City of Boise City v. Union Bank & Trust Co.
| Decision Date | 30 November 1900 |
| Citation | 7 Idaho 342,63 P. 107 |
| Parties | BOISE CITY v. UNION BANK AND TRUST COMPANY |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-ISSUANCE OF BONDS-INTEREST AND SINKING FUND.-Where the city council provided by ordinance for the levy of an annual tax for the payment of all interest to accrue on funding bonds about to be issued and also by such ordinance provided for the levy of an annual tax after the year 1909, to constitute a sinking fund for the payment of the principal of such bonds, which tax is amply sufficient for that purpose the provisions of section 3, article 8, of the constitution of Idaho, with reference to the levy of an annual tax to pay the interest on such bonds and to create a sinking fund for the payment of the principal of the same are complied with. Held, under the facts of this case, that said bonds were legally issued, and that they created a valid indebtedness against said city.
(Syllabus by the court.)
APPEAL from District Court, Ada County.
Judgment affirmed, with costs in favor of respondent.
Oliver O. Haga, for Appellant.
Appellant insists that under section 3, article 8 of the constitution of Idaho a municipal corporation, in creating a bonded indebtedness must, before or at the time of creating such indebtedness, make provision for the collection of an annual tax sufficient in amount to pay the principal of said indebtedness within twenty years from the time of contracting the same; and that said tax must be levied annually beginning with the first tax levy made after said indebtedness is created, and continuing to be levied for each year thereafter until all of said indebtedness is extinguished. The language of said section 3, article 8, is as follows (quoting only so much of it as is in dispute) (Cohn v. Kingsley, 5 Idaho 416, 49 P. 996; Story on the Constitution, 3d ed., sec. 451.) We are not to expect to find in the constitution provisions which the people, in adopting it, have not regarded as of high importance. (Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 5th ed., 93.) In the plain language of this section the people have placed a prohibition upon the power of the council to defer or postpone the collection of a tax for the sinking fund, and, "whenever the language used in the constitution is prohibitory it is to be understood as intended to be a positive and unequivocal negation." (Black on Interpretation of Laws, sec. 19.) The section in question was copied from section 18, article 11 of the constitution of California, and appellant's contention is completely sustained by the fact that several years prior to the time the constitution of Idaho was framed, the legislature of California had construed said section 18 of article 11 to mean precisely what appellant here contends for. A strict construction of constitutional provisions is a safe and reasonable judicial policy. .) Where an act is clear upon its face and where standing alone it is fairly susceptible of but one construction, that construction must be given it. (Hayden's Case, 3 Coke, 76; United States v. Freeman, 3 How. 556; Endlich on Interpretation of Statutes, sec. 509; Hawkins v. Carroll Co., 50 Miss. 735.) Where the text is plain and unambiguous, courts are not at liberty, in putting an interpretation upon it, to search for its meaning beyond the instrument itself, or to resort for that purpose to extrinsic facts and circumstances.
C. C. Cavanah and N. M. Ruick, for Respondent.
Where the terms employed in the constitution are not plain, express and unequivocal and where it is possible to place thereon different constructions, neither of which can be said to be unreasonable, then it is that contemporaneous construction on the part of the court and the legislature becomes of great and determining force. (1 Story on the Constitution, 407, 408.) Historical Facts: Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 352. Practical Construction: Bank v. Halsted, 10 Wheat. 63. Contemporaneous Construction, "Federalist": Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 418. Contemporaneous Judicial construction: Knowles v. Yeates, 31 Cal. 88, 89; Hughes v. Hughes, 4 B. Mon. (Ky.) 42; People v. Wright, 6 Colo. 92. Legislature, contemporaneous construction: People v. Wright, 6 Colo. 92; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 183 et seq.; Sedgwick on Statutory and Constitutional Law, 409, 412; People v. Rucker, 5 Colo. 455; People v. Green, 2 Wend. 266, 271; State v. Glenn, 18 Nev. 43-46, 1 P. 186. Act of first legislature after constitution: Cooper Mfg. Co. v. Ferguson, 113 U.S. 727-737, 5 S.Ct. 739; 28 L. ed., 1138. As the clause in the constitution and the act of the legislature relate to the same subject, like statutes in pari materia, they are to be construed together. (Cooper Mfg. Co. v. Ferguson, supra, citing Eskridge v. State, 25 Ala. 30.) Constitutionality of statute--presumption: Louisville R. R. v. Court, 1 Sneed, 637, 62 Am. Dec. 424; Santo v. State, 2 Iowa 165, 63 Am. Dec. 487; Mayor etc. v. State, 15 Md. 376, 74 Am. Dec. 572, and cases cited in notes.
This suit arose out of the following facts: The respondent, the municipal corporation of Boise City, accepted appellant's bid for $ 59,854.65 municipal funding bonds then about to be issued by said city. Respondent thereupon tendered to appellant the bonds so bid for, but appellant refused to accept and pay for them, for the reason that said bonds do not constitute a valid indebtedness against said city, for the reason that section 7 of Ordinance No. 311 of said city does not sufficiently comply with the requirements of section 3 of article 8 of the constitution of Idaho in the matter of constituting or providing a sinking fund for the redemption of said bonds as they become due. The facts of the case were stipulated by the respective parties, and appear in the record. Upon those facts the case was submitted to the court below, and judgment was entered in favor of the city, from which judgment this appeal was taken.
The provisions of section 3 of article 8 of our state constitution, which, it is contended, have not been complied with by section 7 of Ordinance 311 of said city, are as follows: ...
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