Campbell v. Skinner Manufacturing Co.

Citations

• 53 Fla. 632

Syllabus

<p>1. Chapter 5162 of the Laws of 1903, entitled “An act Making Copies of Records Evidence in Re-establishment Proceedings,” is not in conflict with section 16 of article 3 or with section 21 of article 16 of the state constitution of 1885.</p> <p>2. A liberal rule of construction should be applied when the constitutionality of legislative enactments is questioned; and every reasonable doubt should be resolved in favor of the constitutionality of the act assailed. The courts are bound to uphold a statute, unless it is clearly made to appear beyond a reasonable doubt that it is unconstitutional.</p> <p>3. If the title of the act fairly gives notice of the subject of the act so as reasonably to lead to an inquiry into the body thereof, it is all that is necessary. The title need not be an index to the contents of the act. The title to an act may be general, and so long as the generality of the subject therein expressed is not employed as a guise to conceal the real object thereof, or some provision therein, it will not be objectionable.</p> <p>4. A right to have one’s controversies determined by existing rules of evidence is not a vested right, and the legislature, within constitutional restrictions, has the power to change the rules of evidence.</p> <p>5. Section 21 of article 16 of the state constitution of 1885 is not a limitation upon the power of the legislature, so as to prohibit it from changing the rule of evidence as to the introduction in evidence of copies of deeds and mortgages, so long as it did not undertake to render inadmissible the class of instruments enumerated in such section of the • constitution.</p> <p>6. While the proof of the contents, or the substance of the contents of the operative parts of lost instruments, in reestablishment proceedings, should be clear and satisfactory, to require the principles of evidence to be applied with technical nicety in such cases would oftentimes not only work great hardship but would defeat the ends of justice