LEGAL ANALYSIS 89 



be presumed that the legislature determined that to promote the orderly 

 and efficient conduct of the banking business, the duties of depositors, 

 and the liabilities of banks should be defined more specifically than they 

 were at common law/'^^^ 



Due process has often been asserted in an attempt to immunize 

 persons in the conduct of their occupations from legislative control 

 or prohibition. As a general rule, most of the state regulations have 

 dealt with the validity of qualifications which have been prescribed 

 by the legislature. An obvious example of a qualifications case is 

 EUestad w Swayze,^^^ a 1942 case holding that chiropractors could 

 constitutionally be required to pass a basic medical examination. 

 Others have dealt with architects, ^°* plumbers, ^^^ barbers,^ ^^ etc. In 

 nearly every instance the statutory scheme was upheld as being rea- 

 sonably appropriate to promote the public good, although there 

 were some cases in which the particular method employed by the 

 legislature or by the administrators working under the legislative 

 scheme ran afoul of some constitutional limitation. This happened, 

 for example, with respect to pilots, in the 1939 case of State ex rel. 

 Sater \\ State Board of Pilotage Commissioners}^^ There the pilotage 

 commissioners, under a legislative scheme for requiring examinations 

 to determine that prospective pilots were qualified, were claimed 

 to have used that scheme to refuse to permit otherwise qualified per- 

 sons even to take the examination. The court held that if these claims 

 could be factually established, the procedure would violate equal 

 protection requirements because it appeared to be rank favoritism. 

 Basically, however, such a qualification requirement would be above 

 question. 



The general principle was well stated by Judge Main in State 

 V. Pitney ^'^^ a 1914 case referred to earlier dealing with a prohibi- 

 tory tax on the use of trading stamps. After setting forth the broad 

 purposes for which legislatures can enact regulatory or prohibitory 

 legislation, in terms simply of serving the general welfare, he quoted 



106. Id. at 884, 885; 360 P. 2d at 572, 573. 



107. 15 Wn. 2d 281. 130 P. 2d 349 ( 1942). 



108. Sherwood v. Wise, 132 Wash. 295, 232 Pac. 309 (1925). 



109. Tacoma v. Fox, 158 Wash. 325, 290 Pac. 1010 (1930). overruling State ex rel. 

 Richey v. Smith, 42 Wash. 237, 84 Pac. 851 (1906), where the court had held 

 invalid a licensing scheme for plumbers. 



110. State V. Walker, 48 Wash. 8,92 Pac. 775 (1907). 



111. 198 Wash. 695, 90 P. 2d 238 (1939). 



112. 79 Wash. 608, 140 Pac. 918 ( 1914), discussed 5//p/a, nn. 81-82 and 91-93. 



