Allison v. Hatton

• Decision Date: 27 March 1905
• Citation: 46 Or. 370,80 P. 101
• Parties: ALLISON et al. v. HATTON, Sheriff, et al.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

80 P. 101

46 Or. 370

ALLISON et al. v. HATTON, Sheriff, et al.

Supreme Court of Oregon

March 27, 1905

Appeal from Circuit Court, Washington County; Thomas A. McBride Judge.

Action by Thomas Allison and others against R.S. Hatton, as sheriff of Columbia county, and another. From a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiffs appeal. Reversed.

S.B. Huston, for appellants.

J.W Day, for respondents.

BEAN J.

In 1885 the Legislature passed an act to define and establish the boundaries of Columbia county (Laws Or.1885. p. 324), which became section 2251 of Hill's Ann.Laws 1887. In 1898, by an act to amend an independent act of 1895, to establish more definitely the boundaries of Washington county, a strip of territory 1 mile wide and 11 miles long was taken from the southwest corner of Columbia county and attached to Washington county, provision being made in the law for recording in the latter county certified copies of the records of Columbia county affecting real estate situated in such territory. Laws Or. 1898, p. 27. In 1901 the Legislature, by an act entitled "An act to amend section 2251 of title 2, chapter 4, of the Miscellaneous Laws of Oregon, as compiled and annotated by W. Lair Hill" (Gen.Laws Or.1901, p. 126), changed the boundaries of Columbia county so as to include therein at the southeast corner a small section of territory theretofore not in any county. The amendatory act of 1901 declared that section 2251 "is hereby amended so as to read as follows," and then sets out the section in full as originally enacted, with the change in the boundary at the southeast corner necessary to include the strip of land to be taken into the county. No reference is made to the act of 1898 defining the boundaries of Washington county, and no provision made for recording in Columbia county certified copies of the records of Washington county affecting the title to lands in the disputed territory. After the passage of the amendatory act of 1901, both Columbia and Washington counties claimed jurisdiction over the 11 sections of land taken from Columbia and attached to Washington by the act of 1898. This suit is brought by the citizens and taxpayers in such disputed territory to enjoin and restrain the sale of the land for taxes assessed against it in Columbia county, on the ground that it is within the jurisdiction of Washington, and not Columbia, county. The complaint was dismissed, and plaintiffs appeal.

The position of the defendants is that the amendatory act of 1901, defining the boundaries of Columbia county, being a later legislative declaration on the subject, operated to repeal by implication the act of 1898, defining the boundaries of Washington county, so far as the two are in conflict, and restored to Columbia county the disputed territory. The act of 1901, amending section 2251, so far as the question here involved is concerned, is not a new legislative declaration on the subject of the boundaries of the county, but merely a restatement or republication of the law as it existed prior to the act of 1898, and is therefore not in conflict with the latter act, and does not repeal it by implication. The rule is that where a section of the statute is amended so as to read "as follows," and the section is then set forth with the changes intended to be made, those portions of the old section that are merely copied into the amendment without change are not to be considered as re-enacted or as a new statement of the law but are to be read as a part of the earlier statute, if in conflict with another law passed after the section amended and before the amendatory act, unless there is a clear manifestation of legislative intention to the contrary. In the absence of such an intention, it is the change or additions incorporated in the section amended only that are to be considered enacted. This doctrine has been several times applied by this court...