Board of Commissioners v. Forbes Pioneer Boat Line

Citations

• 80 Fla. 252

Syllabus

<p>1. The State Constitution is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature, and. unless legislation duly passed be clearly contrary to some expressed or implied prohibition in the Constitution the courts have no authority to pronounce it invalid.</p> <p>2. The United States Constitution is also a limitation upon the powers of the States.</p> <p>3. One who assails an act of the Legislature as unconstitutional has the .burden of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that such act is in conflict with some designated provision of the State or Federal Constitution.</p> <p>i. The constitutional prohibition against the passage of ex post facto laws is confined to laws respecting criminal punishment and has no relation to retrospective legislation of any other character.</p> <p>5. The constitutional provisions against impairing the obligation of a contract apply only to voluntary contracts and not to obligations imposed by law without the assent of the party bound. That class of obligations aptly styled “quasi contracts” are not embraced within said provisions.</p> <p>6. The passage of retrospective or retroactive legislation in Florida is not in terms forbidden by the State or Federal Constitutions, and such legislation is therefore valid unless invalid for .some reason other than because of its retrospective nature.</p> <p>7. Generally speaking, vested rights can not be disturbed by retrospective legislation, but in its application as a shield or protection, the term vested rights is not used in any narnow or technical sense or as importing a power of legal control, merely, but rather as implying a vested interest which it is right and equitable that the government should recognize and protect and of which the individual could not be deprived arbitrarily without injustice.</p> <p>8. Generally speaking, the moral aspect of the right claimed may be given consideration in determining whether such right is protected by the due process of law clause of the Constitution, and if