Beaufort County v. Jasper County

• Decision Date: 04 December 1951
• Docket Number: No. 16568,16568
• Citation: 220 S.C. 469,68 S.E.2d 421
• Parties: BEAUFORT COUNTY v. JASPER COUNTY. HEYWARD et al. v. BLACK, Auditor of Beaufort County et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

Page 421

68 S.E.2d 421

220 S.C. 469

BEAUFORT COUNTY v. JASPER COUNTY.

HEYWARD et al. v. BLACK, Auditor of Beaufort County et al.

No. 16568.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Dec. 4, 1951.

C. W. McTeer, Chester, Robinson, Robinson & Dreher, Columbia, Calhoun Thomas, Beaufort, for appellant.

Randolph Murdaugh, C. B. Searson, Hampton, Thomas M. Boulware, Allendale, for respondent.

Report of E. W. MOLLINS, Special Referee.

To the Presiding Judges of the Court of Common Pleas for Beaufort and Jasper Counties, South Carolina:

I, the undersigned Referee, have to report:

Two actions entitled as above were instituted in due time to determine the validity of an Act of the General Assembly, approved by the Governor on the 2nd day of June, 1950, annexing Yemassee Township, then in Beaufort County, to Jasper County. These cases, although pending in separate counties and differing as to the relief sought, raise the same basic issues by their challenge of the legality of the proposed annexation of Yemassee Township, in Beaufort County, to Jasper County.

By order of Honorable J. Henry Johnson both actions were referred to the undersigned Referee with instructions to take the testimony and report his findings of fact and conclusions of law, the order further providing that the two actions should be tried together. This has been done and this report is the Referee's report in both of these cases.

The testimony was taken at Beaufort and the arguments were had before the Referee in Columbia.

The cases were ably argued by counsel on both sides, who also filed helpful briefs, and the Referee has given careful consideration to all of the contentions of the respective parties.

In both actions the validity of the Act of the General Assembly on May 31, 1950, approved June 2, 1950, 46 Stats. 2332, providing for the transfer and annexation of Yemassee Township, in Beaufort County, to Jasper County, is questioned on various grounds which will be hereinafter considered and discussed. It might be well to first quote the pertinent portions of the Act. The preamble (emphsis added) is as follows:

'Whereas, upon a certificate of the commissioners of election for Beaufort County filed in his office, the Secretary of State has duly certified to the General Assembly that at an election duly ordered and held in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and laws of the State of South Carolina on the question of whether or not that portion of Beaufort County lying West of New River and run of Great Swamp, known as and constituting Yemassee Township, shall be annexed to Jasper County, more than two-thirds of the votes cast in the said election were in favor of such annexation of said Yamassee township to Jasper County; and,

'And whereas, the validity of the said election is now questioned; and whereas, upon the record before it the General Assembly finds that the said election was lawfully held and resulted in the required vote for the said annexation but, in order to protect any possible rights the opponents of the said annexation may have the General Assembly desires to preserve for the opponents of the said annexation an opportunity to apply to the Courts for such relief as they may be entitled to in the manner hereinafter set out; and Whereas, if the said election is valid and if the word 'area', in the sense in which it is used in the Constitution in Article 7, section 4, includes marsh lands and inland water, or either, as the same are defined and explained in the surveyors' report herein which is the meaning attributed to that word by the General Assembly in this act, then allof the conditions required by the Constitution and laws of this state were and have been complied iwht;'

Section 13 of the Act, (emphasis added), is as follows: 'This act shall be deemed a public act and take effect thirty days after the approval thereof by the Governor, unless within the said thirty days appropriate proceedings shall have been instituted in a Court of competent jurisdiction and if such proceedings are so instituted the act shall not take effect until a final decision is rendered in such proceedings so instituted, holding first, that the word 'area' in the sense in which it is used in the Constitution in Article 7, Section 4, includes marsh lands and inland water, or either, as the same are defined and explained in the surveyors' report herein; and, second, deciding in the favor of the validity of the said election; or unless the said proceedings are dismissed without a decision on either of the said two questions and for other cause; in either of which two events this act shall thereupon immediately take effect; provided that this act shall never take effect should the final decision in said proceedings hold that said word 'area' in the sense in which it is so used does not include marsh lands or inland water or should it decide against the validity of the said election and the Court or Courts may hear and determine any and all legal or constitutional questions affecting said annexation or election.'

The Act makes its effective date depend upon, first, the institution of certain proceedings, and next upon final decision in such proceedings and the two questions set out in the Act to be decided in such proceedings are:

First, the correctness of the Legislative finding upon the record before it (including the adjudication of the Commissioners of Election and the Certificate of the Secretary of State) that the election is valid, and

Second, the correctness of the Legislative finding that the word 'area', in its constitutional sense, includes marsh lands and inland water, or either, and its finding upon the record before it (including stipulation No. 3 and the accompanying highway map) that the requisite area has been left in Beaufort County.

In addition to these questions, the Court may also decide any other legal questions properly before it.

Its jurisdiction comes from the Constitution and not this Act.

Before considering the various objections raised as to the validity of the Act, it should be pointed out that most of the objections revolve around the contention that the effect of the annexation, if the Act is held valid, will be to reduce the 'area' in Beaufort County below the 500 square miles required of all 'old counties' by Article VIII, section 4, of the Constitution of this State.

In both complaints it is alleged that the Act is illegal and unconstitutional for various reasons which will be hereinafter taken up and disposed of in detail. Since the objections go both to the constitutionality of the Act, and also depend upon the meaning and effect to be given to the language used therein, we shall first briefly advert to the rule which our Court has frequently announced with respect to the determination of the question as to whether or not an Act of the General Assembly is constitutional, and then to certain general rules which the Court has applied in determining the meaning and effect of legislative enactments generally.

In Gaud v. Walker et al., 214 S.C. 451, 53 S.E.2d 316, 320, the Supreme Court adverted to the following well settled principals which should govern the Court in determining whether or not an act of the General Assembly violates any of the provisions of the State Constitution: 'We approach the consideration of the various constitutional grounds upon which this legislation is challenged with the following well settled principles in mind: 'The supreme legislative power of the State is vested in the General Assembly; the provisions of our State Constitution are not a grant but a limitation of legislative power, so that the General Assembly may enact any law not expressly, or by clar implication, prohibited by the State or Federal Constitution; a statute will, if possible, be construed so as to render it valid; every presumption will be made in favor of the constitutionality of a legislative enactment; and a statute will be declared unconstitutional only when its invalidity appears so clearly as to leave no room for reasonable doubt that it violates some provision of the Constitution.' Moseley et al. v. Welch et al., 209 S.C. 19, 39 S.E.2d 133, 137.'

The primary rule of construction, as to which all other rules for statutory construction is subservient, is that one which requires that the legislative intent must prevail if it can reasonably be discovered in the language used, which must be construed in light of the intended purpose, and hence the real purpose and intent of the lawmakers will prevail over the literal import of a statute. Greenville Enterprise v. Jennings, 210 S.C. 163, 41 S.E.2d 868; Caughman v. Columbia Y. M. C. A., 212 S.C. 337, 47 S.E.2d 788.

In construing a statute a court may not give to particular words a significance which would be clearly repugnant to the statute looked at as a whole and destructive of its obvious intent. Creech v. South Carolina Public Service Authority, 200 S.C. 127, 20 S.E.2d 645.

Another familiar rule is that, as between two possible constructions of a statute, that one should be adopted which effectuates rather than defeats the legislative purpose.

As heretofore pointed out the objections raised with respect to the invalidity of the Act are identical in both complaints. (See subdivisions a to j, both inclusive, of paragraph 6, in the case of Beaufort County v. Jasper County, and subdivisions a to j, both inclusive, of paragraph 7 of the complaint in the other case).

The plaintiffs allege that the Act in question is invalid and unconstitutional for a number of reasons, and we will consider the questions raised in the order set forth in the complaints (subdivisions a to j, inclusive).

Subdivision (A)

This objection is as follows: 'Because the surveyors' report upon which the Commissioners based their finding that Beaufort County will be left after the annexation with more than 500 square miles of area, was made without an actual survey and...