Twin Falls County v. Hulbert

156 P.2d 319, 66 Idaho 128, 1945 Ida. LEXIS 123
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 19, 1945
DocketNo. 7194.
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 156 P.2d 319 (Twin Falls County v. Hulbert) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Twin Falls County v. Hulbert, 156 P.2d 319, 66 Idaho 128, 1945 Ida. LEXIS 123 (Idaho 1945).

Opinion

*133 GIVENS, J.

Appellant duly and regularly offered for sale at public auction under complete compliance with sec. 30-708, I.C.A. 1 , a used farm-type gasoline tractor, discarded, by the noxious weed department (22-1705, I.C.A.). Respondent Hulbert’s bid of $1,050.00 was the highest, and therefore accepted. Before bidding Hulbert and appellant were advised by representatives of the Office of Price Administration, contrary to the opinion of the prosecuting attorney of appellant County, that the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, Act. Jan. 30, 1942, c. 26, 56 Stat. 23, Title 50 U.S.C.A., sec. 901 et seq., 2 applied, and after the auction that the price bid was above that set by the Admin *134 istrator, (Maximum Price Regulation No. 133 (F.R. 3185) issued April 28, 1942, effective May 11, 1942), therefore illegal, threatening prosecution if the sale were completed, whereupon and whereby Hulbert desisted. Appellant then brought suit against Respondent Hulbert in the State District Court to compel compliance with his bid. Hulbert’s answer stated he was willing to complete his bid by the payment of any legal amount, justified his refusal to proceed further by the Price Administration activities, and praying for general relief, asked for dismissal of appellant’s complaint.

Complaint in intervention was filed by Respondent Administrator, asserting the sale could not legally be consummated for more than $723.56, the maximum price fixed, and prayed, “That it be adjudged and decreed that the plaintiff herein is subject to and governed by the provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, as amended and the provisions of Maximum Price Regulation No. 133, as-amended; that it be further adjudged and decreed that the provisions of the Idaho Statutes relative to the sale of County property, in so far as they are in conflict with the above Act and Regulation, are superseded thereby; for an *135 order enforcing compliance with the provisions of section 4 (a) of said Act; that it be further adjudged and decreed that the sum of $723.56 is the maximum price for which said tractor may be sold; and, for such other, further or different relief as to the Court may seem meet and equitable.”

The learned trial court held the OPA statute constitutionally applied to the County and consequently the maximum price as fixed by Intervenor Administrator was controlling, in effect, concluding: that the plaintiff’s election to prosecute this action, affirmed the sale at the maximum ceiling price, the bid in excess thereof being illegal and void.

By appropriate assignments of error, appellant raises three initial questions: (1) That the Federal Statute does not by its terms and was not intended by Congress to apply to the States of the Union or their political subdivisions, therefore, not to appellant County; (2) that if it be *136 considered that the statute by its terms and provisions does and was intended to apply to the States and Counties, it is unconstitutional as an invasion of state sovereignty, violative of the 9th and 10th Federal Amendments of the Federal Constitution 3 and Section 19, Idaho Admission Bill 4 ; and (3) that the court had no right to compel the County to accept the lesser amount, since the only voluntary action on the part of the County was to pursue the amount of the bid. As subsidiary to the second assignment, appellant urges that the ownership, use and disposal of the tractor by the County were the exercise of governmental, not proprietary functions.

Appellant did not attack the ceiling price fixed by the Administrator, under Section 923(a), U.S.C.A., so Intervenor makes no contention this action should have been before the Emergency Court of Appeals set up by Section 924(c), U.S.C.A., or that the State District Court did not have jurisdiction of the instant action.

Appellant concedes the Federal Statute is constitutional in general, only unconstitutional if attempted to be applied to it, presenting the issue based on this phase in its brief, thus:

“* * * The question of whether the Emergency Price Control Act is to be construed as applying to the several states of the Union and if it be held so to apply, whether such holding makes the Act violative of the Constitution of the United States, is before the Court.
“If Congress had intended to include the several states ■ of the Union within the scope of the Emergency Price Control Act it surely would have used somewhere in the Act *137 the one word which to all of the Courts and to every citizen of the United States of America means one of the individual members of the United States. Its failure to use this word is not to be taken as a mere oversight but is the natural and logical result flowing from the established status of the constitutional law marking separate fields of action of the individual states on the one hand and the federal government on the other hand. By omitting the word ‘state’ and thereby excluding the individual members of the Union from the scope of the Price Control Act, Congress did not invade the sovereignty of the states. That field has been long established and is well defined, as Congress is presumed to have, known.”

Intervenor counters with these apothegms and hypotheses : The failure of Congress to use the word “states” is of no significance since Congress may use any language it chooses if unambiguous; that “government” includes states; contemporaneous administrative construction is controlling; the over-all purpose of the statute demands inclusion of the states; and it has been so construed by subordinate courts; and that Congress must be deemed to have used words and phrases in their ordinary and accepted sense.

The clash arises by reason of the existence of the dual sovereignties, which comprise our federal system, and the necessity of recognizing and heeding the line of demarcation which must be drawn between them and the ■ avoidance of questioned, if not questionable and doubtful, constitutional hazards, which portend if the statute be held to apply to the states, their political subdivisions and their functions, governmental or proprietary. (Soundview Pulp Co. v. Taylor, Commissioner of Public Lands of Washington, (Wash.), 150 P. (2d) 839.)

The impact is between the imputed superiority of the Federal Statute and state statutory actions as to its own affairs not the regulation of one of its citizens.

“* * * And so we have one of those problems in the reading of a statute wherein meaning is sought to be derived not from specific language but by fashioning a mosaic of significance out of the innuendoes of disjointed bits of a statute. At best this is subtle business, calling for great wariness lest what professes to be mere rendering becomes *138 creation and attempted interpretation of legislation becomes legislation itself.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
156 P.2d 319, 66 Idaho 128, 1945 Ida. LEXIS 123, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/twin-falls-county-v-hulbert-idaho-1945.