Edwards v. Land

851 S.W.2d 484, 1992 Ky. App. LEXIS 176, 1992 WL 171426
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedJuly 24, 1992
DocketNo. 90-CA-002391-MR
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 851 S.W.2d 484 (Edwards v. Land) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Edwards v. Land, 851 S.W.2d 484, 1992 Ky. App. LEXIS 176, 1992 WL 171426 (Ky. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

HUDDLESTON, Judge.

This is an appeal from a Boyle Circuit Court order finding House Bill 551 of the 1988 General Assembly — and consequently KRS 411.188 — unconstitutional. Because we believe the trial judge erred as a matter of law in reaching this determination, we reverse.

This litigation began when Kenneth, Martha and Kendra Land filed suit against Wilbur A. Edwards and Johnetta Haselden for damages resulting from personal injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance Company thereafter intervened to recover no-fault [486]*486benefits, naming Haselden’s insurer, Ag-way Insurance Company, as a defendant.

The Lands subsequently filed a “Second Amended Complaint for Declaratory Relief,” seeking to have KRS 411.188 1 and the House Bill from which it derived, HB 551 — entitled “AN ACT relating to civil actions,” declared unconstitutional. KRS 411.188 appeared as § 4 of HB 551. The Lands offered a panoply of theories as grounds for the statute’s demise.

Boyle Circuit Court responded by finding KRS 411.188 not to be an intrusion on the rule-making powers of Kentucky’s Court of Justice, and therefore not violative of Ky. Const. § 282 and not contrary to KRS 447.-154.3 The court found that the notice mandated by the statute vindicated the rights of notice and due process, substantive rights which the legislature may protect.

Section 54 of the Kentucky Constitution, which is entitled “No restriction on recovery for injury or death,” provides that:

The General Assembly shall have no power to limit the amount to be recovered for injuries resulting in death, or for injuries to person or property.

The court determined that KRS 411.188 was not violative of Ky. Const. § 54, noting that the abrogation of the “collateral source rule” has been upheld in other states having constitutional provisions similar to Ky. Const. § 54.

The court found that KRS 411.188 does not constitute special legislation, and was therefore in compliance with Ky. Const. §§ 59 & 60.

The court determined that KRS 411.188 does not restrict the right of access to the courts by plaintiffs, citing the Florida case. Pinillos v. Cedars of Lebanon Hospital Corp., 403 So.2d 365 (Fla.1981). The court further found that the statute does not require attorneys to render unremunerated legal advice in its notification provisions, since general statements regarding legal requirements do not generally constitute the act of rendering legal advice.

The court determined that HB 551, entitled “AN ACT relating to civil actions,” in fact addressed a plurality of subjects, only some of which relate to civil actions, in contravention of Ky. Const. § 51 which declares, in pertinent part, that:

No law enacted by the General Assembly shall relate to more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title. ...

Significantly, however, the court noted that KRS 411.188 “does fit within the title,” yet found that HB 551’s violation of Ky. Const. § 51 rendered the Act unconstitutional in its entirety. KRS 411.188 as one component of HB 551 was consequently struck down, despite the fact, again, that [487]*487the court conceded that the statute was in the legitimate ambit of HB 551’s title.

In their appeal, Edwards, Haselden and Agway Insurance contend that every provision of HB 551 in fact relates to civil actions, and therefore that the bill is not violative of Ky. Const. § 51. They further contend that even if HB 551 does contain a plurality of subjects, those sections of the Act which are germane to the title should be upheld as constitutional, and only those sections not conforming to the title declared void.

In their brief the Lands essentially repeat all the arguments relating to KRS 411.188’s infirmity rejected by the circuit court,4 in addition to supporting the court’s determination of HB 551’s unconstitutionality.

It has long been the rule in Kentucky that when a subject foreign to the title of an act is introduced into the act’s body, that subject or those subjects may be omitted from the act, and the subjects conforming to the title retained, thereby rendering the act, thus distilled, constitutional. Farris v. Shopper’s Village Liquors, Inc., Ky., 669 S.W.2d 213, 214 (1984); Carrigan v. Fiscal Court of Fulton County, 289 Ky. 562, 159 S.W.2d 420, 421 (1942); State Board of Health v. Willman, 241 Ky. 835, 45 S.W.2d 458, 459 (1932); Thompson v. Commonwealth, 159 Ky. 8, 166 S.W. 623, 624 (1914); Wiemer v. Commissioners of Sinking Fund of City of Louisville, 124 Ky. 377, 99 S.W. 242, 245 (1907). This principle was elaborated early on in State Board of Charities and Corrections v. Hays, 190 Ky. 147, 227 S.W. 282, 284 (1920):

[0]ne part of the body of the act cannot be saved rather than the other where both are covered alike by the title, as may be done where a portion of the body of the act alone is violative of this section of the Constitution. In the former case to hold one portion of the act rather than the other valid would require of the judiciary the selection of the subject-matter of the act upon a mere guess and without legislative guide to determine which, if either, of the two subjects would have been considered alone by the Legislature. Upon the other hand, where the body of the act contains a departure from a valid title, such portion of the act may be declared void, and all that is pertinent to the title selected by the Legislature may be enforced by the judiciary as a legitimate exercise of legislative authority under its own selection of the subject-matter of the enactment.

The court below cites 73 Am.Jur.2d Statutes § 126 (1974) as authority for holding HB 551 unconstitutional in its entirety, due to the multiplicity of subjects supposedly encompassed by the act.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
851 S.W.2d 484, 1992 Ky. App. LEXIS 176, 1992 WL 171426, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/edwards-v-land-kyctapp-1992.