Knott v. Stewart County

• Decision Date: 16 January 1948
• Citation: 207 S.W.2d 337,185 Tenn. 623
• Parties: KNOTT v. STEWART COUNTY et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

207 S.W.2d 337

185 Tenn. 623

KNOTT v. STEWART COUNTY et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

January 16, 1948

Appeal from Chancery Court, Stewart County; S. A. Marable Chancellor.

Suit by W. C. Knott against the County of Stewart and others, to have Private Acts 1945, c. 85, declared invalid. From a decree sustaining a demurrer to the bill, the complainant appeals.

Decree affirmed.

R. H. Rhodes, of Paris, for appellant.

Stout & Porter, of Clarksville, and S. C. Lewis, Jr., of Dover, for appellees.

PREWITT Justice.

The purpose of the bill filed in this cause was to have declared invalid Chapter 85 of the Private Acts of 1945, which Act is applicable to Stewart County.

The ground of the attack is that the Act empowered the county judge or chairman of the county court of Stewart County to appoint a general road supervisor at the regular term of the quarterly county court on Monday, July 1, 1946, and each year thereafter at the July term of said court. By the provisions of the Act the county judge or chairman was to appoint said general road supervisor and the quarterly court was to confirm the appointment. It is contended by complainant that the Act violates Article 11, section 17, of the Constitution of Tennessee, which provides:

'No county office created by the Legislature shall be filled otherwise than by the people or the County Court.'

By an amendment to the bill it is stated:

'Complainant charges that he is adversely affected by said Act in that he is prohibited from becoming a candidate for Road Supervisor of Stewart County. That under the provision of said Act no one can become a candidate for said office before the Quarterly County Court. That the County Judge makes said appointment and the Court approves his appointment and can elect no one not appointed by the County Judge for said office.'

The defendants filed a demurrer to the bill setting out six grounds. The chancellor sustained the sixth ground of the demurrer to the effect that the complainant had no such interest in the Act as entitled him to maintain this suit. We think the chancellor was correct in sustaining the demurrer.

A suit cannot be maintained by a taxpayer simply because he is a taxpayer. He must show that the effect of the Act would increase his burden of taxation, or would divert funds from the purpose for which it was intended by law. Sherrill v Thomason, 145 Tenn. 499, 238 S.W. 876; Caldwell v. Lyon, 168 Tenn. 607, 80 S.W.2d 80, 100 A.L.R. 1152; Kentucky-Tennessee Light & Power Co. v. Dunlap, 181 Tenn. 105, 178 S.W.2d 636.

Complainant's solicitor makes the following insistence in his brief:

'If complainant was desirous of becoming a candidate for Road Supervisor before the County Court and as he was cut off by said Act from becoming a candidate, he was adversely affected by the Act in question, and has a right to test its constitutionality.'

It must be borne in mind that the amendment to complainant's bill, as above set out, did not state that he was a candidate. The argument of complainant's solicitor, that if he should become a candidate his rights would be adversely affected, does not disclose that complainant was a candidate for the office of road...