Jones v. Cooney
| Decision Date | 21 January 1928 |
| Docket Number | 6270. |
| Parties | JONES v. COONEY et al. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Lewis and Clark County; W. H. Poorman Judge.
Action by Francis D. Jones, as a taxpayer of Lewis and Clark County against T. J. Cooney and others, as members of and constituting the Board of County Commissioners of Lewis and Clark County, and the Board of County Commissioners of Lewis and Clark County. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
E. G Toomey and Sam D. Goza, Jr., both of Helena, for appellant.
George W. Padbury, Jr., and A. P. Heywood, both of Helena, for respondents.
W. P Costello, of Great Falls, amicus curiæ.
This is an action brought by the plaintiff, who is a resident citizen and taxpayer of Lewis and Clark county, against the board of county commissioners of that county, and the defendants, who constitute the board. In his complaint the plaintiff alleges that the defendants are paying out and dispensing public money for the care and maintenance of the poor of Lewis and Clark county in a manner and for a purpose not authorized by law, asking that a restraining order be issued prohibiting them from so doing. The court sustained a demurrer to the complaint and directed that the action be dismissed, upon which order judgment was entered, from which the plaintiff has appealed.
The facts, admitted by the demurrer, are that Lewis and Clark county owns and conducts a county poor farm with suitable buildings to care for about 100 sick, poor, and infirm male or female adults. The poorhouse or poor farm is supervised by a superintendent working under the directions of the board of county commissioners; 65 adults are cared for at the poorhouse, although there is room for approximately 10 additional adult females and 20 additional adult males. There are no accommodations at the place for children, and it seems unwise from the standpoint of morals, environment, and education to commit minor children to the poor farm; at least that is the settled policy of the county commissioners, against which criticism has not been directed. There are in the county more than 100 male and female adults and minors applying for and entitled to relief under the head of persons who are indigent, sick, and infirm, over and above the number that may be accommodated at the poor farm when it is filled to capacity. To these persons the board has been granting aid in the shape of fuel, groceries, clothing, and, in some cases when required, small doles of money, at their respective places of residence in the county, without committing or attempting to commit such persons to the poor farm. The commissioners of Lewis and Clark county have been following this course for many years.
Illustrative cases are: (1) An aged man residing in a cabin on the Rocky Mountain divide near Austin who is unable to perform manual labor requisite to a livelihood, he being without relatives, property, or income. (2) A woman with three children of tender years who require the presence at home of their mother, the woman being without property, income, or relatives; and unless food, fuel and clothing is furnished to the woman and her children, each and all of them will become destitute. (3) A man and woman with five minor children, residing in the Helena valley, the husband being sick and infirm, three of the children being now ill with typhoid fever, the family being without income or means of livelihood, or the most rudimentary provisions for relief, warmth and life; and unless aid is furnished by the county or some charitable institution the family will become destitute. (4) A woman and four children residing in the sixth ward of the city of Helena, the woman's husband being at the present time confined to the county hospital of Lewis and Clark county, heretofore having been confined in the State Hospital for the Insane at Warm Springs. The family has no relatives except as stated, and unless food, clothing, and fuel is furnished they will be in danger of starvation and death.
Each and all of these persons are bona fide residents of Lewis and Clark county, and the commissioners claim that these indigent persons, and others similarly situated, can be maintained and cared for as public charges at their respective places of abode for one-half the cost and expense which would be incurred by maintaining and caring for them at the county poor farm or hospital.
It is alleged that in addition to the persons named, the defendants are granting, allowing, and furnishing to, and will, unless restrained by the court, continue to grant, allow, and furnish food, clothing, and fuel at the expense of the poor fund, to more than 100 male and female adults and minors in Lewis and Clark county, over and above the number that may be accommodated at said county poor farm or hospital, or the number of persons entitled to and receiving old age pensions from said county under the provisions of the Old Age Pension Act. The plaintiff alleges that whatever may be the wisdom of the method pursued by the commissioners, the statutes of the state provide the sole grant or authority to those officers, and the statutes require that the poor of Lewis and Clark county be confined at the poorhouse, and when that is filled to capacity, no further or other aid can be extended out of the poor fund.
The care of the state for its dependent classes is considered by all enlightened people as a measure of its civilization (21 R. C. L. 701), and provision for the proper care and treatment at public expense of the indigent sick, and of those who for other reasons are unable to take care for themselves, is said to be among the unquestioned objects of public duty. State ex rel. Griffith v. Osawkee Township, 14 Kan. 418, 19 Am. Rep. 99; 20 Cal. Jur. 880.
The people of Montana gave recognition to this high moral obligation when they wrote into our Constitution section 5 of article 10, which provides:
"The several counties of the state shall provide as may be prescribed by law for those inhabitants, who, by reason of age, infirmity or misfortune, may have claims upon the sympathy and aid of society."
As this constitutional declaration is not self-executing, the measure of relief which may be furnished necessarily depends upon statutes enacted to carry out the benevolent purpose expressed.
As will appear presently, the statutes upon the subject are not in complete harmony, but we think the legislative intention may be found with reasonable certainty.
The First Legislative Assembly passed an act relating to the support of the poor. Bannack Laws, p. 457. The first section of the act vested the county commissioners of the several counties "with entire and exclusive superintendence of the poor," and without material alteration that declaration has been carried forward continuously to the present time; it now appears as section 4521, R. C. 1921. Section 2 of the Bannack Act has likewise been carried forward substantially. It now appears as section 4522, R. C. 1921, and provides, inter alia, that every person without means, who is unable to earn a livelihood in consequence of bodily infirmity, idiocy, lunacy, or other cause, must be supported by designated relatives, "if they, or either of them, be of sufficient ability, in the order named." In 1876 an addition was made, provided the indigent person had not come to his deplorable state from intemperance or other vice. Laws of Montana 1876, p. 52. This proviso has been continued and appears as section 4523, R. C. 1921.
Another provision of the Bannack Act, § 4, was the forerunner of section 4524, R. C. 1921, which reads: "When such person does not have the relatives mentioned in section 4522 of this Code, in any county, or such relatives are not able, or fail or refuse to maintain such person, then he must receive relief from the county, as hereinafter provided."
The latter part of section 4 of the Bannack Act provided that the "county commissioners may either make a contract for the necessary maintenance of the poor, or appoint such agents as they may deem necessary to oversee and provide for the same."
Section 10 of the Bannack Act gave the county commissioners authority to cause to be built or provided in their counties "workhouses for the accommodation and employment of such paupers as may from time to time become a county charge." The workhouse scheme seems to trace back to the days of Edward the Sixth. 1 Blackstone's Commentaries, star paging 359-363.
Section 14 of the 1876 act authorized the county commissioners to purchase, improve, and keep in repair a tract of land not exceeding 160 acres, to be known as a poor farm, and to erect thereon suitable workhouses for the use, health, and employment of such person or persons as are, or who may become, from time to time a county charge, and provided that the poor farm, "together with such pauper as may become a county charge, shall be under such rules and regulations as the county commissioners shall deem just and proper." The commissioners were also authorized, "if in their judgment they deem it best," to provide for the care, support, and maintenance of the sick, poor, and infirm of the respective counties upon such poor farm.
Section 14 was carried forward into the Revised Statutes of 1879 as section 968, p. 607, into the Compiled Statutes of 1887, as section 1622, p. 1090, and substantially into the Political Code of 1895, as section 3213, since which time it has come down to us without material change, the section now being 4534, R. C. 1921, and reading as follows:
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