Harmon v. the Board of Commissioners of Madison County
| Decision Date | 16 June 1899 |
| Docket Number | 18,971 |
| Citation | 54 N.E. 105,153 Ind. 68 |
| Parties | Harmon v. The Board of Commissioners of Madison County |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Madison Circuit Court.
Affirmed.
James McCabe, C. L. Henry, Byron McMahan, J. A. Van Osdol, E. F McCabe and C. M. McCabe, for appellant.
William L. Taylor, Attorney-General, Merrill Moores and M. A Chipman, for appellee.
OPINION
The appellant was the recorder of Madison county from November 19, 1894, to November 19, 1898. Failing to pay over certain fees collected by him and claimed by said county, this action was brought to recover the amount so collected and wrongfully detained. The appellant resisted the claim on the ground that the acts of 1891 and 1895 generally known as the fee and salary acts, were unconstitutional, and that he was entitled to said fees under the act of 1879. The facts constituting this defense were stated in a single paragraph of answer. A demurrer to the answer was sustained, and, the appellant refusing to plead further, judgment was rendered against him. The error assigned is the ruling on the demurrer.
It is contended on behalf of the appellant that the acts of 1891 and 1895 are unconstitutional as to county officers:
The sections of the fee and salary acts of 1895 particularly involved in this case, are these:
* * * *
Other provisions of the act fix the amounts of the specific fees to be paid for official services; require the whole amount of the fees collected to be paid over to the county treasurer quarterly, accompanied with an itemized account of the same; and direct that the salaries of such officers be paid out of any moneys in the county treasury, not otherwise appropriated, upon the warrant of the auditor, after orders to that effect made by the board of commissioners, with the proviso that the amount to be paid to any officer on account of his salary shall not exceed the sum turned in by him.
It is expressly declared that the act shall not apply to any county officer elected in 1890, remaining in office, but that all such officers shall receive the compensation prescribed by law, the same as if the act of 1895 had not been passed. Acts 1895, p. 319, §§ 6426, 6474 Burns Supp. The act of 1891, as amended by the act of 1893, is substantially the same as the act of 1895. Acts 1891, p. 424; Acts 1893, p. 142; §§ 6405-6541a Burns Supp.
The article of the Constitution supposed to be violated is the following:
"The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say:
* * * *
"In relation to fees or salaries; except that the laws may be so made as to grade the compensation of officers in proportion to the population and the necessary services required." Const., Art. 4, § 22.
We do not deem it necessary to enter upon an extended discussion of the questions presented on this appeal, for the reason that they have already been the subjects of the earnest and deliberate consideration of the court in other cases. After a careful reexamination of the grounds of our former decisions, we are satisfied with them, and, notwithstanding the forcible argument of counsel for appellant, we remain of the opinion that the conclusions announced in those decisions are correct.
We think the following propositions have been established by the decision of this court:
(1) There are, under the Constitution of this State, at least three modes of compensating persons engaged in the public service, viz., by fees, by salaries, and by wages. Where the Constitution does not provide otherwise, the State may adopt either of these modes. Where that instrument does prescribe a mode of compensation, that mode must be followed.
(2) It is competent for the legislature to provide for compensating all public officers by salaries. It may create a fund out of which the salary of any county officer is to be paid, by requiring fees to be taxed against persons demanding official services, and who are specially benefited by their performance.
(3) When the salary of a public officer is to be paid by the county out of a special fund arising from fees paid in on account of official services performed, the fees for such services belong to the county, and must be actually paid over to the county treasurer, or other designated officer, at the times and in the manner prescribed by the statute. Before any salary, or any installment thereof, can be paid to any county officer, an order for the same must be made by the county board, and a warrant drawn by the auditor; and in no case can the amount so to be allowed and paid to any officer on account of his salary, exceed the amount of fees previously turned into the treasury by him.
(4) The grading of the compensation of county officers, according to population and the necessary services required, can be done only by the enactment of a local and special law, or local and special laws.
(5) The discretion of the legislature in relation to the passage of such laws cannot be inquired into by the courts.
(6) The main object of the acts grading the compensation of county officers was to prevent such compensation from becoming too great, and hence a maximum amount for each officer in each county was established.
(7) An act of the legislature, which applies to all officers elected after it takes effect, and intended so to apply, is of general and uniform operation throughout the State, and operates alike upon all persons under the same circumstances. Such an act is not liable to the imputation of being local or special, or in the nature of class legislation, although officers elected before such act took effect, and remaining in office after it took effect, are not subject to its provisions. An act of this character is the same in legal effect as if it read, "Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, that all State and county officers hereafter elected shall hereafter receive the following salaries, and no other." The postponement of the operation of the acts of 1891 and 1895 did not render those acts local or special, and did not violate the requirement of the Constitution that they should be uniform in their operation, although the effect of such postponement was that officers in various parts of the State were governed, some by the act of 1879, and others by the act of 1891.
(8) When the legislature declares in the act itself that the salaries of the county officers in the several counties of the State are graded according to population and the necessary services required, we must assume that it had before it all the necessary information to enable it to fix such salaries upon a just and equitable basis, with a view of giving to each officer therein named a reasonable compensation for the services performed. Cowdin v. Huff, 10 Ind. 83; Henderson v. State, 137 Ind. 552, 24 L. R. A. 469, 36 N.E. 257; State v. Krost, 140 Ind. 41, 39 N.E. 46; Walsh v. State, 142 Ind. 357, 33 L. R. A. 392, 41 N.E. 65; Legler v. Paine, 147 Ind. 181, 45 N.E. 604; City of Indianapolis v. Navin, 151 Ind. 139, 41 L. R. A. 337, 47 N.E. 525.
The evils and abuses under the former systems of compensating county officers became so glaring and intolerable that, in 1881, the people of the State amended the Constitution for the purpose of enabling the legislature to correct those evils and prevent those abuses by a new system of payment for official services. The mischief to be remedied was, not that any officer was underpaid, but that illegal fees, and fees for constructive services, were being charged, and that in the larger and more populous counties the amounts received by the officers for their services were excessive.
The acts of 1891 and 1895 were intended to grade the compensation of county officers, in conformity with the mandate of the Constitution, according to population and services required both considered. The practical difficulties encountered in attempting to frame a statute of this character were necessarily great. At the time of the passage of the acts of 1891 and 1895, the legislature had before it, and, we must presume, fully considered, among other circumstances, the following contingencies as to each county, and as to each office: (1) An increase of population; an increase of services. (2) An increase of population; a decrease in services. (3) A decrease of population; an increase of services. (4) A decrease of population; a decrease of services. (5) An increase or decrease of the services of one office in a county, without a corresponding increase or decrease in another office or offices in the same...
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