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Director of the Office of State Lands & Investments v. Merbanco6/6/2003
eeks trust lands for its highway program. The State may instead employ the procedures established by the Commissioner's rules, or any other procedures reasonably calculated to assure the integrity of the trust and to prevent misapplication of its lands and funds.
Id. at 465.
The Wyoming Supreme Court approved similar logic in Ross v. Trustees of University of Wyoming, 30 Wyo. 433, 222 P. 3 (1924), where we concluded condemnation of a right of way across lands owned by the university did not violate the constitutional requirement for a public auction for "disposition" of school lands. Relying on the fact that the rights of way for public roads improved the value of the remaining school lands, a concept equally applicable to land exchanges, this Court concluded the power to establish public highways "is neither dependent upon, nor limited by, the provisions with respect to the sale and disposition of said lands. The impracticability of creating an easement for a public road by means of a public auction is too obvious to require comment." 222 P. at 6 (emphasis added); see also United States v. Fuller, 20 F. Supp. 839 (D. Idaho 1937).
Considering all the foregoing, we cannot conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the framers of the constitution intended a public auction must occur before the state can exchange school lands for lands of equal value. This holding is necessarily specific to our constitution and mandated by our precedent dating back to territorial days, which requires any finding of unconstitutionality to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. As this Court said in Wagner v. Harris, 1 Wyo. 194, 201-02 (1875):
hat the passage of the charter was unwise and impolitic we are not called upon to decide. The courts will not declare a law or any portion of a law unconstitutional unless its opposition to the fundamental law is clear and plain. To justify a court in pronouncing an act of the legislature to be unconstitutional the incompatibility must not be speculative, argumentative, or to be found only in hypothetical cases or in supposed consequences; it must be clear, decided and inevitable, such as presents a contradiction at once to the mind, without straining either by forced meanings or too remote consequences: 32 U.S. 633, 8 L. Ed. 810, 7 Peters 633; 2 McLane 195.
We recognize the logical appeal of the challengers' contention that the terms used in the constitution can be read to suggest a public auction is required. However, that is not the test. We are asked to hold that the statutes specifically authorizing exchanges without public auction violate the constitution. We cannot do so if there is any reasonable doubt the framers did not intend that result. Based on the foregoing discussion, we conclude such doubt is patent.
Exchanges as a Violation of the State's Fiduciary Duty
In addition to arguing that the constitution, by its explicit terms, requires treatment of exchanges of school lands as sales, the challengers contend the state holds these lands in trust and imply exchanges without public auction violate that trust. Without specific explanation or authority, their argument suggests that exchanges without public auction somehow violate a trustee's fiduciary duties. We recently held Wyoming school lands are not subject to a constitutionally created trust or one created by the Act of Admission. Riedel v. Anderson, 2003 WY 70. However, we found the legislature acted within its authority to create a statutory trust. Id. at ; Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 36-5-105 (LexisNexis 2001). The challengers make no argument that land exchanges violate any aspect of the statutory requirements which establish the terms of that sta
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