Board of County Commissioners of Carbon County v. Rollins & Sons

• Decision Date: 08 October 1900
• Citation: 9 Wyo. 281,62 P. 351
• Parties: BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF CARBON COUNTY v. ROLLINS & SONS
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

62 P. 351

9 Wyo. 281

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF CARBON COUNTY v. ROLLINS & SONS

Supreme Court of Wyoming

October 8, 1900

RESERVED questions from the District Court, Carbon County HON. RICHARD H. SCOTT, Judge of the First District presiding.

The case is fully stated in the opinion.

Affirmed.

Homer Merrell, for plaintiff.

Daniel E. Parks, for defendant.

POTTER, CHIEF JUSTICE. CORN, J., and KNIGHT, J., concur.

OPINION

POTTER, CHIEF JUSTICE.

This is an agreed case submitted to the district court pursuant to the provisions of Section 3662, Revised Statutes. Upon the hearing the questions involved being deemed important and difficult, were reserved for the decision of this court by authority of the statute permitting the district court to reserve for the decision of the supreme court an important or difficult question arising in an action or proceeding pending in such district court. R. S., Secs. 4276-4278.

By the submission of the agreed case, the parties seek the judgment of the court, respecting the duty and liability of the defendant under a contract for the purchase of certain refunding bonds issued by the plaintiff, and it is stipulated that should the bonds be held lawful and valid obligations of the county, then and in that case judgment may be given and entered for the plaintiff, requiring defendant to receive and pay for said bonds according to the terms of said contract of purchase; but if they should be held to be invalid, judgment may be entered for defendant, cancelling the contract and discharging defendant from its performance.

The contract between the parties relates to refunding bonds of the county of Carbon in the sum of $ 14,400, issued for the purpose of refunding certain of its outstanding and unpaid valid and lawful funding bonds. It appears that the funding bonds, so to be refunded, were issued August 1, 1890, to fund and redeem its outstanding valid warrants which had been issued prior to the adoption of the State constitution, to wit, July 10, 1890.

Prior to statehood an act of Congress had restricted the creation of county indebtedness to four per centum upon the assessed value of the taxable property in the county; and the constitution reduced the limitation to two per centum, but expressly provided that previous indebtedness within the said congressional limitation might be bonded. Art. 16, Sec. 3. The agreed statement recites the validity of the funding bonds issued to redeem the indebtedness existing at the time of the adoption of the constitution. It appears also and is set forth in the agreed case, that said funding bonds of 1890 were issued in pursuance of the authority conferred by, and in strict compliance with, certain acts of the Legislature authorizing the issuance of county bonds; viz.: An act approved March 2, 1888, entitled, "An act authorizing the redemption of county indebtedness," as amended by an act approved March 5, 1890, which amended and re-enacted Section 1 of the act of 1888.

The refunding bonds in controversy are issued under and by authority of the same statute laws, and the question presented in the case relates to the power of the county to issue refunding bonds to pay and redeem the funding bonds previously issued under the same statutory provisions; and the extent of the authority conferred in the premises by the statute referred to.

The order of the district court sending the case here reserves generally the questions involved in the case for the decision of this court without a specific statement of what those questions are. Ordinarily it is clear that such a general reservation would be insufficient to present any question to this court for consideration. In Corey v. Corey, 3 Wyo. 210, 19 P. 443, it was said, "We conceive it to be indispensable to any action by this court that the question which it is conceived to be difficult or important should be specially stated by the district court, and without such statements this court has no power to consider any question which may arise in the case." The reason for that is obvious. The statute does not contemplate that this court shall sift the record or proceedings to ascertain the possible questions arising in the case. The district court should distinctly state the question found to have arisen in the case, and deemed to be either important or difficult or both.

In the case at bar, however, the agreed statement of facts upon which the case was submitted sets forth distinctly in its last paragraph what is conceived by the parties to be the chief question involved in the action. We think it evident that the court had reference to that question in its order of reservation, and it is entirely probable that as the question involved was specifically so stated by the parties in their written stipulation, a repetition was thought unnecessary. And that statement may be treated as the statement of the court. To the extent that the question is set out in the agreed statement, we are inclined to regard the reservation sufficient, and will therefore consider and determine that question. Nevertheless, we think the better practice in all cases is for the court's order to contain a specific statement of the questions reserved.

The question thus reserved in this case is as follows:

"Had and has the said plaintiff the power and authority to issue and dispose of said refunding bonds under said constitution and laws, as aforesaid, and do said constitution and laws authorize the issuance and disposition of refunding bonds to refund funding bonds theretofore issued under said constitution and laws as aforesaid?"

The objection of defendant to the bonds is set out in the written stipulation of the parties as follows:

"That the said defendant refuses to perform the said contract on its part, and refuses to accept and pay for the said bonds so tendered to them by said plaintiff, as aforesaid, for the reason and upon the ground that the said refunding bonds are invalid in law, unlawful and void, and unlawfully issued by said plaintiff, and in this, to wit, that said refunding bonds were and are issued under the same said acts and law under which the said funding bonds were and are issued to refund the said funding bonds, and that said acts and laws do not contemplate, and do not authorize the issuance of refunding bonds to refund funding bonds issued under said acts and laws, but that said acts and laws provide and contemplate that all funding bonds issued thereunder shall be paid and redeemed in lawful money, raised by taxation, under said acts and laws, and that after the issuance of funding bonds thereunder no certificate of indebtedness, bond or bonds shall, can, or may be issued by a county of the State of Wyoming thereunder, or under any other law of said State of Wyoming lawfully, unless there be money not otherwise appropriated in the county treasury at the time. That Section 7 of the said act of March 2, A. D. 1888, provides that:

'After the funding of the indebtedness of any county under the provisions of this act, it shall be unlawful for the...