Board of Revenue of Jefferson County v. Kayser
Decision Date | 03 February 1921 |
Docket Number | 6 Div. 160 |
Citation | 205 Ala. 289,88 So. 19 |
Parties | BOARD OF REVENUE OF JEFFERSON COUNTY et al. v. KAYSER. |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; Dan A. Greene, Judge.
Bill by the Board of Revenue of Jefferson County and others, against Leo Kayser seeking to have certain warrants canceled, and held not to constitute a valid claim against the county or its funds. From a decree sustaining demurrers to the bill complainants appeal. Affirmed.
Huey & Welch, of Bessemer, for appellants.
Tillman Bradley & Morrow, of Birmingham, for appellee.
Appellant contends that the act of September 10, 1915, entitled "An act to provide for the payment and retirement of claims against the fine and forfeiture fund of Jefferson county" (Local Acts 1915, p. 360), is unconstitutional for the reason that it violates one or more of sections 45, 96, and 105 of the Constitution.
The act under consideration provides for the payment, at the discretion of the board of revenue of Jefferson county, of claims against the fine and forfeiture fund out of the general treasury of the county. Sanders v. Commissioners' Court of Elmore County, 117 Ala. 543, 23 So. 788, is cited as authority for appellant's contention. We do not perceive any very clear reason why the court in that case, called upon to adjudicate the vitality of the statute, should have first mutilated its title by extirpating its second clause, but so the court did, and then, conceding that the Legislature might make claims against the fine and forfeiture fund a charge upon the general fund of the county, held that such a charge could not be made under the title of "An act to regulate the fine and forfeiture fund." Laws 1894-95, p. 731. We have quoted the title of the act here involved. It has been frequently held that generality and comprehensiveness in the title of an act is no objection to it, so long as such quality is not made a cover for legislation incongruous in itself, and by no fair intendment connected with and cognate to the subject expressed in the title. Cases cited to section 45, Mayfield's Constitution. The court is of opinion that a provision for payment out of the county treasury is connected with and cognate to a provision for the payment and retirement of claims against the fine and forfeiture fund of the county, and so holds the act free from this objection.
Section 96 is as follows:
"The Legislature shall not enact any law not applicable to all the counties in the state, regulating costs and charges of courts, or fees, commissions or allowances of public officers."
This section of the Constitution (now in part repealed as to Jefferson county) merely requires uniformity in costs and charges of courts, and in fees, commissions, or allowances paid to public officers. It has no relation to or bearing upon the method of paying charges against the fine and forfeiture fund. As matter of well-known fact, claims against that fund have never been realized equally, and probably will never be as long as the fund is to be collected from fines and forfeitures in the respective counties, all of which was known to the framers of the Constitution.
In the constitutional convention Judge Walker, who had previously written the opinion in Jones v. Jones, 95 Ala. 443 11 So. 11, 18 L.R.A. 95, showed his understanding of this...
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