners (of opposing party affiliation) over the appointment of a third commissioner will carry over into all phases of the operations of county government. Instead of rigidly interpreting the state constitution to perpetrate this kind of impasse, I would prefer to interpret RCW 36.32.070(3) as implementing and supplementing, rather than detracting from, the pertinent portion of the Washington state constitution, art. 11, § 6.
Sometimes, but perhaps not too often, legal logic assumes or coincides with ultimate or absolute attributes or values. But the seemingly pleasing and diverting syllogism which won the tournament in Carroll v. Munro, supra, ill conceals its palpably synthetic and fictional characteristics. The following comments of Holmes, J., seem apt:
The training of lawyers is a training in logic. The processes of analogy, discrimination, and deduction are those in which they are most at home. The language of judicial *218decisions is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man. Behind the logical form lies a judgment as to the relative worth and importance of competing legislative grounds, often an inarticulate and unconscious judgment, . . . and yet the very root and nerve of the whole proceeding. You can give any conclusion a logical form. 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 465 (1897).
The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. Holmes, the Common Law 1 (1881).
It should be quite apparent from the foregoing that I strongly disagree with the majority. This is largely for the reasons so well stated in the dissent in State ex rel. Carroll v. Munro, supra. In a nutshell, I cannot accept the doctrine of stare decisis as the final word in decision making when it rests upon such a precarious footing as in the instant case, and when there are considerations which appear to me to be very strong and most persuasive justification for different results, both in State ex rel. Carroll v. Munro, supra, and in the instant case. I dissent as vigorously as possible, considering the amenities of the judicial process.