Blakey v. City Council of Montgomery

• Decision Date: 20 December 1905
• Citation: 39 So. 745,144 Ala. 481
• Parties: BLAKEY v. CITY COUNCIL OF MONTGOMERY.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

39 So. 745

144 Ala. 481

BLAKEY v. CITY COUNCIL OF MONTGOMERY.

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 20, 1905

Appeal from City Court of Montgomery; A. D. Sayre, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Suit by Robert O. Blakey against the city council of Montgomery. From a decree in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

This was a bill filed to declare the act of the Legislature of Alabama approved February 25, 1903, unconstitutional and void, and an ordinance passed by the city council of Montgomery under the authority of said act to authorize the issuance by the city council of Montgomery of $50,000 of bonds for the construction or purchase of public schoolhouses or buildings null and void, and to restrain the city council from the issuance of said bonds. The validity of the act of the Legislature is attacked first, because the act of the Legislature (Acts 1903, p. 59) is violative of section 45 of the Constitution in that it contains more than one subject second, because said act is in violation of section 62 of the Constitution; third, because said act is violative of section 106 of the Constitution in that it is a local law and no notice was given. The ordinance is attacked because of the unconstitutionality of the act; and because the act provided that the bonds issued under it, should be coupon bonds and the ordinance provides for either coupon or registered bonds and because the records of the city council fail to show that any returning officer for each voting precinct in the city was elected, and because the minutes of the city council failed to show that the thirty days notice as required by the act was given before the election.

Phares Coleman, for appellant.

Ray Rushton, for appellee.

DOWDELL J.

The act of the Legislature approved February 25, 1903, authorizing cities and towns to issue bonds (Acts 1903, p. 59), is not violative of section 45, art. 4, of the Constitution, which provides that "each law shall contain but one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title," etc. The provisions for the election, and the issuance of the bonds in accordance with the result of the election, are embraced within and are clearly cognate and referable to the general subject expressed, which is to authorize cities and towns to issue bonds for certain purposes. Ballentyne v. Wickersham, 75 Ala. 533; Williams v. Board of Revenue, 123 Ala. 432, 26 So. 346; State v. Sayre, 118 Ala. 1, 24 So. 89; State v. Street, 117 Ala. 203, 23 So. 807; Woolf v. Taylor, 98 Ala. 254, 13 So. 688; Barnhill v. Teague, 96 Ala. 207, 11 So. 444; Judson v. City of Bessemer, 87 Ala. 240, 6 So. 267, 4 L. R. A. 742; Hare v. Kennerly, 83 Ala. 608, 3 So. 683.

There is no merit in the contention that section 222 of the Constitution prohibits the passage of a single law covering the issuance of bonds, and that it requires that more than one law should be passed to authorize a city or town to issue the bonds. The authority to the Legislature, given by this section, is to pass general laws authorizing counties, cities, towns, villages, districts, or other political subdivisions of counties, to issue bonds; and the plural word "laws" was employed manifestly for the purpose of allowing the Legislature to pass a different act for cities, towns, and villages, and another act for counties and political subdivisions of counties. If the plural had not been used, and the Legislature had been simply authorized to pass a general law, then it would have been compelled to pass one general law, applying alike to cities and counties. Section 62 of the Constitution has already been passed upon by this court in the case of Walker v. City Council, 139 Ala. 468, 36 So. 23. The decision in that case was adverse to appellant's contention here.

The act under consideration is not rendered a local act by the provisions contained in section 10 (page 62) of the act. This section exempts from the provision of the act the cities of Sheffield and Tuscumbia, and in so doing did nothing more than to copy into the act the provisions of section 225 of the Constitution, which exempted these two cities from the provisions of any general law which might be enacted by the Legislature, under article 12 of the...