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Craftsman Builder's Supply Inc. v. Butler Manufacturing Co.3/5/1999
done to him in his person, property or reputation shall have remedy by due course of law." Clause 3 states that all judicial proceedings "shall be administered without denial or unnecessary delay." Clause 4 establishes the right of self-representation in civil cases. Each of these clauses in section 11 has been held to bind the Legislature. See Jensen v. State Tax Comm'n, 835 P.2d 965 (Utah 1992); Berry, 717 P.2d 670; Celebrity Club, Inc. v. Liquor Control Comm'n, 657 P.2d 1293 (1982); Nelson v. Smith, 107 Utah 382, 154 P.2d 634 (1944); Evans, 52 Utah 394, 174 P. 825.
Section 11 mandates not only that the courthouse door be open to all litigants, but also that, once inside the courthouse, litigants are entitled to a remedy "by due course of law" for legal injuries. Thus, to make the right of access to the courthouse more than an empty gesture, clause 2 mandates that "every person, for an injury done to him in his person, property or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law." Clause 2 could not be more clear. The language that "every person" "shall have remedy" that shall be "by due course of law" is as specific, clear, and mandatory as the English language can be. Clause 2, unlike the other three clauses, does not deal with procedural requirements pertaining to judicial proceedings. Rather, clause 2 imposes the "substantive" requirement that one who is harmed in person, property or reputation shall have the right to a "remedy by due course of law."
In flat contradiction to the clear meaning of the above language, Justice Zimmerman argues that the remedy clause does not provide that a person injured in person, property, or reputation shall have a remedy, but that this language means only that remedies should be administered expeditiously. See 148. Thus, according to him, the Legislature has wholly unrestrained power to abrogate any and all remedies that would redress injuries to one's person, property, and reputation. He correctly states that the remedy clause does not merely state that a person "shall have remedy" and that the remedy shall be "by due course of law," but then illogically jumps to the non sequitur that "the remedy guarantee" is thus cast "in a procedural light." 148. That Conclusion is ungrammatical; it makes no sense to say that the substantive right to a remedy is procedural only because it is to be administered without "unnecessary delay." Thus, Justice Zimmerman's purported "parsing" of the language in section 11 is both ungrammatical and flatly contrary to its plain meaning. As stated, the phrase that a remedy shall be by "due course of law" does not change the declarative language that a person shall have a remedy for an injury to person, property, or reputation. The "due course of law" requirement simply means that a remedy shall be administered by established legal procedures. Justice Zimmerman also argues that the clause "which shall be administered without denial or unnecessary delay" reinforces a procedural emphasis. 148. But that adverbial clause does not change in the least the meaning of the preceding phrase that "every person for an injury done to him shall have remedy by due course of law." The latter clause is an independent, declarative clause that creates a right to a remedy, and the language that the remedy "shall be administered without denial or unnecessary delay" merely describes how the right to a remedy should be administered.
Justice Zimmerman's "parsing" of the language is nothing more than a play on words that seeks to obscure the plain meaning of the remedy clause so as to nullify its meaning and effectively erase that clause from the Constitution. As he rewrites section 11, it would read:
"All courts shall
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