Court Opinion

ID: 9640071
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:56:45.415709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:31.955200
License: Public Domain

ROBERT S. MILLER, Special Justice,
concurring.1
I agree entirely with the result and the reasoning of this court’s principal opinion, but feel constrained by the reasoning of the dissenting opinion respectfully to propose an underlying analysis which I believe independently supports the court’s principal opinion. Most of my differences with the dissenting opinion are covered by the principal opinion itself, or are self-evident. The notion, for example, that the Chief Justice has created a new court is to me at best a legal conclusion adopted to characterize reasoning on a different subject, and at worst a play on words. The Chief Justice purported to grant the authority of a Circuit Judge to a District Judge; and if he did that properly, he did that and no more.
More fundamentally, though, I believe that the dissenting opinion has been misled by the fact that both Penny Kuprion and Robert Kuprion framed the arguments in their briefs by reference to Legislative Research Com’n v. Brown, Ky., 664 S.W.2d 907 (1984), a leading modem authority of this court (as the dissenting opinion correctly quotes) on the “mandate” of Kentucky’s constitution to “prohibit incursion of one branch of government into the powers and functions of the others.” Id. at 912 (emphases in the original). Much of the discussion of the court in Brown, which involved a series of attempts by the General Assembly to delegate or expand its own traditional means of operation, turned on whether the duties sought to be assigned or stretched called for this court to apply to the constitution “a strict construction” or “a so-called liberal construction.” Id. at 914 and 913. The dissenting opinion over and over harks back to this language of Brown, which I believe is so far afield from the issues before this court that we would be just as well served to consider Brown as a part of a different body of law. Brown did not focus directly on any issue between the legislative branch and the judicial branch, much less on an issue where the two branches have agreed, nor where there are express constitutional provisions that point in opposite directions on the facts before the court. Thus, that opinion gives some, but severely limited guidance to the resolution of the issues in this case. Indeed, in a footnote, this court pointed out that our constitution itself confuses the theoretical question it faced in Brown, because “certain normal functions of one branch are specifically granted to another.” Id. at 912. That is this case.
The historic interface between the executive and judicial branches, on the other hand, *688is finely textured and complex.2 Unlike the existence of a bright line between those two branches as is suggested in the very different context of Brown, it is the rare case where the distinction in inherent roles is clear. See, for example, Lovelace v. Commonwealth, 285 Ky. 326, 147 S.W.2d 1029 (1941) (probation v. parole). Much more typical is the longstanding willingness of this court to allow a great deal of legislative involvement in the development of the procedural rules under which the judicial system functions every day. Without specific constitutional provisions, this court, as a matter of “comity,” has long allowed legislative rule-making in this area of “inherent” judicial power, so long as the operation of the courts was not “impaired,” or made “unworkable” thereby. Burton v. Mayer, 274 Ky. 263, 118 S.W.2d 547, 549 (1938). “Cooperation” of these coequal branches was often encouraged through the years. Commonwealth v. Furste, 288 Ky. 631, 157 S.W.2d 59 (1941); Clark v. Payne, 288 Ky. 819, 157 S.W.2d 63 (1942); Craft v. Commonwealth, Ky., 343 S.W.2d 150 (1961). The same approach continued in the period after the adoption of the present constitution, which expressly directs control of rule-making by this court. O’Bryan v. Commonwealth, Ky., 634 S.W.2d 153 (1982); Combs v. Huff, Ky., 858 S.W.2d 160 (1993). See also McCoy v. Western Baptist Hospital, Ky.App., 628 S.W.2d 634 (1981).
On the other hand, this court has recognized areas of apparently per se “impairment” when confronted with legislative attempts to control more purely judicial-branch matters, limiting the use of judicial contempt powers, Arnett v. Meade, Ky., 462 S.W.2d 940 (1971), auditing the finances of the Bar, Ex Parte Auditor of Public Accounts, Ky., 609 S.W.2d 682 (1980), applying general Open Records rules to court records, Ex parte Farley, Ky., 570 S.W.2d 617 (1978), or judging the competence of witnesses, Gaines v. Commonwealth, Ky., 728 S.W.2d 525 (1987), Drumm v. Commonwealth, Ky., 783 S.W.2d 380 (1990).
More instructive for this litigation, though, has been this court’s willingness to share its familiar functions when it chooses and for reasons satisfactory to it, and the concomitant respect of that principle on the part of the General Assembly. See, for example, Lunsford v. Commonwealth, Ky., 436 S.W.2d 512, 514 (1969), in which the legislature enacted apparently binding rules involving *689criminal rights and procedure, but added that they “shall not be effective as a statute, but shall be construed as a concurrent resolution directed to the Court of Appeals.”
A similar pattern can be seen when the legislature attempts to delegate functions to the judiciary which are not wholly appropriate to this branch of government. This court holds in a general way that “the Legislature is without authority to delegate such a legislative function to the courts.” Boone County v. Town of Verona, 190 Ky. 430, 227 S.W. 804, 806 (1921). In the extraordinarily powerful case of American Beauty Homes Corp. v. Louisville and Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Commission, Ky., 379 S.W.2d 450, 453 (1964), Commissioner Clay expressed the frustration of the judicial branch with the legislature’s attempt to require the courts to hold de novo hearings in highly charged, highly political zoning cases, and expressed a strong view, both on legislative interference with and delegation to the judiciary:
In order that the independence of the three distinct departments of government be preserved, it is a fundamental principle that the legislature cannot invade the province of the judiciary, [citations omitted] It cannot take away judicial power, [citations omitted] Nor may it impose upon the judiciary nonjudicial duties, [citations omitted].
Even in the area of zoning, however, judicial fact-finding has been engaged in since American Beauty Homes, and approved by Kentucky courts, as in Bryan v. Salmon Corp., Ky.App., 554 S.W.2d 912, 917 (1977):
The circuit judge found a compelling need to rezone the property ... The changes found by the court dictated the compelling need ... Here we have a housing shortage, a feasible way to extend urban services, and a demand for housing in the area.
On the other side of the interface between the judicial and legislative branches are those eases where the judiciary on its own moves into areas which are the daily grist of legislation. While acknowledging that we are not here even asked to resolve the continuing debate about the judiciary’s proper role, this court certainly understated the judicial practice when it said in Commonwealth ex rel. Cowan v. Wilkinson, Ky., 828 S.W.2d 610 (1992):
Clearly the establishment of public policy is not within the authority of the courts. Id. at 614.
In the early stages of the development of the British/American judicial system, that was precisely what the courts ordinarily did. Justice Cardozo is quoted in Mash v. Commonwealth, Ky., 769 S.W.2d 42 (1989), aptly calling judge-made law a part of the “blend” of public policy formulation. Id. at 44. That “blend” is the converse of the “comity” which dominates the judiciary’s tolerance of legislative incursions into the judicial arena. If it were not for “the common law,” law libraries in Kentucky would be shrunken remnants of themselves. The above quoted statement is entirely true, however, when one focuses only on (a) the express grant of legislative power by the constitution, and/or (b) any matter on which the legislature has actually acted. Thus it is entirely correct to say:
The establishment of public policy is granted to the legislature alone. It is beyond the power of a court to vitiate an act of the legislature on the grounds that public policy promulgated therein is contrary to what the court considers to be in the public interest. Commonwealth Ex Rel. Cowan v. Wilkinson, Ky., 828 S.W.2d at 614. (Emphases added)
Even that clear rule, however, is subject to this court’s right to find “jural rights” expressly or impliedly in our constitution, see Wittmer v. Jones, Ky., 864 S.W.2d 885 (1993), and to limit the policy-making role of the legislature to prospective legislation, as this court has held it “crystal clear that courts are the proper forums to determine the issues presented in the interpretation of past transactions.” Akers v. Baldwin, Ky., 736 S.W.2d 294, 309 (1987).
Even here, however, there is a functional equivalent of the doctrine of “comity,” in that the legislature’s expression of intent is given deference, even if it cannot be given controlling effect. The Court of Appeals most recently applied this principle in Wigginton v. *690Com. Ex. Rel Caldwell, Ky.App., 760 S.W.2d 885 (1988). (“[W]e have no problem with the court’s decision to not apply KRS 406.031 retroactively. However, the enactment of that statute does provide guidance in that it clearly evinces a legislative intent to limit liability ...”).
In such cases as Rose v. Council for Better Education, Inc., Ky., 790 S.W.2d 186 (1989), this court has gone far to force the legislative branch to adhere to extraordinarily complex and difficult constitutional mandates, but, at the same time, urges “restraint” upon itself when it accepts the responsibility to judge the legislature’s own rules. Philpot v. Patton, Ky., 837 S.W.2d 491, 494 (1992).
Indeed, when this court moves back and forth across the very difficult boundary line between proper and excessive reliance on the policies of the judiciary, it notes that it may be “somewhat presumptuous” in some of its determinations. City of Lexington v. Motel Developers, Inc., Ky., 465 S.W.2d 253, 256 (1971).
The power of this court to declare acts of the legislature unconstitutional is enhanced when the legislature steps into a judicial arena, even if the constitution gives express power to the legislature so to act. Thus in Willis v. Jonson, 275 Ky. 538, 121 S.W.2d 904 (1938), where the legislature acted as mandated by the constitution to create judicial districts, this court took the unusual step to declare that “it is our duty to examine the facts in order to determine whether or not there was any evidence to support the legislative conclusion that a new district was necessary.” Id. at 907. Such raw fact-finding is to be contrasted with the extreme unwillingness of this court to accept a delegation of the power to make judgments on political districts, even when the legislature chooses to ask the judiciary to make districting judgments. Fawbush v. Bond, Ky., 613 S.W.2d 414 (1981).
It is our duty, then, to examine this case in the light of the historic relationship between the legislative and judicial branches, noting that we are here dealing with a case, FIRST, where the constitution has (a) expressly delegated to the legislature a function in the judicial realm, and (b) expressly granted to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a power which he here purports to exercise, and SECOND, where each branch has sought and obtained the cooperation of the other.
If I differ anywhere from the entire reasoning of the principal opinion of this Court, it would be in my belief that the principal opinion takes too seriously the word “temporary.” In the most fundamental sense, it is futile to determine in some general way whether Judge FitzGerald is acting in a “temporary” capacity. As this court’s principal opinion notes, since Judge FitzGerald serves until “further orders of the court,” his tenure could terminate at any time. What could be more fleeting than an appointment at the discretion of the Chief Justice? In that same sense, though, all life is temporary. Who can say that any judge will serve out his or her entire term? As the dissenting opinion says, three and one-half years have passed since Judge FitzGerald’s appointment; and the General Assembly has as yet shown no signs of enacting a “permanent” solution to the problems addressed by the General Assembly, by the Task Force and by the family court project. Nor has the General Assembly shown any sign of ending Jefferson County’s experiment. Out of context, the word “temporary” could mean almost anything — or nothing.
The case most like this one in constitutional format is Craig v. O’Rear, 199 Ky. 553, 251 S.W. 828 (1923), a case, incidentally, cited in Brown, in which the legislature3 purported to appoint “temporary agents” to perform functions in establishing two schools for elementary school teachers, which functions the legislators were not willing to assign to executive “officers exercising a portion of the sovereignty of the state.” Id. at 831. A part of this court’s determination in Craig that the legislature could so act lay in the fact *691that the need addressed by the legislature would end of its own accord, once the schools were up and running (not to mention once they were funded by subsequent General Assemblies), and the “temporary” agents had been assigned only “functions [which] cease when the purpose is accomplished.” Id. at 831. So, too, with the experiment in Jefferson County which is here examined.
A large part of the reasoning of the decision in Craig, however, involved the fact that the temporary actors were mere “agents” and not full-fledged “officers” of the sovereign. Thus, this court approved an assignment of relatively low status, which it might not have done had the assignment otherwise been a duty of a permanent officer. The matter of status, however, is expressly addressed by our constitution in this case. The Chief Justice is plainly allowed to grant Circuit Judge status to District Judges. Thus, we are left with the teaching of Craig that “temporary” appointments are involved where the appointees’ “functions cease when the purpose is accomplished.” The “temporary” nature of Judge FitzGerald appointment, by parity of reasoning, is measured, not by whether he can be expected to live forever or for the large portion of a Circuit Judge’s eight-year term, and certainly not (as the dissenting opinion would require) by whether he serves for a pre-determined number of days. Rather, his term is temporary (under section 110 of the constitution) if he will no longer serve when his service is no longer “necessary for the prompt disposition of causes.” While a different result might be required if some disguised intention of permanence could be implied by a 20-year tenure for the 1991 order, or even hinted by the ten years described by the court’s principal opinion,4 whether or not the present appointment is “temporary” will be answered at the same time we determine whether Judge Fitz-Gerald’s appointment was made “for the prompt disposition of causes.” This is not a separate question at all. If the constitution and sections of the constitution are to be read “as a whole,” Wood v. Board of Education of Danville, Ky., 412 S.W.2d 877, 879 (1967), it is certainly appropriate to read this one constitutional sentence as a whole. It is therefore more important that the 1991 Order was entered “[i]n order to implement the Family Court Project in Jefferson County,” than that the appointments are “subject to further orders of this Court.”
The question, then, narrows itself: Shall this court give effect to the act of the Chief Justice as a means to address “the prompt disposition of causes,” an exercise of one express power in “cooperation” with the legislature’s present unwillingness to exercise its ultimate authority to alter the assignment of jurisdiction among the courts?
The search for “promptness” may be visible at two levels, both in (a) the judicial economy sought by the experiment itself, and (b) the speed with which the legislature can arrive at its ultimate conclusion by the use of a one-county experiment, as opposed to adopting immediately a generally applicable statute or constitutional proposal in uncharted waters.
Were we making a judgment of the “necessity” of this method of attaining the constitutional purpose on our own, I would propose that we weigh several factors, (a) the relative “predominance” of the need for “promptness” in the establishment of the experimental program, (b) the “close relationship” between promptness and the other reasons supporting family dispute reform and the one-county test, and (c) the availability of other methods for accomplishing the goal of promptness. This three-part test is suggested by Commissioner Clay in Chrisman v. Cumberland Coach Lines, Ky., 249 S.W.2d 782, 784 (1952), in the context of the court’s determination of whether a mixed-purpose endeavor (a public transportation system owned by a private entity) constitutes a “public purpose.” Even in such a context, this court has never found it “troublesome” that additional goals are also met by an act done for a proper purpose. So far as I can determine, no decision set aside an authorized good deed simply because some other good deeds were performed simultaneously.
On the other hand, we are not here making a de novo determination, but judging an ac*692tion of the Chief Justice. Were we dealing here with the deed of another constitutional actor, it would be entitled to the presumption of having acted for the proper purpose, as in the case of a city legislative body exercising inherent power, City of Paducah v. Moore, Ky., App., 662 S.W.2d 491, 495 (1984) (“The City’s motive in doing what they did is not before the court on this appeal except with respect to the ultimate result of the motive, the creation of a subterfuge in order to accomplish what they wanted to do.”), or the state legislature itself acting under constitutional constraints, Holsclaw v. Stephens, Ky., 507 S.W.2d 462, 472 (1974) (“Nothing in the record before us suggests an attempt by the General Assembly to escape or avoid constitutional limitations applicable to city and county governments by the expedient of calling them by another name. If such were the case the act would amount to no more than a subterfuge and we would not hesitate to strike it down.”)
The dissenting opinion does not dispute this presumption, but argues that the opposite presumption exists when there is a potential conflict between branches of government. If the history of “comity” and “blend” teaches us anything, however, it is that there is no such radical reversal of presumptions, particularly where each branch is exercising an express constitutional power, and each seeks the “cooperation” of the other.
The dissenting opinion’s proposed alternative would require a “clearly-stated and well-founded” finding by the Chief Justice. This standard is violated, says the dissenting opinion, because the Chief Justice “did not explain” his action fully in his order, and because there is insufficient “support in the record” upon which to judge the Chief Justice’s unmade finding. The dissenting opinion thus proposes5 some sort of due process standard, like those developed by this court and others to be applicable only to individual adjudications. The case of Caller v. Ison, Ky., 508 S.W.2d 776, 777 (1974) (“such finding does not contain sufficient adjudicative facts to permit a court to conduct a meaningful review”), is, after all, among the progeny of City of Louisville v. McDonald, Ky., 470 S.W.2d 173, 178-179 (1971): (“On the other hand, when the local legislative body is used as a vehicle not to make generally applicable law, rules or policy, but to decide whether a particular individual as a result of a factual situation peculiar to his situation is or is not entitled to some form of relief, then the so-called legislative body must act ... upon the basis of appropriate findings of either the commission or the legislative body, which are supported by substantial evidence ... ”). Absent the fundamental fact pattern requiring procedural due process (that is, the phrase underlined in this quotation from McDonald) this court has always held, as in Hohnke v. Commonwealth, Ky., 451 S.W.2d 162, 166 (1970):
Where a rule or regulation of a public administrative agency is within the scope of the authority of such agency it is considered prima facie, or presumptively, valid and reasonable, and the one who raises the question has the burden of pleading and proving facts showing the invalidity of such rule or regulation.
No authority is cited to establish that such a standard as proposed by the dissenting opinion has ever been applied to any constitutional actor exercising legislative- and/or rule-making powers. Must the Chief Justice, like a zoning board determining the use of an individual’s property, also hold a hearing and make a record? Certainly not.
I believe it is not material that Kentucky’s constitution expressly requires that the General Assembly identify the subject matter of statutes in their caption. No case or reasoning is cited to suggest that this express provision impliedly requires even the legislature to make any findings at all, much less “clearly-stated and well-founded” ones. Nor, of *693course, does that part of the constitution apply to the judiciary. Further, I find no basis in logic or authority to suggest that “routine budgetary and administrative actions” under one sub-section of Section 110 call for so vastly a different standard of determination than actions under a sentence which appears an inch away on the same page and section of our constitution.
The error of dissenting opinion’s proposed requirement of a “clearly-stated and well-founded” finding is, I believe, reflected in at least two further matters. First of all, the dissenting opinion would hold that this court cannot go beyond the record in this particular case, viewing only papers filed in a single lawsuit litigated by two parties without substantial financial resources, when it determines whether or not the Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court has violated the constitution. It would, however, be equally appropriate (and equally unhelpful) to note that the burden ordinarily rests upon appellants to show in the record sufficient facts to support the relief they claim. See, e.g., Reichle v. Reichle, Ky., 719 S.W.2d 442 (1986). In fact, so far as this record is concerned, there is not the slightest hint that Chief Justice Stephens did not determine in good faith, nor indeed that he did not determine correctly, that there is a necessity for Judge Fitzgerald’s appointment to accomplish the “prompt determination of causes.” On what basis can the dissenting opinion say that “the facts starkly establish” what has happened in Jefferson County? Applying the standard suggested by this part of the dissenting opinion, all that can be said is that we have no way of knowing one way or the other. So far as we can tell, the Chief Justice could well have determined that the most expeditious way to develop a proper and permanent solution to the problems associated with family-type cases, which permanent solution might have the effect of speeding domestic matters through the judicial system, was the present Jefferson County Family Court experiment. The dissenting opinion concedes as much (“My point is not that family courts do not promote the ‘prompt disposition of causes’. Perhaps they do.”).
It is also, I think, inaccurate to state that “[t]he majority evidently concludes” that anything has happened, much less has it “concluded” that the Chief Justice’s determination was “well-founded.” The principal opinion of this court concludes only what it says it concludes: We do not see where the Chief Justice has exceeded his discretion.
We need not, however, decide this case by reference only to the papers Penny Kuprion and Robert Kuprion chose to file in the trial court, nor by reference only to full-fledged findings of fact included in the order itself. An appropriately stringent test for considering evidence of the Chief Justice’s intent has been applied to legislative action in determining whether it meets a very narrow constitutional exception. It is found in Tabler v. Wallace, Ky. 704 S.W.2d 179 (1986). That case permits consideration of matters “from legislative history, from the statute’s title, preamble or subject matter, or from other authoritative source.” Id. at 186. In this case, those matters certainly would include the legislature’s concurrent resolution, its three applicable budgets and the Task Force report. All are integral parts of the “legislative” history of the 1991 order.6 The “subject matter” of this debate (the prompt disposition of family disputes) is well known to most members of this court; and a view of the vastly increased speed of resolving critical family issues was eloquently described by Robert Kuprion’s counsel at the oral argu*694ment of this case. Penny Kuprion’s counsel honorably conceded that Robert Kuprion’s counsel had given a reasonable description of the effects of the Family Court Project in Jefferson County, a view which he did not necessarily share. Further, he agreed that some time (certainly I believe to be measured in years) is required to work out the details of such a program.
The second level at which the dissenting opinion’s “clearly-stated and well-founded” standard asks too much is when it insists that this court depart from the approach it would take to legislative action in relation to judicial powers, rejecting any reference to the ongoing views of the branch of government whose powers are supposedly infringed upon. The legislature’s initial request for further study, and its request for participation by the judiciary (both included in the concurrent resolution)7, as well as the legislature’s recurrent funding of the Family Court Project are, of course, not entirely dispositive. Because of the cases which exclude one branch from participation in some of the functions of the other, irrespective of the desire of both to cooperate, the body of law involving the judicial-legislative interface teaches us to ask whether the Jefferson County Family Court is so pure and sacrosanct a legislative concern that the judiciary must withdraw from it at all costs, so as to reverse the presumption that the Chief Justice acted in good faith in accordance with the constitution’s standard. As is perfectly obvious when so phrased, this is not such a matter. This is (in the words of Brown,) a case where a “normal function of one branch [has been] specifically granted to another,” and so we must give some deference to legislative judgment, and consider that judicial participation was first invited and later approved by the legislature, by its Concurrent Resolution and by successive budgets.
It is long and well established that the legislative branch of government can express and effect its views on public policy through resolutions which do not require the signature of the governor. Thus see Foley Construction Company v. Ward, Ky., 375 S.W.2d 392, 394 (1964) (“Originally, the right to sue the state was obtained by a joint resolution enacted by the Legislature”); Commonwealth v. McCoun, Ky., 313 S.W.2d 585, 588 (1958) (“Although all joint resolutions are not necessarily regarded or treated as laws, yet a resolution of this present character is regarded as having the force and effect of a law”); Rhoads v. Miller, 298 Ky. 346, 182 S.W.2d 248, 249 (1944) (“A Joint Resolution providing an allowance for postage, telephone, stationery, supplies and stenographic work, to each member of the present General Assembly, and the Lieutenant-Governor.”)
Similarly, the cases which debate the relationship between budget decisions and statutes, Com. ex rel. Armstrong v. Collins, Ky., 709 S.W.2d 437 (1986), Smith v. Kentucky State Racing Commission, Ky.App., 697 S.W.2d 153 (1985), reflect the fact that budgeting is (as this court’s principal opinion aptly says) in many ways the most dramatic means the legislature has to express itself.8
It is therefore appropriate that our determination that the Chief Justice’s 1991 Order was a good faith attempt to exercise his powers under Section 110 of the constitution be framed to reflect the prior judgment by the legislature on that subject. We are required to give deference to that judgment.
I believe, therefore, that the concurrent resolution of the Legislature, the report of the Task Force, several bi-annual budgets, and what the members of this court have observed to be a sensible approach to a serious problem, all mandate our conclusion that the Chief Justice acted reasonably and in good faith within the parameters of the *695constitutional authority expressly granted to him.
SPAIN and STUMBO, JJ., join in this concurring opinion.

. I am not unmindful (and I know that the author of the dissenting opinion also is not) of the language Kentucky Utilities v. South East Coal, Ky., 836 S.W.2d 407 (1992) to the effect that "[a]n issue involving the administrative authority of this Court must be determined by its Justices, rather than executive appointees.” Id. at 408. As held in that case, the Chief Justice nor Justice Leibson need have disqualified himself by virtue of having participated in the 1991 Order or the development of the Jefferson Family Court, but having done so, the constitution itself plainly requires "executive appointees" to participate in this decision under a sentence in Section 110 of the Kentucky Constitution which was not involved in South East Coal.

. The relationship between Congress and the federal judiciary, beginning with a different tradition and different constitutional language, encounters the same problems, resolving them quite differently than Kentucky. It is therefore doubly misleading that the dissenting opinion in several places quotes Brown’s quotations from an opinion of the United States Supreme Court. In fact, the federal analysis begins with the veiy broad notion that "Congress may prescribe how federal courts are to conduct themselves with respect to subject matter over which Congress plainly has the power to legislate.” Prima Paint Corporation v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 395, 405, 87 S.Ct. 1801, 1806, 18 L.Ed.2d 1270, 1278 (1967). For that reason, the federal rules of civil procedure are adopted pursuant to authority granted by statute, and are subject to being overruled by Congress. Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enterprises, Inc. and Michael Shipp, 498 U.S. 533, 552, 111 S.Ct. 922, 933-34, 112 L.Ed.2d 1140, 1159 (1991). Similarly, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that “Congress may confer on the federal courts jurisdiction over any case or controversy that might call for the application of federal law.” Verlinden V.B. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U.S. 480, 492, 103 S.Ct. 1962, 1971, 76 L.Ed.2d 81, 91 (1983). The U.S. Supreme Court has been reluctant to make broad use of delegations of what we would think of as being uniquely judicial functions such as evidentiary privileges, believing those to be "particularly a legislative function.” University of Pennsylvania v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 493 U.S. 182, 189, 110 S.Ct. 577, 582, 107 L.Ed.2d 571, 582 (1990). In the area of administrative law, the U.S. Supreme Court began at the same place as American Beauty Homes, infra, but pulled away from that position as early as United States ex rel Bernardin v. Buell, 172 U.S. 576, 582, 19 S.Ct. 286, 287-88, 43 L.Ed. 559, 561 (1899), and has development a body of law which Professor Davis calls “a little queer,” and at best difficult to rationalize. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise (1958) at page 182. The U.S. Supreme Court’s search for the public policy declared inferentially by various U.S. constitutional provisions is as complex as Kentucky's, and quite different. See, for example, Horwitz, "The Constitution of Change: Legal Fundamentalily without Fundamentalism.” 107 H.L.Rev. 32 (1993). With respect to Congress’ authority to limit the powers of the courts (particularly the Supreme Court), see Calabresi and Rhodes, “The Structural Constitution: Unitary Executive, Plural Judiciary,” 105 H.L.Rev. 1153 (1992)

. We deal with this case as an activity of the judicial branch of government, while in fact it involved an act of the Chief Justice. Similarly, in the Craig case, the leadership of the general assembly actually exercised the powers of appointment. As in Brown, for purposes of these matters, it is appropriate so to treat these legal issues.

. The motive of the Chief Justice is to be tested, I believe, under standards to be discussed below.

. The dissenting opinion hints that the principal opinion agrees in this respect. I believe that the dissenting opinion fails to distinguish between the principal opinion’s statement that the Chief Justice’s act "must be rooted in fact," as opposed to that opinion’s statement that the basis of the order "should be noted” on its face. The latter language does not support the statement contained a few sentences later in the dissenting opinion, which says that the principal opinion "required" that there would be some "basis in the record” to support the Chief Justice’s finding. The actual requirement has been satisfied.

. The Task Force report amplified the "Whereas" portions of the Concurrent Resolution. It listed ten findings, including the notion that frac-tionalization of family-type jurisdiction leads to a waste of time and to delays, in that (a) it "increases the time and expense involved in these cases,” and (b) it creates “an inordinate delay between intake of a case and the final resolution.” Unhelpfully, the dissenting opinion rejects the correct summary contained in the principal opinion of this court, simply because it is merely a summary. The Task Force also recommended action by this court, and by the General Assembly itself. Two of its four recommendations were as follows: “(1) That the Kentucky Supreme Court establish, by Rule, a Pilot Family Court Project for the 1990-92 biennium, with at least one urban and one rural location. (2) That the 1990 Kentucky General Assembly fund such a Pilot Project, including implementation and evaluation.” Both branches of government did much of what the Task Force recommended.

. It is quite true, as the dissenting opinion says, that the concurrent resolution did not expand upon the purposes for this project, much less the “promptness” aspect of the matter. That came later, after the Task Force had reported its multipurpose goals, and after the first year (and again after the second and third years) of the project were undertaken.

. The dissenting opinion's quotation from Ex parte Auditor, 609 S.W.2d at 682, correctly places the word “only” in brackets. That is a word supplied by the dissenting opinion, and not this court. In any event, Ex parte Auditor is there discussing the inability of the legislature to control judicial administration, and is in no way limiting the impact of budgetary decisions on subjects appropriate for legislature action.