City of Montpelier v. John Senter

• Decision Date: 08 February 1900
• Citation: 47 A. 392,72 Vt. 112
• Parties: CITY OF MONTPELIER, v. JOHN SENTER
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

47 A. 392

72 Vt. 112

CITY OF MONTPELIER, v. JOHN SENTER

Supreme Court of Vermont

February 8, 1900

January Term, 1900.

ASSUMPSIT.Plea, general issue.Trial by court on an agreed statement of facts.Washington County, March Term, 1899.Thompson, J., presiding.Judgment for the plaintiff, pro forma and without hearing, for the sum of three hundred dollars.The defendant excepted.

Judgment reversed, and judgment for the plaintiff to recover what the defendant received for salary from the commencement of his term till the passage of the Act, with interest thereon from the rendition of the judgment below.

Frederick P. Carleton, City Attorney, for the plaintiff.

John H. Senter, defendant, pro se.

Present TAFT, C. J., ROWELL, TYLER, MUNSON, THOMPSON, START and WATSON, JJ.

OPINION

ROWELL

The defendant was elected mayor of the city at its annual meeting in March, 1898, for the term of one year.At that time the city charter prohibited compensation to the mayor and the aldermen for their official services.But by No. 184, Acts of 1898, which took effect November 30 of that year, the charter was amended, among other ways, by striking out the words prohibiting such compensation, and giving the mayor a salary of $ 300, and each of the aldermen a salary of $ 150.Shortly before the expiration of their terms of office, the mayor and each of the aldermen were paid the full amount of their salary for the year; and this action is brought to recover the money paid to the defendant.

The office of mayor not being contractual in its nature, and there being no constitutional limitation on the Legislature concerning the matter, it is not claimed, and could not well be, that the Legislature had not the power to give the defendant a salary for the whole or a part of his then current term of office.It is equally clear that it gave him compensation from the time the act took effect; and the only question is, whether it gave him compensation before that time.

Retrospective legislation is not favored, and is prohibited by the constitution of some of the states, as being highly injurious, oppressive, and unjust; and nowhere will retrospective effect be given to a statute unless it appears that it was the intent of the Legislature that it should have such effect.When such effect would impair a right or do a wrong, it will not be given; but when, without such results it is apparent that such operation was intended, that intent will prevail.And although such intent is not manifest from the act itself, yet if the result of such an operation would be so just as to constitute a reason for giving it, and there is nothing in the act to prevent it, such reason will be allowed to operate, and the act to have that effect.This is indorsed in Sturgis v. Hull, 48 Vt. 302, as a correct...