LEGAL ANALYSIS 103 



a whole. This is not the fact in the proposal discussed in this report. 



The court was reinforced in this position in that there was no 

 provision for new persons to get into the field. It looked for all the 

 world like a scheme to preserve the benefits solely for the old-timers, 

 and quite unlike the present proposal which is designed to insure 

 a scheme for utilization of the salmon resources which will prove 

 beneficial to the people of the state as a whole upon an enduring basis. 



Also, the court in the Bacich case was additionally persuaded 

 that the scheme was not even a rational one to promote the usual 

 purposes of a "grandfather clause." Why, for example, were the 1934 

 licensees not included within the protection? 



By contrast, "grandfather clauses" have frequently been upheld as 

 against constitutional attack. The best example in Washington is 

 Campbell v. State, ^^^ a 1942 decision discussed earlier in this report. 

 There in a legislative scheme prohibiting "chain-dentistry" the court 

 sustained a "grandfather clause" permitting present licensees to con- 

 tinue, saying: 



"There must be a fixed time for the commencement of the operation 



of any law, and many statutory classifications are based solely upon the 



time element . . . Persons within the 'exception have previously invested 



time, labor, and capital in the establishment of chain dental offices, when 



that form of dental practice was recognized as lawful. To prohibit the 



continued maintenance of such established dental offices might well result 



in pecuniary loss while one who has not previously maintained any such 



office is not in the same manner affected by the prohibition of the 

 statute. "1^6 



Similarily, as earlier pointed out in this report, the legislature 

 might well wish to avoid a charge of unconstitutional deprivation of 

 property should a statute be made retroactive in the sense of pro- 

 hibiting persons from carrying on their previous means of livelihood. ^^^ 

 Although under present standards of constitutional law this result 

 seems a very unlikely holding, certainly the legislature might avoid 

 it. In the Campbell case, for example, the court put it thus: 



". . . it would seem unreasonable to place the legislative authority of the 

 state, when it appeared desirable to legislate against an existing evil, in the 

 difficult situation of being compelled to choose between a course which 

 would possibly render proposed beneficial legislation obnoxious, upon the 

 constitutional ground that it unwarrantedly interfered with vested constitu- 

 tional rights, or taking the other line, enact a law subject to attack for the 



135. 12 W^n. 2d 459, 122 P. 2d 458 (1942), discussed supra, nn. 66-69, 75-76, 79-80. 



136. Id. at 470; 122 P. 2d at 463, 464. 



137. See the discussion in the text at n. 72. 



