Gross v. Fiscal Court of Jefferson County

• Decision Date: 02 October 1928
• Citation: 9 S.W.2d 1006,225 Ky. 641
• Parties: GROSS v. FISCAL COURT OF JEFFERSON COUNTY et al.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

9 S.W.2d 1006

225 Ky. 641

GROSS v. FISCAL COURT OF JEFFERSON COUNTY et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

October 2, 1928

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County, Chancery Branch, First Division.

Action under declaratory judgment act by J. W. Gross against the Fiscal Court of Jefferson County and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Selligman Selligman & Goldsmith, of Louisville, for appellant.

Harris Coleman, Arthur E. Hopkins, and Wm. Marshall Bullitt, all of Louisville, for appellees.

HOBSON C.

Appellant brought this action in the Jefferson circuit court, attacking the validity of the act passed last winter, creating the office of purchasing agent in counties containing cities of the first class, and asking a judgment under the declaratory judgment act as to the proper meaning of the act, if valid. The circuit court held the act valid and construed the act. The plaintiff appeals.

The act is in these words:

"An act creating the office of purchasing agent in counties containing cities of the first class, defining his duties and fixing his salary.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

Section 1. That in counties containing a city of the first class the office of purchasing agent is hereby created.

Section 2. Such purchasing agent shall be elected by the fiscal court of such county for a term of four years. The first purchasing agent shall be elected at a meeting of the fiscal court succeeding the passage of this act, for a term of four years from the first day of May, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight, and every four years thereafter.

Section 3. It shall be the duty of such purchasing agent to make all purchases of supplies, goods, wares and merchandise of all description needed by such county containing a city of the first class, and for all departments of the county government of such county where the amount of purchases shall not exceed the sum of two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00). For purchases where the amount exceeds two hundred and fifty dollars ($250.00), said purchases shall be made by competitive bids to the lowest or best bidder, which purchase shall be approved by said fiscal court.

Section 4. Said purchasing agent shall be paid for his services at the rate of twenty-five hundred dollars ($2,500.00) per annum, paid in equal monthly installments out of the county fund.

Section 5. All acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict and an emergency is hereby declared to exist, and this act shall take effect from and after its passage and approval."

It is insisted that the act is invalid, in that it curtails the powers of the fiscal court as provided by section 144 of the Constitution. That section is in these words:

"Counties shall have a fiscal court, which may consist of the judge of the county court and the justices of the peace, in which court the judge of the county court shall preside, if present; or a county may have three commissioners, to be elected from the county at large, who, together with the judge of the county court, shall constitute the fiscal court. A majority of the members of said court shall constitute a court for the transaction of business. But where, for county governmental purposes, a city is by law separated from the remainder of the county, such commissioners may be elected from the part of the county outside of such city."

This merely creates the fiscal court and provides who shall constitute it, but it does not define the jurisdiction of the court. The Legislature has all power not taken from it by the Constitution, and so the Legislature, by section 1840, Kentucky Statutes, has defined the jurisdiction of the fiscal court, and this action of the Legislature has been recognized as valid by this court in many cases. The jurisdiction of the fiscal court is no more fixed by the Constitution than the jurisdiction of other courts created by that instrument. It is all left to the Legislature.

It is also insisted that the act is invalid under section 51 of the Constitution, which is in these words:

"No law shall be revised, amended, or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only, but so much thereof as is revised, amended, extended or conferred, shall be re-enacted and published at length."

Under this provision no law shall be revised or amended by reference to its title only, unless so much as is revised or amended shall be re-enacted and published at length. But the act in question...