Alabama State Bridge Corporation v. Smith

• Decision Date: 22 March 1928
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 828
• Parties: ALABAMA STATE BRIDGE CORPORATION et al. v. SMITH.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

116 So. 695

217 Ala. 311

ALABAMA STATE BRIDGE CORPORATION et al. v. SMITH.

3 Div. 828

Supreme Court of Alabama

March 22, 1928

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Leon McCord, Judge.

Bill for injunction by George L. Smith against the Alabama State Bridge Corporation and others. From a decree overruling a demurrer to the bill, respondents appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Brown Somerville, and Thomas, JJ., dissenting.

Steiner Crum & Weil, of Montgomery, for appellants.

Arthur B. Chilton, of Montgomery, for appellee.

G.W.L Smith, of Brewton, amicus curiae.

SAYRE J.

Proceeding in his right as citizen and taxpayer, appellee by his bill in this cause sought to enjoin an issue of bonds by the Alabama State Bridge Corporation under authority of the act of August 31, 1927 (Acts 1927, p. 278), entitled an "Act to provide for and authorize an incorporation by the Alabama highway director, the president of the state board of administration of Alabama and the chairman of the state tax commission of Alabama, for the purpose of constructing or causing to be constructed bridges and the approaches, for public use, on, or connecting highways in this state," etc. The bill avers that the act in question is unconstitutional and void, and this view found approval in the trial court where a demurrer assigning many grounds was overruled. From that ruling the bridge corporation takes this appeal.

The act is sui generis, and has provoked many objections to its constitutional validity which we have considered in the order of their presentation in the most elaborate of the two briefs filed on behalf of appellee.

In the first place, it is said that the act is offensive to section 45 of the Constitution, which requires that "each law shall contain but one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title." The main and inclusive subject of the act, as expressed in its title, is to create a corporation for the purpose of constructing bridges for public use on the highways of this state, and that subject is expressed with sufficient clearness in that part of the title quoted in the outset of this opinion. In the brief catalogue or index of the powers is found a statement of powers and duties, all of which are germane to the main subject and purpose of the act. In the body of the bill is found, as was to be expected, a statement of powers and duties much more in detail. In the leading case of Ballentyne v. Wickersham, 75 Ala. 533, it was held that, while the clause in question is mandatory, its requirements are not to be exactingly enforced, or in such manner as to cripple legislation, and that, when the subject is expressed in general terms, as is the case in that part of the title quoted above, the Constitution is satisfied, if all that follows is referable and cognate to the subject so expressed. "It is sufficient if the things regulated or forbidden in the body of the act fall within the generic purpose expressed in the title, and relate to it." State v. Stripling, 113 Ala. 120, 21 So. 409, 36 L.R.A. 81; Benners v. State, 124 Ala. 97, 26 So. 942. Scores of cases to the same general effect might be cited. Many of them may be found cited and briefly stated in the editorial note under section 45 in Mayfield's "Constitutions of Alabama." Grounds of objection to the act (Acts 1927, pp. 278-284) under this head are well-nigh as numerous as are its separable provisions. Each of them has had due consideration, whereupon it is the judgment of the court that everything in the catalogue or index of the title or in the body of the act may fairly be referred to that inclusive general title which has been quoted above (Alford v. State, 170 Ala. 218, 54 So. 213, Ann.Cas.1912C, 1093); that there are no unrelated or incongruous provisions, nor any that by reasonable intendment may not be considered as necessarily or properly connected therewith in the effort to frame a statute to carry into effect the general purpose indicated by the title; and, therefore, that there is no offense against section 45 of the Constitution.

It is suggested that in the passage of the act section 61 of the Constitution has been violated. The section referred to is:

"No law shall be passed except by bill, and no bill shall be so altered or amended on its passage through either house as to change its original purpose."

In this connection we have considered section 111 of the Constitution, which provides that:

"No bill introduced as a general law in either house of the Legislature shall be so amended on its passage as to become a special, private or local law."

We do not find in the act or its official legislative history, i.e., the journals of the two houses--to which, in this connection we must refer (Fourment v. State, 155 Ala. 109, 46 So. 266)--sufficient material on which to base approval of the objections here in question. The purpose all along was to provide for the building of bridges on, or in connection with, the highways of the state. The legislative journals show, and the act in its final shape affords, an inference to the same effect, that the bill introduced evidenced a purpose to amend the general corporation laws by providing for the incorporation of appellant in order that it might construct bridges at fifteen designated points in various parts of the state, but that the act issued from the legislative process as an act to provide specifically for the creation of appellant corporation which shall have authority to erect fifteen bridges at points to be located by the highway commission. It will be conceded that, if the bill in its original shape would have operated in any true sense to amend the general corporation laws of the state, it could not have been passed, because section 229 of the Constitution, in relevant part, commands that "the Legislature shall pass no special act conferring corporate powers." But, if the act had preserved the form of the bill as it was on its introduction, the result would have been an act the constitutional equivalent of the act in its final shape.

The original proposal to amend involved a misnomer, as the title and the body of the act proposed and the act in its final shape all show. The legal effect of the act first proposed, if its then shape had been preserved, would have been to provide for the creation of the same corporation that is provided for by the act in its present shape, with this difference: The bill definitely located the fifteen bridges to be constructed at fifteen designated places, as for example, "1. In Wilcox county, between Camden and Linden, Marengo county," whereas the act now provides, as stated above, that the fifteen bridges should be located by the highway commission. Such an act as that proposed would not have offended against section 229 of the Constitution because that section has reference to private corporations. In Ensley v. Simpson, 166 Ala. 366, 52 So. 61, we directed attention to the fact that in the official copy of the Constitution, on file in the office of the secretary of state, section 229 is grouped under the subhead "Private Corporations," and held that, if there had been reason for previous doubt as to the meaning and application of the section, such doubt was relieved by the arrange ment shown in the original copy of the Constitution.

The act as it now appears and the act as first proposed, notwithstanding its designation as an amendment in its first form, undertakes, and undertook in the first place, to create a public corporation for public purposes with which section 229 of the Constitution has nothing to do. The corporation authorized--and we take the authority to be in substance a command--is not intended as a private agency. It has no capital stock. No profit or other advantage is to be realized for the personal benefit of its members, who are officers of the state and ex officio members of the corporation. It is intended to put into use and operation public funds and agencies of the state for the common benefit of the people of the state. It would construct bridges for the public use and, in the end, free to the public. It is an arm of the state, with none of the limitations, disabilities, or responsibilities that affect private corporations as such. The act creating the corporation was and is, so far as concerns the objections heretofore stated, a valid exercise of legislative power.

Nor did the change as to the location of the fifteen bridges to be constructed work a change in the general purpose of the act. The bill in its original form would, and the act in its present shape does, invoke and witness the legislative will to provide for the execution of a general public purpose, and the result is a general law as defined by section 110 of the Constitution.

Section 218 of the Constitution provides:

"The Legislature shall not have the power to require counties or other municipal corporations to pay any charges which are now payable out of the state treasury,"

--and it is alleged in the brief for appellee that the act violates that section. The act provides that:

"As soon as any of the bridges herein authorized are put in operation. *** The corporation is hereby given authority to contract with the board of revenue, court of county commissioners, or like governing body of any county in which a bridge may be constructed under the provisions of this act, for said county to pay annually a sum of money to be agreed upon by the corporation and said county authority; said sum of money to be in lieu of all toll for residents of said county; said sum of money to be paid only so long as the named bridge is under toll."

The language of the act purports to confer authority; no contribution is required. But the act does discriminate for or against some counties,...