Waybright v. Duval County

196 So. 430, 142 Fla. 875, 1940 Fla. LEXIS 1474

• Court: Supreme Court of Florida
• Decided: May 10, 1940
• Status: Published

Opinions

Thomas, J.

In this controversy the appellant, who was plaintiff in the circuit court, is a taxpayer, and the appellees are the County of Duval, the members of the board of county commissioners, the members of the civil service commission and the clerk of the civil and criminal courts of Record.

The relief sought was an injunction to prevent the expenditure of public moneys on the order of the civil service commission, but the real purpose of the suit was to -test the constitutionality of the Act creating that body, Chapter 19180, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1939.

The chancellor dismissed the bill of complaint expressing in his opinion some doubt of the validity of the Act but resolving it in favor of its constitutionality. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Coachman, 59 Fla. 130, 52 South. Rep. 377, 20 Ann. Cas. 1047.

Doubtless the chancellor applied the proper rule in considering the matter and he was eminently correct in holding as he did when he was not convinced of the unconstitutionality of the enactment.

Withoút indulging any presumption of the propriety of his conclusion but on the other hand indulging the one that the Act is constitutional, we will approach the subject as he did to determine if, beyond a reasonable doubt, violence was done any provisions of the organic law in the passage of the challenged Act and in doing so we will n'ot deal with the merits of the measure, that being the exclusive concern of the legislature.

The Act was an effort on the part of the legislative branch of the government to establish a comprehensive plan for the creation and operation of a civil service commission' in counties of a “population of Not Less Than One Hundred Sixty-Five Thousand and Not More Than One Hundred Eighty Thousand According to the Last Florida State Census, or Any Subsequent State or Federal Census.” The words quoted from the title which we have italicized are the ones which provoked this attack.

The only county falling within this classification at the time the' measure became effective was the one which is a party to this suit and it is conceivable that it can in a future census pass from the designated span of population by losing inhabitants until it has fewer than one hundred sixty-five thousand or, more probably, gaining until its population exceeds the larger number. It is possible, too, that some county with residents short of the minimum number upon the taking of one census might pass beyond the other limitation upon a succeeding one, thereby failing to receive the benefits of the civil service plan.

AVe state such possibilities at the outset because they naturally influence the court in a study of the relationship between the population range, within which a county must fall to take advantage of the Act, and the subject matter of it.

It is conceded by appellant, however, that, no provision' having been included for abolition of the plan when once established, a county could not lose it by an increase in population in excess of one hundred eighty thousand.

There must be a reasonable basis for a classification of this character, else the Act will be declared a local one. State ex rel. Buford v. Shepard, 84 Fla. 206, 93 South. Rep. 667; State ex rel. Buford v. Daniel, 87 Fla. 270, 99 South. Rep. 804.

The civil service scheme is of comparatively recent origin and is a progressive step in the government of public affairs. Why it should be adaptable or practical in a county of one hundred sixty-five or one hundred seventy-five thousand inhabitants and of a lesser value or usefulness in one of one hundred sixty or one hundred ninety thousand persons is so difficult for us to understand that we entertain a reasonable doubt of its validity. It is impracticable to draw a definite and distinct line of demarcation on one side of which some “population statutes” may stand and others fall because of the variety of categories offered and subjects proposed but must in each case hark back to the original rule of reasonable relationship.

Our perusal of the briefs here and of the record, bearing in mind meanwhile the practical application of a civil service statute and the apparently arbitrary figures adopted, leads us to the conviction that every reasonable doubt being resolved in favor of the soundness or validity of the Act, still there is not a just relationship between the governmental plan and the population of the counties where it may be employed.

In adopting this view we have not ignored the case of State ex rel. Buford v. Smith, 88 Fla. 151, 101 South. Rep. 350, where the Act in question affected counties with a range in population from eighty to one hundred thousand. The observation was made there that the law being considered was in effect general because “within a proper classification and * * * potentially applicable to every county of the state * * * ” adding, though, that “If the Acts are local laws they do not violate Sections 20 and 21 of Article III (Const.) in view of Section 24 of Article III.” 88 Fla. text 155.

The date of this pronouncement is significant for it was written before the amendment in 1928 with reference to publication of notice of intention to apply for special legislation and at a time, therefore, when the doctrine established in Stockton v. Powell, 29 Fla. 1, 10 South. Rep. 688, 15 L. R. A. 42, was in force. (See also amendments to Section 21, Article III, adopted in 1938.)

It should be emphasized that the same end could have been accomplished by the passage of a local bill in the manner prescribed by the Constitution and that those very restrictions were calculated to prevent the enactment of local or special laws under the guise of general ones. Harrison v. Wilson, 120 Fla. 771, 163 South. Rep. 233.

Regardless of the merits of the legislation, which are not under question, and dealing only with the manner of enactment, we entertain more doubt of the validity of the Act than did the learned chancellor and we conclude that because of the indistinct relationship between the purposes of the law and the populations of counties where it would be applicable or available, it is in reality a special Act, hence cannot stand having been enacted by the legislature as a general one. John S. Anderson, Jr., v. The Board of Public Instruction, 102 Fla. 595, 136 So. 334.

The order dismissing the bill of complaint is—

Reversed.

Terrell, C. J., Whitfield, P. J., Brown and Bcjford, J. J., concur. Chapman, J., dissents.