Delta & Pine Land Co. of Miss. v. Board of Sup'rs of Bolivar County

• Decision Date: 24 November 1969
• Docket Number: No. 45500,45500
• Citation: 228 So.2d 893
• Parties: DELTA & PINE LAND COMPANY OF MISSISSIPPI v. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF BOLIVAR COUNTY, Mississippi et al.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 893

228 So.2d 893

DELTA & PINE LAND COMPANY OF MISSISSIPPI v. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF BOLIVAR COUNTY, Mississippi et al.

No. 45500.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 24, 1969.

Alfred A. Levingston, Cleveland, for appellant.

Sillers, Roberts, Pearson & Eddins, Rosedale, Jacobs, Griffith & Hatcher, Laurence Y. Mellen, Cleveland, for appellees.

JONES, Justice.

During the month of August, 1968, the Superintendent of Education of Bolivar County published a notice to bidders for "working" agricultural Sixteenth Section lands situated in Bolivar County. The bids were to be received until ten o'clock a.m. on September 3, 1968.

At that time there were twenty bids received for leases on all or portions of six of such sections.

Appellant bid for Section 16, Township 21, Range 9, West, the sum of $4,000 annual rental for a period of five years. This bid was dated August 13, 1968. Charles J. Wilson bid for the same section and for the same term the sum of $6,000 annual rental. This bid was dated September 1, 1968.

Appellant bid on Section 16, Township 20, Range 8, annual rental of $6,000 for a period of five years; his bid being dated August 13. Charles J. Wilson bid for the same section and for the same period of time the sum of $8,250 annual rental. The other bids appearing in the record involved lands not in this litigation. However, there were a dozen or more people who bid on the third of September for all or a part of six different sections. It is noticed that Charles J. Wilson was the high bidder on both the sections here involved.

At the regular September meeting, the board deferred its decision until October 14, 1968. At that meeting, the appellant offered for one section $8,500 annual rental and for the other $6,250 annual rental, each of the said bids being $250 over the bid of Wilson.

Presumably, these bids were in open session of the board at the recessed meeting. The notice to bidders had asked for sealed bids.

The board, after consideration, entered an order on October 16 approving the leasing of the two sections to Wilson.

From this decision, appellant, by bill of exception, appealed to the circuit court which affirmed the decision of the Board of Supervisors.

The case comes here from the circuit court, and we affirm.

Appellant asserts that Section 6597-12, Mississippi Code of 1942 Annotated (Supp.1968) authorizing the leasing of Sixteenth Section lands lying wholly within a levee district and not in a city, town or village is unconstitutional. Appellant had held previous leases on the two sections involved, and at the time of the receipt of bids held unexpired leases thereon. Section 6597-12 gave no preference to the holders of existing leases, while Section 6597-03 would have given a preference to appellant if applicable to these leases. Appellant, therefore, insists that Section 6597-12 is unconstitutional. Of course, if this were true, Section 6597-03, which would have given a preference in this particular case, would apply. Appellant insists that the said Section 6597-12 is a local, private or special law violative of Section 90 of the Constitution of 1890 and that to undertake to classify the delta lands from other lands of the State is an unreasonable classification.

Appellant cites cases where classifications are held unreasonable, and while it is admitted the Legislature has a right to make reasonable classification, it is asserted that this classification of counties located wholly within a levee district is unreasonable.

The Laws of 1884 (page 140) include the act providing for the creation of one of the levee districts. The area is described by Section 2 of the Act as being all that part of certain counties " * * * lying west of the high water mark of the Mississippi river of the flood of 1882, at or near the foot of the hills, making said high water mark the eastern boundary of said levee district, * * *."

The purpose of the creation of the district as stated by the Act was to protect the property in the district from loss and destruction, and the residents of the district from sickness and suffering consequent upon each overflow of the Mississippi river, by erecting efficient levees. It further provides that the courts should construe this Act as an exercise of all the powers of the Legislature necessary for the protection, not only of the property of the district, but, also the lives and health of the citizens of the State residing in such district.

Section 228 of the Constitution of 1890 recognizes the division made by the Legislature of the alluvium land of the State into two levee districts; provides that they shall remain until changed by law; and that the Legislature may hereafter add to either of said districts any alluvium land in the State. Section 228 is a part of Article 11 of the Constitution, Section 227 of which provides that a levee system shall be maintained in this State as provided in the Act. The balance of this article establishes levee commissioners; provides for their selection; their duties; and other matters relative to such districts.

Alluvium lands, of course, are those built by deposits from streams and floods, being the sediment from such water, on a valley floor.

Appellant cites and relies on Toombs, County Prosecuting Attorney v. Sharkey et al., Board of Supervisors, 140 Miss. 676, 106 So. 273 (1925). This case involved an increase in pay for prosecuting attorneys of counties in the levee districts. The classification was made without regard to any matter involving the lands. This Court held that the classification must be germane to the subject matter of the legislation.

The...