252 N.C. 690 - State v. Warren

How this case has been cited

Cited by 109 later decisions — most recently July 2020 · most notably State v. Sparrow (1970), Lamb v. Wedgewood South Corp. (1983)

2 federal appellate · 101 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

RodmáN, J.,

¶1dissenting: The Court declares its approval of the principles enunciated in S. v. Harris, 216 N.C. 746; Palmer v. Smith, 229 N.C. 612; S. v. Ballance, 229 N.C. 764; Roller v. Allen, 245 N.C. 516; and S. v. Brown, 250 N.C. 54. I likewise express my complete approval of what is said in those cases, and because I am unable to draw any logical distinction between the act here upheld andi the acts there held void, my vote is to reverse.

¶2I think an additional reason requiring reversal is the failure of the act to prescribe any standards which the Board must employ in determining the right to a license. The Legislature cannot delegate its discretionary power. It must prescribe standards and, having prescribed the standards, may authorize an agency to ascertain the facts. Harvell v. Scheidt, 249 N.C. 699; Utilities Com. v. State and Utilities Com. v. Telegraph Co., 239 N.C. 333; Coastal Highway v. Turnpike Authority, 237 N.C. 52. The Licensing Board is authorized to require an examination to determine applicants’ “honesty, truthfulness, integrity and competency.” Unless competency is synonymous with honesty, truthfulness, and integrity, no standard is prescribed to measure competency, and such failure under our decisions is fatal.