Holton v. Bd. of Comm'rs of Mecklenburg Cnty.
| Decision Date | 31 October 1885 |
| Citation | 93 N.C. 430 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | C. S. HOLTON v. THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF MECKLENBURG COUNTY. |
Motion for an INJUNCTION, heard by Shipp, Judge, at Chambers in Charlotte, on December 4, 1885.
The statute (Acts 1885, ch. 134), entitled “An act relating to roads and highways,” relates to and embraces only the county of Mecklenburg. It embraces and systemizes the whole subject of ordinary public roads, bridges, ferries and fords in that county; it declares what these are and shall be; how they shall be established and constructed; how they shall be changed, extended or discontinued; how they shall be kept in repair; and how labor and money for such purposes shall be provided.
A leading and distinctive purpose of the statute is, to give to the justices of the peace in the several townships, “supervision and control of the public roads in their respective townships,” and to this end, those of each township are incorporated as the “board of trustees” thereof. These boards of trustees are required to have stated, and may have special, meetings, and to keep a record of their proceedings.
They may sue and be sued, and exercise other corporate powers conferred. They are required to examine from time to time into the condition of the roads with which they are charged, and make report thereof to the Judge of the Superior Court.
They were further required, on the first of May, or within four weeks next thereafter, in the present year, “to divide their respective townships into suitable road districts, and annually thereafter may make such alterations therein as they may deem proper, and cause a brief description thereof to be made on the township records, and also furnish each supervisor with a plat of his road dietrict.”
They are also required to elect a supervisor of roads for each road district, and it is made his duty to do many things prescribed by the statute, such as ordering out for duty such persons as may be liable to work on the roads, direct and supervise their work, take care of necessary tools, &c., &c.
The statute requires every able bodied male person, within the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, except persons permanently disabled in the military service of the State, to do four days labor in each year on the highways, under the direction of the supervisor of the road district in which he resides, unless he shall choose to pay three dollars in lieu of such labor. The money so paid, and fines and penalties prescribed, when incurred and collected, must be applied by the supervisor to the use of the roads in his district. Among other things, it is provided as follows:
“Section 17. That the commissioners and board of justices of the peace of the respective counties in this State, are hereby authorized to levy at the June session of their board annually, for road purposes, not less than seven tenths of a mill, nor more than two mills on the dollar, and the chairman of the county commissioners shall place the same on the tax list of the current year, to be included in, and collected in the annual taxes: that if the trustees of any township shall deem an additional road tax necessary, they shall determine the per centum to be levied upon the taxable property of their respective townships, and shall certify the same in writing to the board of county commissioners and justices of the peace at their June session, who may levy a special tax, not exceeding one mill on the dollar, and the commissioners and justices may levy and assess the same, on the taxable property of the township, and the same shall be collected as other taxes, and paid out as herein provided.
Sec. 18. That the chairman of the board of county commissioners, immediately after the commissioners, at their annual session for that purpose, have determined the amount to be assessed for road purposes in their respective counties, shall give notice in some newspaper in general circulation in the county, of the per centum on each hundred dollars of the valuation so determined to be assessed in such county and township, and that the said tax may be discharged by labor on the roads under the direction of the supervisors of the several districts, and shall make out a list of the names of each taxpayer of the amount of the road tax with which each stands charged, and transmit the same to the supervisor of the proper district.
Sec. 19. Any person charged with a road tax may discharge the same by labor on the public highways, within the district where the same is charged, within the time designated in the act, at the rate of one dollar per day, and a ratable allowance per day, for any team, implement and material furnished by any person under the direction of the supervisor of such district, who shall give to such person a certificate specifying the amount of tax so paid, and the district and township wherein such labor was performed, which certificate shall in no case be given for any greater sum than was charged against such person, and the sheriff shall receive all such certificates as money in the discharge of said road tax. The township trustees in determining the division of this fund, shall be governed not by the miles of road in each district, but by the necessities of the roads, the convenience of getting material, the quantity of material necessary to make substantial repairs, &c., and thus make a just and equitable division of said fund between the several districts.”
And in §32 it is, among other things, provided that
Charlotte township embraces the incorporated town of that name. The board of trustees of that township properly divided the same, except so much thereof as was embraced within the corporate limits of the town, into suitable road districts, and appointed a supervisor in each of them.
No road district embracing the town of Charlotte was established, nor any provision made for, or in respect to, the streets or highways within the limits of the town. On the first Monday in June, of the present year, the defendant commissioners, in conjunction with the justices of the peace of the county above named, in addition to the other taxes levied for general county purposes, levied a tax of ten cents on the one hundred dollars valuation of all property, both real and personal, taxable in the county, including the property of all persons who were citizens of the town of Charlotte, including that of the plaintiff, who was a citizen thereof. A proper tax list, embracing the tax so levied, was made out and placed in the hands of the defendant sheriff...
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