Board of Harbor Commissioners v. Excelsior Redwood Co.
Before: Garoutte
Synopsis
Constitutional Law — Delegation of Legislative Power — Imposition of Penalty — Executive Body.—The imposition of a penalty is a legislative function, and the legislature cannot delegate the power to impose it to an executive body.
Id.—Rules and Regulations — Executive Administration — Maximum of Penalty.—The legislature may authorize an executive body to make rules and regulations as acts of executive administration, but it cannot authorize it to declare what shall be a misdemeanor or to impose a penalty; and the fact that the legislature fixes a maximum of penalty, which it authorizes the body to impose, is of no avail.
Id. — Penalty Imfosed by Harbor Commissioners — Political Code — Unconstitutional Provision. — Subdivision 6 of section 2569 of the Political Code, providing that the board of harbor commissioners of the port of Eureka may impose penalties not exceeding five hundred dollars for violation of the rules and regulations made by them for the protection of navigation in Humboldt Bay, is an attempt by the legislature to delegate legislative power, and therefore unconstitutional, and the commissioners have no power thereunder to impose a penalty.
Garoutte, J. This is an action to recover a penalty of five hundred dollars imposed by the plaintiff upon the defendant, for the violation of certain rules and regulations made by plaintiff.
Section 2568 of the Political Code provides that “ the board of harbor commissioners of the port of Eureka are authorized and empowered to make such rules and regulations, and take such action, as may be necessary for the protection of navigation in Humboldt Bay.”
Section 2569, subdivision 6, provides: “Impose penalties for violation of such rules and regulations, not exceeding, for any one violation, the sum of five hundred dollars, to be recovered by action.”
Section 5 of the rules and regulations made by plain[493]tiff, in pursuance of the above sections of the code, imposes a penalty in the sum of five hundred dollars for the violation of certain of these rules.
We do not believe the plaintiff has the power to impose a penalty as provided in the rule just mentioned.
The imposition of a penalty is in the nature of a quasi criminal proceeding, as it only follows from the violation of some law.
In United States v. Montell, Taney, 52, referring to the character and object of penalties, we find this language:—
“It is not damages, therefore, that are intended to be secured, but punishment intended to be inflicted upon those who are justly and properly responsible for any improper use of the vessels’ register. .... In other words, it is a fixed penalty imposed by law as a punishment for breach of duty enjoined by law, and must be treated as such,” etc.
The board of harbor commissioners is a creature of the statute, and purely an executive body, and the fixing and imposing of penalties are matters of which the legislature alone has cognizance. An act providing that if a person does or does not do a certain thing he shall pay a penalty of five hundred dollars is legislation. And it is a cardinal principle of representative government that the legislature cannot delegate the power to make laws to any other authority or body. (Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 116, 139.)
Conceding that the legislature could delegate to the plaintiff the authority to make rules and regulations with reference to the navigation of Humboldt Bay, the penalty for the violation of such rules and regulations is a matter purely in the hands of the legislature.
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