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Laney v. Fairview City8/9/2002
it or subscribe to stock or bonds in aid of any railroad, telegraph or other private individual or corporate enterprise or undertaking."
6. Article XVI, section 5
"The right of action to recover for injuries resulting in death, shall never be abrogated, and the amount recoverable shall not be subject to any statutory limitation, except in cases where compensation for injuries resulting in death is provided for by law."
Commenting on Utah's legislative article (Article VI), historian Jean Bickmore White points out that it is typical of the late-nineteenth-century constitutions written by its western neighbors. . . . It . . . mandated that the legislature should not enact special laws . . . where general laws could apply-but went on to list eighteen specific cases where there should be no private or special laws (Art. VI, sec. 26). It specified that (except for general appropriation bills and bills for the codification and general revision of laws) no bill should contain more than one subject-a provision that made the amendment of entire articles difficult. White at 64.
It is very clear from Professor White's history and from the discussions recorded in the Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of The Constitutional Convention for the State of Utah, see Proceedings: Constitutional Convention in passim (Star Printing Co. 1898), that Utah's framers were knowledgeable about contemporary constitutional debates, and sensitive to economic and individual rights issues common in sibling states. That being so, it is entirely plausible that the inclusion of a specific remedies provision in article I, section 11 was deliberate, especially given its textual differences from other contemporary constitutions. See Craftsman, 1999 UT 18 at 49, 974 P.2d 1194 (Stewart, J., concurring) (citing Mont. Const. art. II, § 16; Wash. Const. art I, § 10 ("Justice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay.")). Because Utah's framers did not follow limited models like these, " bviously, they did not intend to so limit the rights guaranteed to the citizens of Utah." Id.
Focusing entirely on the "procedural" content of the language found in section 11, as the State does, is misleading. Constitutional language must be viewed in context, meaning that its history and purpose must be considered in determining its meaning. The language that a remedy shall be had by "due course of law" describes the law by which the remedy is secured, as well as the procedural guarantees also protected by this section. Article I, section 7 already contains a due process provision guaranteeing procedural rights. Thus, if the State's reading of section 11 is correct, section 11 is redundant and mere surplusage--it has no constitutional role or function that is not already performed by section 7. That view has never been embraced by any Utah decision.
This court has always adhered to the view that article I, section 11 imposes some limits on the legislature, a view that former Justice Zimmerman placed in context as follows:
he very act of drafting a constitution such as ours, which does not bestow unlimited power on the legislature and which does reserve certain rights to the people, constitutes a recognition that there must be some limits on the legislature, that some interest of the people deserve special protection in the maelstrom of interest group politics that is the legislative process. Condemarin v. Univ. Hosp., 775 P.2d 348, 368 (Utah 1989) (Zimmerman, J., concurring in part) (emphasis added).
That section 11 is redundant should not be assumed. Hans Linde articulated a cogent and compelling distinction between
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