Commissioners' Court of Pike County v. City of Troy

• Decision Date: 29 June 1911
• Parties: COMMISSIONERS' COURT OF PIKE COUNTY v. CITY OF TROY.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

56 So. 131

173 Ala. 442

COMMISSIONERS' COURT OF PIKE COUNTY v. CITY OF TROY.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 29, 1911

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pike County; H. A. Pearce, Judge.

Mandamus by the City of Troy against the Commissioners' Court of Pike County. Order in favor of petitioner, and defendants appeal. Reversed, and petition dismissed.

Sayre J., dissenting.

For dissenting opinion, see 56 So. 274

The petition alleges that there was levied and collected for Pike county by the commissioners' court thereof a road tax of onefourth of 1 per cent. on the property assessed for taxes in said county. The said tax was levied for the years 1908-09, was due October 1, 1909, and delinquent January 1 1910. It is alleged that the tax collector had collected and paid to the county treasurer on the property located in the city of Troy, for and on account of said road tax, the sum of $3,278.82, and that that amount was now held by the county treasurer. It is alleged that by virtue of the act of the Legislature approved August 26, 1909 (Acts Sp. Sess. 1909, p 304), and by virtue of the act approved August 25, 1909 (Acts Sp. Sess. 1909, p. 205), one-half of said amount of money was due the city of Troy; that demand was made for it, and had been refused, etc. Demurrers were filed to said petition, and the answer was made, setting up that the acts in question were unconstitutional and void. The order of the court was that the commissioners' court of Pike county pay to the city of Troy $1,639.41, for the uses and purposes set forth in said petition, and said sum be charged by said commissioners' court to its fund raised and collected by it through and by its special road tax.

E. R Brannen, for appellants.

Foster, Samford & Carroll, for appellee.

McCLELLAN J.

Appeal from an order awarding mandamus to compel the court of county commissioners of Pike county "to pay to petitioner, the city of Troy, for the uses and purposes set forth in said petition, and said sum be charged by said commissioners' court to its fund raised and collected by it through and by its special road tax. * * *"

The sum in question thus appears from the record to have been the product of a special road tax within and under the influence and control of the second pertinent proviso of section 215 of the Constitution of 1901. Hence, for the reasons set down in the original opinion delivered in Board of Revenue of Jefferson County v....