Opinion
No. 28532.
November 22, 1938. Rehearing Denied December 20, 1938.
(Syllabus.)
1. Constitutional Law — Due Process and Equal Protection of Law — State Regulation of Businesses Affected With Public Interest.
Since there is no closed class or category of business affected with a public interest, the court in applying the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, U.S.C.A. Const. Amends. 5, 14, and corresponding sections of the state Constitution, will determine in each case whether the circumstances are such as to justify the challenged regulation as a reasonable exertion of governmental authority or condemn it as arbitrary and discriminatory.
2. Same — Plastic Nature of Limitations of Police Power.
The limitations of the police power are plastic in their nature and will expand to meet the actual requirements of an advancing civilization and adjust themselves to the necessities of our multiplying complexities in moral, sanitary, economic, and social conditions.
3. Same — Price-Control Provisions of Act Regulating Barber Shops Held not Violative of Constitutional Provisions.
In view of the announced function of the court, the accepted conception of the police power of the state, and the recognized fact that the barber industry is within the regulatory power of the state as to sanitary and health conditions, it cannot be held that the price-control sections of article 2 of chapter 24 of the Session Laws of 1937, 59 Okla. St. Ann. sec. 91 et seq., are so arbitrary, discriminatory, or unreasonable in their general features, as to violate the provisions of either the state or federal Constitutions which deal with liberty, due process, or freedom of contract.
4. Same — Right of Legislature to Delegate to Designated Instrumentality Powers of Fact Finding and Regulation.
Although, in general, the power to legislate cannot be delegated, the Lagislature has the right to delegate to designated instrumentalities certain powers of fact finding and regulation it possesses, when it fixes the limits within which said powers are to be exercised, and in doing so it does not unconstitutionally delegate legislative power.
5. Statutes — Law General and Uniform in Operation Though not Universally Applicable.
A law may be general and uniform in its nature and be within the recognized power of the Legislature, although it may not be universally applicable.
6. Constitutional Law — Right of Litigant to Show Constitutional Law in Operation Is Discriminatory and Unreasonable as to Certain Applications Thereof.
An unsuccessful attack on the general features of a law as unconstitutional does not preclude a litigant from showing or proving that such law in its operation may be so discriminatory and unreasonable as to make certain applications thereof unlawful.
Original proceeding for writ of prohibition by Dennis Vandervort and others against W.P. Keen, District Judge of Custer County. Writ denied.
Arney Barker, for petitioners.
W.P. Keen, for defendant.
This is an original proceeding by Dennis Vandervort and others for writ of prohibition against W.P. Keen, district judge of Custer county, to arrest proceedings in an injunction suit brought in that court by the State Board of Barber Examiners against petitioners pursuant to article 2. chapter 24, S. L. 1937, known as the Barber Law.
The aforesaid statute is attacked as unconstitutional upon the same grounds as urged in the case of Herrin v. Arnold. 183 Okla. 392, 82 P.2d 977. The facts and circumstances here are in every respect analogous to those arising and presented in that case and there all constitutional questions were resolved by the court against the contentions of the petitioner, and the writ denied. No additional questions are presented in the instant case. Therefore, the law as stated and applied in the Herrin Case is controlling and is adopted here, and demands denial of the writ.
Writ denied.
OSBORN, C. J., and CORN, HURST, and DAVISON, JJ., concur.