Laclede County, MO v. Douglass, Commissioner

• Decision Date: 15 May 2001
• Citation: 43 S.W.3d 826
• Parties: (Mo.banc 2001) Laclede County, Missouri, Appellant v. Lowell Douglass, Commissioner, Eastern District, and Rick Wolken, Commissioner, Western District, Respondents. SC83050 0
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

43 S.W.3d 826 (Mo.banc 2001)

Laclede County, Missouri, Appellant v. Lowell Douglass, Commissioner, Eastern District, and Rick Wolken, Commissioner, Western District, Respondents.

SC83050

Supreme Court of Missouri

05/15/2001

Appeal From: Circuit Court of Laclede County, Hon. John R. O'Malley

Counsel for Appellant: Richard L. Schnake and Jon A. Morris

Counsel for Respondent: Darrell Deputy, Jr.

Opinion Summary: The legislature amended section 50.333 to permit the county to increase the salaries of commissioners whose terms had been changed from two to four years by the legislature. Laclede County challenged the statute's constitutionality on the grounds that article VII, section 13 prohibits increases in compensation of officeholders during their terms. The court upheld the statute.

Court en banc holds: Section 50.133.12 is invalid because it violates article VII, section 13. Although the statute expressly conjoined the salary increase to the term extension, that extension does not constitute an additional duty so as to be exempt from the constitutional prohibition. Term length is not a duty. Even if it were, the new term was established before the election of the subject commissioners, so no new duty was imposed to justify a midterm increase.

All concur.

Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., Judge

Laclede County appeals from a judgment of the circuit court upholding the constitutionality of section 50.333.13, RSMo Supp. 1999, which purports to authorize a midterm increase in salaries of county commissioners, including respondents, who were elected to four-year terms in 1996. Appellant contends that section 50.333.13 violates the Missouri Constitution article VII, section 13, which prohibits increases in the compensation of officeholders during the term of office. Because the validity of a statute is challenged, this Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction. Mo. Const. art. V, sec. 3. The judgment is reversed.

The facts are not in dispute. Until 1995, the term of office for associate county commissioners, under section 49.020, RSMo 1994, was two years. But in 1995 the legislature amended section 49.020 by extending the term of office for associate county commissioners elected in 1996, and in subsequent years, to four years. Thereafter, in 1996, respondents Lowell Douglas and Rick Wolken were elected associate county commissioners for Laclede County. Both respondents had already held that office for two-year terms, having first been elected in 1994, but the 1996 election resulted in a new four-year term.

Since 1987, the salaries of Laclede County officeholders had been set, according to statutory guidelines, by a county salary commission as required under section 50.333, RSMo Cum Supp. 1987. In 1997, after respondents commenced their four-year terms, the legislature amended section 50.333 by adding a new subsection 13, which states in pertinent part:

At the salary commission meeting in 1997 which establishes the salaries for those officers to be elected at the general election in 1998, the salary commission of each noncharter county may provide salary increases for associate county commissioners elected in 1996. This one-time increase is necessitated by the change from two- to four-year terms for associate commissioners pursuant to house bill 256. . . .

Sec. 50.333.13. Acting under that new subsection, the Laclede County salary commission approved an increase in respondents' compensation, effective in 1999. Appellant then filed a petition for declaratory judgment challenging the constitutionality of both section 50.333.13 and of the midterm increase in respondents' compensation. The trial court upheld the statute, and this appeal followed.

The standard of review for a declaratory judgment is the same as that established in Murphy v. Carron, 536 S.W.2d 30, 32 (Mo. banc 1976), for court-tried cases: "[T]he trial court's decision should be affirmed unless there is no substantial evidence to support it, unless it is against the weight of the evidence, unless it erroneously declares the law, or unless it erroneously applies the law." Guyer v. City of Kirkwood, 38 S.W.3d 412, 413 (Mo. banc 2001).

Appellant argues that section 50.333.13 violates article VII, section 13, of the Missouri Constitution by authorizing an increase in the compensation of county officers during their term in office. Respondents' position, consistent with the trial court's holding, is that the 1996 increase in their term of office from two years to four is an additional duty of the office, which, under this Court's precedents, removes the statute from the prohibition against midterm increases in compensation.

Article VII, section 13, provides:

Limitation on increase of compensation and extension of terms of office.

The compensation of state, county and municipal officers shall not be increased during the term of office; nor shall the term of any officer be extended.

Despite its plain language, the...