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Williams v. Wilson4/16/1998
for injuries to person or property." Despite this forthright, compelling language, it has been contended that while the General Assembly would have no power to impose limitations on the amount recoverable in an action for injuries to person or property, it could abolish an action for such injuries. Such is at odds with the tenor of Section 54. With their extraordinary distrust of powerful economic interests, particularly corporations and railroads (Lewis, Jural Rights, at 968), it is inconceivable that the Delegates would have forbidden imposition of damage limitations but allowed abolishment of the underlying cause of action, thereby facilitating the ultimate limitation on damages. Sections 14 and 54 have been read together to prohibit the Legislature from limiting the amount of recovery by destroying the right.
In holding such act unconstitutional, it was pointed out that the objective of section 14 was to preserve those jural rights which had become well established prior to the adoption of the Constitution. It was also decided that section 54 prohibited the legislature from limiting the amount of recovery by destroying the right.
Happy v. Erwin, 330 S.W.2d at 414.
While Section 241 does not apply expressly to injury cases, it is a component of the constitutional limitation on the power of the General Assembly to limit or destroy actions for recovery of damages arising from negligence and serves to prevent legislative encroachment in proper cases.
Appellant contends that our previous jural rights cases, Ludwig v. Johnson, supra, and its progeny, fails to take account of Section 233 of the Constitution of Kentucky. This section declares that on the day of Kentucky's statehood, June 1, 1792, all laws
in force in the State of Virginia, and which are of a general nature and not local to that State, and not repugnant to this Constitution, nor to the laws which have been enacted by the General Assembly of this Commonwealth, shall be in force within this State until they shall be altered or repealed by the General Assembly.
Appellant interprets this section to give the General Assembly plenary power to abrogate or modify the common law. The fallacy of her argument is apparent. This Court has held that Sections 14, 54 and 241 of our Constitution render certain common law rights impervious to legislative dilution or destruction. Such rights are therefore subject to the same restrictions with respect to modification by the General Assembly as are constitutional provisions.
With respect to the contention that punitive damages fall outside the scope of rights protected by Sections 14 and 54 of the Constitution of Kentucky on the view that such damages do not compensate for injuries, Chiles v. Drake, supra, Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Kelly's Adm'x, supra, and Horton v. Union Light & Heat, supra, are dispositive.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of our jural rights decisions has been the "constitutionalization" of newly discovered rights. This heavily criticized concept is best exemplified in Perkins v. Northeastern Log Homes, supra, as follows:
In drafting our constitutional protections in §§ 14, 54 and 241, our founding fathers were protecting the jural rights of the individual citizens of Kentucky against the power of the government to abridge such rights, speaking to their rights as they would be commonly understood by those citizens in any year, not just in 1891.
808 S.W.2d at 816. On the foregoing theory, Carney v. Moody, supra, and Fireman's Fund Ins. v. Government, supra, which had taken a more restrictive view of the scope of jural rights, were overruled.
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