Kervin v. Hillman, 5-1074
| Decision Date | 02 July 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 5-1074,5-1074 |
| Parties | M. B. KERVIN, Appellant, v. Travy E. HILLMAN, County Judge of Dallas County, Arkansas, and Reece A. Parham, Collector of Dallas County, Arkansas, Appellees. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Frank W. Wynne, Fordyce, for appellant.
Thomas E. Sparks, Fordyce, for appellees.
By procedure not here questioned a special election was held in Dallas County on November 22, 1955, on the questions of acquisition of sites for and the construction of a hospital unit, and on the question of a tax of three mills to pay for the same. The main hospital was to be located in Fordyce, the county seat, 'with emergency units thereof in Sparkman and Carthage.' It was estimated that the tax would support a bond issue in the amount of approximately $204,000 which was to be supplemented by federal funds in approximately the amount of $266,666, making a total of $470,666. The ballots furnished to the voters contained the above information. The results of the election were 1680 votes in favor of the hospital and emergency units and 452 votes against them, and 1665 votes in favor of the tax and 459 against the tax.
After the Quorum Court had levied the special tax on the assessed value of all taxable property in Dallas County for the years 1956 to 1976 inclusive, appellant, M. B. Kervin, a property owner and taxpayer in Dallas County, filed this suit in chancery court to restrain the County Judge from proceeding further in the sale of said bonds and to restrain the collector from proceeding further with the collection of said tax. It was alleged that 'said emergency units are not complete hospitals but are small units each providing two beds designed for and intended to meet immediate and emergency temporary needs only for first aid treatment for their respective geographical areas, these geographical areas being some distance from the hospital at Fordyce, and that said patients receiving first aid treatment in these small units will either be discharged or prepared by such treatment for admission to the hospital at Fordyce.'
The only ground alleged in the complaint, or relied on here by appellant, for the relief sought is that Amendment 17 to the Constitution of the State of Arkansas [ Amendment 25] 'contemplates the construction of a single hospital unit to be located at the county seat and does not contemplate or authorize the construction of such emergency units' located at points other than the county seat.
To the above noted complaint appellees filed a demurrer which was sustained by the trial court. Upon appellant's failure to plead further his complaint was dismissed.
We hold that the trial court was correct in sustaining appellees' demurrer and in dismissing appellant's complaint. The first section of Amendment 17 [as amended] vests in the qualified electors of each county the authority, by a majority vote, to construct a county hospital in the manner here undertaken. Ark.Stats. § 17-905 provides that: 'The court shall designate the place whereon to erect any county building on any land belonging to the county at the established seat of justice thereof.' As a guide for the construction of a constitutional amendment, appellant refers us to 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, § 19. The gist of the stated rule is: 'If the language used is clear and unambiguous its meaning and intent are to be ascertained from the instrument itself by construing the language as it is written.'
Based upon the above rules of construction, and applying a rather strict interpretation, appellant argues that by the language used in Amendment 17 [as amended] the framers did not intend that several hospitals or several partial hospitals would be built in different parts of a county, but that only one county hospital was intended.
We think appellant's argument is not...
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...the plain meaning of the language used. Bishop v. Linkway Stores, Inc., 280 Ark. 106, 655 S.W.2d 426 (1983); see also Kervin v. Hillman, 226 Ark. 708, 292 S.W.2d 559 (1956); Ellison, 147 Ark. at 264, 227 S.W. at Even though rules of construction should not be applied when the meaning of the......
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...two buildings, in the same town or in separate towns, each building must be listed and voted on separately. The case of Kervin v. Hillman, 226 Ark. 708, 292 S.W.2d 559, involved the building of a main hospital in Fordyce 'with emergency units thereof in Sparkman and Carthage.' It was there ......
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