Lang v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 14 December 1920
• Parties: LANG, JUDGE, v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

226 S.W. 379

190 Ky. 29

LANG, JUDGE, v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

December 14, 1920

Appeal from Circuit Court, Franklin County.

Action by the Commonwealth against James M. Lang, Judge of the County Court of McCracken County. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

W. V Eaton, of Paducah, for appellant.

Chas I. Dawson, Atty. Gen., and Charles H. Morris, ex-Atty. Gen of Frankfort, for the Commonwealth.

HURT J.

An act of the General Assembly which was approved March 17, 1914 (Laws 1914, c. 26), is as follows:

"An act to further regulate the admission of inmates to the House of Reform.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the commonwealth of Kentucky:

§ 1. No child under the age of ten years shall be sentenced to or confined in the School of Reform, or any state penal institution.

§ 2. When any child over ten years of age and under sixteen years of age shall be sentenced to, and confined in, the House of Reform, the expense of conveying said child to the House of Reform shall be paid by the county from which sent, and said county shall pay for the maintenance of such child $100.00, annually, which sum shall be payable into the state treasury, in monthly installments, at the end of each month. It shall be the duty of the county judge on the last day of each month, by written order to direct the treasurer of the county, or the person acting as treasurer, to forward to the auditor of public accounts the amount due under the provisions of the act. If any county shall make default in payment of any sum due under the provisions of this act, the auditor may institute suit against such county for the recovery of the amount due in the Franklin circuit court. The provisions of this section shall not apply when the child so sentenced has been indicted upon a felony charge.

§ 3. All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed."

After the enactment of the foregoing statute, a considerable number of children between the ages of 10 and 16 years, and who had not been indicted upon any felony charge, were sentenced to and confined in the House of Reform by the county court of the county of McCracken, but the judge of that court refused to make any order directing the treasurer of the county, or the person acting as treasurer, to forward to the auditor of public accounts, at the end of each month, the amount due under the provisions of the statute for the maintenance of such children. On the 16th day of November, 1918, this action was instituted by the commonwealth of Kentucky upon the relation of the then auditor of public accounts against the judge of the county court of McCracken county to require him to make a written order directing the sum then due, under the act from the county, to be paid by the treasurer and transmitted to the auditor of public accounts. The county judge resisted the relief sought upon the grounds hereinafter considered, but the action resulted in a judgment which sustained a demurrer to the statement of each of the grounds of defense relied upon and, the appellant declining to further plead, a judgment was rendered granting the entire relief sought in the petition. From that judgment the present appeal has been prosecuted.

The action by the commonwealth of Kentucky upon the relation of the auditor of public accounts is entirely predicated upon the provisions of the above-quoted enactment of the General Assembly, but its validity is assailed upon several grounds, either of which, it is claimed, renders it void, because in contravention of the provisions of the Constitution. It is insisted that the statute is in violation of the Constitution and void, for the following reasons:

(1) The second section of the act is in violation of section 51.

(2) The second section of the act violates section 47 of the Constitution, in that it is a statute for raising revenue, and had its origin in the Senate, instead of in the House of Representatives.

(3) The second section of the act violates section 171 of the Constitution, which requires uniformity and equality in taxation.

(4) The act violates section 254 of the Constitution, by the terms of which the commonwealth is required to provide all supplies for convicts.

The objections to the statute, based upon its constitutional invalidity, will be first considered, because, if the act is void for being in violation of any constitutional provision, the action must be determined for appellant without further question.

(a) The contention that the General Assembly failed to observe the requirements of section 51 of the Constitution in the enactment of the statute is not tenable. That section of the Constitution provides as follows:

"No law enacted by the General Assembly shall relate to more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title, and no law shall be revised, amended, or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only, but so much thereof as is revised, amended, extended or conferred, shall be re-enacted and published at length."

It will be observed that the act under consideration is not an amendment of any other statute, nor does it pretend to amend, revise, extend, or confer the provisions of any other statute by reference to the title of such statute only, and hence the second inhibition in the section of the Constitution, supra, can have no application to this statute. It is, however, insisted that the subject-matter dealt with in the second section of the act is not germane to the subject expressed in the title, and is foreign to it, and for such reason it violates the constitutional provision wherein it is required that a law enacted by the General Assembly shall not relate to more than one subject, and that must be expressed in the title. It will be observed that the subject of the legislation expressed in the title is the further regulation of the admission of inmates to the House of Reform. The first section of the act is a regulation of admission to the extent that it prohibits admission of any child who is under the age of 10 years. The second section regulates the admission of children who may be sentenced to the House of Reform and who are over 10 years and under 16 years of age, and who have been sentenced to confinement in the House of Reform without having been indicted for a felony, and therefore have not been convicted of a felony in the regular administration of the criminal laws of the commonwealth. The provisions of the second section of the act further regulate the admission of children over 10 and under 16 years of age who are sentenced to confinement in the House of Reform by providing that the county from which such child is sent shall defray the expenses of conveying the child to the House of Reform, and shall pay $100 yearly for its maintenance, and then it provides the time when and the manner in which such sum for maintenance shall be paid into the state treasury, and imposed the duty upon the auditor of public accounts to sue, if necessary, if the officials of the county fail to perform the duties required of them in paying into the treasury the sum required by the statute.

A statute can have only one subject, and that must be expressed in the title, but the enactment which follows may contain any provision which is germane to the subject expressed in the title; that is to say, that is naturally connected with the subject, and not foreign to it. Williams v. Wedding, 165 Ky. 361, 176 S.W. 1176; Com. v. Starr, 160 Ky. 260, 169 S.W. 743; Mark v. Bloom, 141 Ky. 474, 133 S.W. 203; McGlone v. Womack, 129 Ky. 274, 11 S.W. 688, 33 Ky. Law Rep. 811, 864, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 855; Nunn v. Bank, 107 Ky. 262, 53 S.W. 665, 21 Ky. Law Rep. 961; Burnside v. Lincoln Co. Ct., 86 Ky. 423, 6 S.W. 276, 9 Ky. Law Rep. 635; Conley v. Com., 98 Ky. 125, 32 S.W. 285, 17 Ky. Law Rep. 678; Live Stock, etc., v. Hager, 120 Ky. 125, 85 S.W. 738, 27 Ky. Law Rep. 518, 9 Ann. Cas. 50. The provisions complained of in the statute seem to fall within the limitations of the above-stated rule.

(b) It is conceded that the act under consideration originated in the Senate, and hence it is insisted that the section of it which requires the county from which an inmate who is over 10 and under 16 years of age, and who has not been indicted for a felony, is sent, to pay $100 per year for the maintenance of such inmate, and the county judge at the end of each month to make an order upon the treasurer of the county to forward to the auditor of public accounts the amount due, is void because in violation of section 47 of the Constitution, which provides that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives," etc. This section of the Constitution is in the Constitution of the United States, and in some form or other in the Constitution of nearly every state, and was borrowed from the British Constitution originally, where the reason for its adoption also originated, but that reason is not very impressive in this country at the present time, as all the members of both the upper and lower houses of Legislature are elected by the people and answerable to them, but, whatever the reason for retention in our Constitution, its enforcement is incumbent upon the courts. It has received very little judicial consideration, but, so far as that consideration has gone, the term "bills for raising revenue," to which reference is made in section 47, supra, is confined in meaning to such bills as are for the levying of taxes in the strict sense of the word "tax," bills which on their face are plainly designed to raise a revenue, and its meaning has not been allowed to extend to bills for other purposes, which may indirectly create a revenue. ...