Bryant v. Board of Examiners
| Decision Date | 03 January 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 9700,9700 |
| Citation | 130 Mont. 512,305 P.2d 340 |
| Parties | G. L. BRYANT, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. The BOARD OF EXAMINERS of the State of Montana, et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Wesley W. Wertz, Helena, argued orally, for appellant.
Arnold H. Olsen, Atty. Gen., and Robert L. Word, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., argued orally, for respondents.
The appellant Bryant, a taxpayer, brought this suit in the district court for Lewis and Clark County to enjoin the issuance and sale by the State Board of Examiners of certain bonds under chapter 278, Laws of 1955, and for a declaratory judgment that the proposed bond issue was invalid. The purchaser of these bonds is joined as a defendant. The lower court denied the plaintiff injunctive relief, and entered judgment for the defendants. This appeal by the plaintiff taxpayer followed.
Hereafter we shall refer to the appellant as the plaintiff, to the respondents as the defendant Board.
Chapter 278 in terms authorizes the State Board of Examiners to issue and sell bonds in an amount not exceeding $750,000, the 'proceeds of which are to be used solely for the purpose of reconstructing and renovating the state capitol building including roll call voting machines in the house of representatives chambers at Helena, Montana.' See chapter 278, § 1, Laws of 1955.
Section 7 of this chapter, where is found the crux of the controversy before us, so far as presently material reads:
'The principal and interest of the bonds authorized by this act shall be payable out of the following fund and from it only: All the income received from the capitol [sic] building land grant, shall be, and the same is hereby perpetually dedicated and appropriated for the payment of the principal and interest of the bonds provided for by this act. * * *'
This pledge of the income from the capitol building land grant is valid only if the purpose for which these bonds are to be issued falls within the provisions of sections 12 and 17 of the Enabling Act, by which the United States granted the State of Montana certain lands for the purpose of erecting public buildings at the state capital. More narrowly stated: Chapter 278 and the pledge of the income from the capitol building land grant which section 7 of that statute contemplates may be sustained only if 'reconstructing and renovating' the state capitol building and installing roll call voting machines in the house of representatives' chambers is a purpose as stated in section 1 of that chapter which is comprehended by sections 12 and 17 of the Enabling Act. The precise language of these latter sections and their meaning are then of importance.
By section 12 the United States gave Montana fifty sections of land 'for the purpose of erecting public buildings at the capital of said states [Montana] for legislative, executive and judicial purposes.' By section 17, which follows, the state is given one hundred and fifty thousand acres 'for public buildings at the capital of the state, in addition to the grant hereinbefore made for that purpose,' etc.
The phrase 'hereinbefore made for that purpose' found in section 17 obviously refers to the purpose expressed in section 12, and fairly read can not be construed otherwise. Sections 12 and 17 of the Enabling Act on their face are to be read and applied as in pari materia the one with the other, constituting together what amounts to one section dealing with a single subject. Compare Putnam v. Putnam, 86 Mont. 135, 141, 142, 282 P. 855. Each grants Montana unappropriated public lands for precisely the same purpose, viz., for the purpose of 'erecting public buildings at the capital'. Whatever these words may be taken to mean as applied to the controversy before us, the purpose of the grant under section 17 can be given no broader or different effect than that expressed in section 12; and section 12 is precise in the statement of that purpose, which it seems could not have been made plainer.
Indeed chapter 278 clearly shows by the language used there that the legislature itself in enacting that chapter was of the opinion sections 12 and 17 of the Enabling Act are to be read and applied as though they were integrated parts of the same section; for section 7 of chapter 278 makes no distinction between the income on the one hand accruing from the lands granted under section 12 and on the other the income coming from the additional lands which Montana takes under section 17. The income derived from both grants is mingled indiscriminately in section 7 to make up a common fund pledged in its entirety for the payment of the bonds mentioned in section 1 of that chapter.
Necessarily then the converse is also true that the limitation in section 17 of the Enabling Act upon the use of the lands granted by that section must be read as well with section 12; i. e., the restriction found in section 17 that the 'lands granted by this section shall be held, appropriated, and disposed of exclusively for the purposes herein mentioned,' etc., applies also with equal force to the lands which Montana takes under section 12. As to all these lands Montana takes title as does a trustee of an express trust, charged with the duty of devoting the trust property both the corpus and the income to the purpose specified in the instrument (here the Enabling Act) by which the trust is created. Hence the purpose of the bond issue for which chapter 278 provides must be the erection of public buildings as section 12 of the Enabling Act specifies, and no other; or the pledge of the common income from the lands granted under sections 12 and 17, which section 7 of chapter 278 recites, is invalid.
Adopting this construction of the Enabling Act the plaintiff has specified six errors in the judgment of the court below, three of which fairly present for decision the question whether reconstructing and renovating the state capitol building and installing roll call voting machines in the house of representatives' chambers, which is the declared purpose of chapter 278, constitutes the erection of a public building. The district court answered this question in the affirmative, and ruled that chapter 278 was consistent with the Enabling Act. This was, we think, error.
At the outset we heed the command of R.C.M.1947, § 19-102, to construe the words and phrases found in the statutes before us 'according to the context and the approved usage of the language' we find there. For in these statutes no technical terms are used, which have acquired any peculiar meaning or definition apart from that ordinarily conveyed by what we read. Our task is limited accordingly to the construction of simple English in which there inheres neither uncertainty nor ambiguity; or so it seems to us.
'To reconstruct' means 'To construct again; to rebuild; to remodel; to form again or anew; * * * as to reconstruct a church, * * *'
'To renovate' means 'To renew, make over, or repair; * * *' See Webster's New International Dictionary (2d ed.): 'reconstruct'; 'renovate'. Compare Funk and Wagnall's New Standard Dictionary: 'reconstruct'; 'renovate'.
Paraphrased then section 1 of chapter 278 when construed according to the context means that the proceeds of the sale of the authorized bonds shall be used solely for the purpose of remodeling and repairing the state capitol building which is now an existing structure, and specifically also for the installation in that already completed building of roll call voting machines in the house of representatives' chambers. This construction accords not only with the context of chapter 278, but also with the approved usage of the language found there. Moreover, no other construction can be put upon that language which fairly fits either that context or the particular words which the legislature employed to express the purpose of the act. Conversely we note here that 'to repair' is defined by Black' Law Dictionary (4th ed.) as 'To mend, remedy, renovate, to restore to a sound or good state after decay, injury, dilapidation, or partial destruction.'
More particularly, insofar as chapter 278 concerns itself with renovating the state capitol, it is to be taken certainly as a statute providing for the repair of that building, and nothing more. See Mozingo v. Wellsburg Electric Light, Heat & Power Co., 101 W.Va. 79, 81, 82, 131 S.E. 717; Sharp v. Quincy, O. & K. C. R. Co., 139 Mo.App. 525, 530, 531, 123 S.W. 507. And as used in this statute in the conjunctive the words 'reconstructing' and renovating' taken together can mean only the rebuilding or remodeling and repair of the state capitol building which has already been erected as that word is commonly understood, which is now standing, and in which as a part of the remodeling or repair to be undertaken there are to be installed certain roll call voting machines. It is contended by no one at bar that chapter 278 comprehends the rebuilding or reconstruction of a new capitol building from the ground up, or that the existing structure is to be torn down and a new building erected on its site, or that when reconstructed and renovated consistent with chapter 278 the present state capitol will lose its identity and then be in any sense of the word a new or different building from that which we now have. The context of chapter 278 belies any such construction; and as we read the record before us against the language of the statute we conclude no one would rationally put any such construction upon that language.
The pivotal issue then which we must decide here is thus resolved into this short inquiry; Does the rebuilding or remodeling and repair of the existing state capitol at Helena for which chapter 278 provides constitute the erection of a public building fairly within the sweep of sections 12 and 17 of the Enabling Act? We think the weight of authority answers this inquiry in the...
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