Brown v. Board of Sup'rs of Simpson County

• Decision Date: 10 April 1939
• Docket Number: 33652
• Citation: 187 So. 738,185 Miss. 216
• Parties: BROWN et al. v. BOARD OF SUP'RS OF SIMPSON COUNTY
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

187 So. 738

185 Miss. 216

BROWN et al. v. BOARD OF SUP'RS OF SIMPSON COUNTY

No. 33652

Supreme Court of Mississippi, Division B

April 10, 1939

APPEAL from the chancery court of Simpson county HON. BEN STEVENS Chancellor.

Proceeding by the Board of Supervisors of Simpson County to validate a proposed issue of bonds for a supervisor's district wherein Joe Brown and others filed objections. From a decree validating the bonds, the objectors appeal. Reversed and rendered.

Reversed and decree here for appellants.

A. M Edwards, of Mendenhall, for appellants:

The court erred in granting a decree for the validation of the said bonds in question in this case. We submit that this assignment of error is well taken for the reason that the said indebtedness, incurred by the board of supervisors against District No. 2 of said county in the sum of $ 6000 in favor of the said Mississippi Tractor & Equipment Company and the Choctaw Culvert & Machinery Company, according to the testimony in this case, does not constitute a legal and undisputed obligation of said county, but on the other hand the testimony shows most conclusively that said indebtedness was made and said claims allowed in violation of law.

Section 5977, Code of 1930.

The second assignment of error is that the decree of the court validating the said bonds is contrary to the law and the evidence in the case.

We submit that inasmuch as the said indebtedness incurred by the board of supervisors was in violation of Section 5979, Code of 1930, as shown by the undisputed evidence in the case, that the objections filed by the objectors in this case objecting to the validation of the said bond issue is well taken.

This court said among other things, speaking through ANDERSON, J., in the case of Marshall County v. Callahan et al., 94 So. 5, as follows: "Section 3, chapter 209, Laws of 1918, as amended in chapter 326, Laws of 1920, which provides that no warrant shall be issued or indebtedness incurred by any county, unless there be sufficient money in the particular fund from which such allowance is to be made to pay such warrant or indebtedness, prohibits a county from allowing any claim against it, as well as issuing a warrant therefor, unless there is sufficient money in its treasury in the particular fund from which such allowance is to be made or such warrant paid; and the inhibition of the statute applies to allowances by a county to a road contractor on monthly estimates by the engineer in charge of construction. "

The third assignment of error is that the court erred in dismissing the objection of the said Joe Brown and L. R. Floyd filed in this case. We submit that the proceedings of the board of supervisors in undertaking to issue the proposed bond issue were void and of no effect, for reasons already given, and that the said proceedings may be attacked in validation proceedings.

98 So. 149.

The Chancellor erred in construing the law applicable to the facts in this case.

We submit that the proceedings of the board of supervisors proposing to issue said bonds show upon the face of said proceedings that they were issued for the purpose of paying claims unauthorized by law, and that the testimony at the trial of the case show the same; and this being true the said bonds are illegal.

Bd. of Suprs., Prentiss County v. Holley, 106 So. 645.

We submit that the rule of law in this state is well settled that void orders and judgments can be attacked in a collateral proceeding.

Bryant v. Bd. of Suprs., Yalobusha, County, 98 So. 148; Borroum v. Purdy Road Dist., 131 Miss. 778, 95 So. 677; Harvey v. Covington County, 138 So. 403.

The order of the board of supervisors providing for the issuance of the said bonds in the sum of $ 6000 under section 5977, Code of 1930, does not adjudicate that the bonds proposed to be issued when added to the outstanding bonded indebtedness of said District No. 2, will not exceed 10 per centum of the assessed value of the taxable property within said district according to the last completed assessment for taxation.

We submit that this jurisdictional fact being left out of the said order proposing to issue said bonds rendered them null and void, and therefore subject to collateral attack.

Lee v. Hancock County, 178 So. 790.

W. M. Lofton, of Mendenhall, for appellee.

It is our contention that in view of the fact that the board of supervisors in passing the said order at the regular meeting in June 1938, proposing to issue said bonds, did adjudicate as a fact that the said claims, which the proposed bonds were intended to pay, were legal and undisputed, outstanding obligations of the county or district No. 2 of said county, and also adjudicated the fact that there were insufficient funds in the depositories to pay them, that this adjudication is in the nature of a judgment of the board of supervisor's court, and that the same cannot be attacked by filing written objections thereto, but can only be attacked by an appeal, and can only be done by an appeal if that is seasonably set up. If the appeal is seasonably set up, then this would be a direct attack on said order, and this is the only way that it could be done, and that the same is not subject to collateral attack. In this case there was no appeal.

Harvey v. Covington County, 138 So. 403, 161 Miss. 765; Hegwood v. Smith County, 140 So. 223; Liddell v. Municipality of Noxapater, 92 So. 631, 129 Miss. 513.

We are not contending that the objectors do not have a right to file their objections in common form to the validation in the proposed bond issue in this case, but they are limited in the matters to be set forth as constituting their objections. And we do insist that as to that part of the order of the board of supervisors, adjudicating the fact that the said claims of said creditors mentioned in said order, were legal and undisputed outstanding obligations, the same being the judgment of the board of supervisor's court, that it was not subject to collateral attack, and that this is what is meant by...