Craig v. Pickens County
| Decision Date | 10 January 1939 |
| Docket Number | 14805. |
| Citation | 200 S.E. 825,189 S.C. 164 |
| Parties | CRAIG v. PICKENS COUNTY. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
On Petition for Rehearing.
Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Pickens County; G. Dewey Oxner, Judge.
Action by John B. Craig against Pickens County for salary items representing attempted statutory reductions of plaintiff's salary below the prevailing salary at time of his election to the office, and for fees connected with handling of delinquent tax executions. From an adverse judgment, the defendant appeals.
Reversed and remanded for entry of judgment in favor of defendant.
Mann & Mann, of Pickens, for appellant.
W. A Bull, of Greenville, and G. G. Christopher and B. A. Chapman both of Pickens, for respondent.
In this controversy between Pickens County as appellant and the Sheriff of that County as respondent, the latter is claiming certain salary items which represent attempted statutory reductions of his salary below the prevailing salary at the time of his election to the office, and also certain fees connected with the handling of delinquent tax executions.
The claim to the salary items is founded upon the contention that the attempted reduction of the respondent's salary by local statutory enactments following his election is beyond the power of the Legislature.
The tax execution fees claimed by the respondent admittedly were not earned by him in the sense that he did not receive such executions from the treasurer, or levy the same; he however contends that he is nevertheless entitled to these fees because they are fixed in the general law of the state as a part of the emoluments of his office and that the statutory provisions under which the treasurer of the County delivered these executions to the tax collector of the County, rather than to the Sheriff, are invalid, and cannot deprive him of his rights under the general law.
With reference to the controversy respecting the salary of the Sheriff the essential facts are as follows: The Sheriff was elected for successive terms beginning January, 1925. He continued to serve until July 4, 1934. In 1932 and prior years, the Sheriff's salary was $2,000 a year. In 1933 the salary was reduced to $1,700 and an expense account of $40 a month was provided. During the period of his services in 1934 his salary was at the rate of $1,800 a year plus $50 a month for expenses.
In February, 1931, the Legislature passed an Act providing for the establishment of the office of delinquent tax collector in Pickens County (Act Feb. 19, 1931, No. 60 37 St. at Large, page 83). To this official the Act delegates the duties respecting the receipt from the treasurer of the County and the enforcement of delinquent tax executions. All of the powers vested by the general law in the Sheriff of the County are by this local act conferred upon the tax collector, in so far as the enforcement of the collection of delinquent taxes is concerned; and by the same Act the Sheriff is by specific language "relieved from the collection of any delinquent taxes after the effective date of this Act." The Act does not transfer to the delinquent tax collector the fees and costs required under the general law to be paid to the Sheriff in connection with delinquent tax executions, but requires that the same shall be paid over to the County. The tax collector receives a specified salary in lieu of all such fees and costs.
The holding of the Circuit Court that because the office of Sheriff is a constitutional office, the Legislature is without power to decrease his salary during his term of office is in conflict with the rule on this subject recently declared by this Court in the case of Gamble v. Clarendon County, 188 S.C. 250, 198 S.E. 857. As pointed out in that case, there is no state-wide statute in South Carolina governing the salary of a sheriff, so as to prevent the enactment of local salary acts, and there is no constitutional provision applicable to the office of sheriff preventing his salary from being increased or diminished during his term. As to certain state executive officers (Const. Art. 4, Sec. 24) and the justices of the Supreme Court, and judges of the Circuit Courts (Const. Art. 5, Sec 9), compensation may not be increased or diminished during the term of office. But there is no such constitutional inhibition respecting the office of sheriff.
The decision in the Gamble Case expresses a settled judicial doctrine that conforms to the long standing practice of the Legislature in fixing the salary of the Sheriff by local Acts, usually in the annual appropriation Acts, from year to year.
Accordingly, on the salary question, it is the opinion of the Court that the respondent cannot maintain his claim herein for the reductions in salary made by the various local Acts for Pickens County during the several years that he remained in office.
The fact that the reductions were made by the indirect method of reduced salary appropriations in the annual county supply bills, rather than by separate and distinct legislative enactments can have no bearing on the situation. Plowden v. Beattie, 185 S.C. 229, 193 S.E. 651.
The question of the right of the respondent to payment of the tax execution fees and costs claimed by him is affected by the enactment of the aforementioned Act of 1931 creating a special office for the collection of delinquent taxes, and providing for a salaried official, separate and apart from the Sheriff's office, to carry out the duties imposed by that Act, and therefore constituting a part of the duties incident to the office of sheriff.
Because of the existence of the office of delinquent tax collector, the respondent had no part in the handling of delinquent taxes in Pickens County after February, 1931. Consequently, his present claim to execution fees and costs is a claim for statutory compensation for services that he did not in fact render.
The question is whether or not the Legislature, having provided by general law for the handling and enforcement of executions for delinquent taxes by the Sheriff of the County, and having provided a fixed scale of compensation to be paid to that official for such services, may provide by a series of separate local statutes for the performance of such services in various counties by an officer other than the sheriff, through the creation of an entirely new office for that purpose, and for the transfer to the County Treasury of the fees and costs which under the general law are payable to the sheriff.
Two provisions of the Constitution are involved, to wit: Article 3, Sec. 34, which prohibits the enactment of a special law in cases "where a general law can be made applicable," and Article 7, Sec. 11, which, as construed by this Court, confers upon the Legislature broad powers in the formulation and control of county government.
The question before us has not previously been adjudicated. The problem however was recognized in the case of Salley v. McCoy et al., 186 S.C. 1, 195 S.E. 132, as one that needs to be kept in mind in dealing with legislation claimed to come within the purview of the constitutional provisions above adverted to. In that case, at page 11 of 186 S.C., 195 S.E. at page 136, we recognized the issue in these words:
There is a fundamental distinction between the facts in the Salley Case and those presented in this case, which rendered it unnecessary to meet the issue in that case, but that requires it to be settled here. The legislation involved in the Salley case undertook to create the office of collector of delinquent taxes for Orangeburg County, but did not wholly divest the sheriff of his functions respecting the enforcement of the general laws of the state for the collection of delinquent taxes, as in the present case. The Act involved in the Salley Case (No. 401, Acts 1933) deprived the sheriff of his execution and other fees incident to the collection of delinquent taxes, but made it the duty of the sheriff, upon the order of the tax collector to take possession of property sold for taxes and deliver the possession thereof to the purchaser. Thus the offices of the sheriff and tax collector each had a part in dealing with the enforcement of tax executions. And we concluded that under all of the facts of the case, in the light of the constitutional provisions above adverted to, the attempt of the Orangeburg statute to deprive the sheriff of the execution and other fees incident to the collection of delinquent taxes constituted a violation of the constitutional...
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