Larue v. Redmon

• Decision Date: 15 February 1916
• Citation: 168 Ky. 487,182 S.W. 622
• Parties: LARUE v. REDMON ET AL.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

182 S.W. 622

168 Ky. 487

LARUE v. REDMON ET AL.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 15, 1916

Appeal from Circuit Court, Larue County.

Action by W. T. Larue against C. H. Redmon and others. From a judgment sustaining a demurrer to the petition and dismissing it on failure to further plead, the plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Williams & Handley, Charles Williams, O. M. Mather, and L. B. Handley all of Hodgenville, for appellant.

Geo. K Holbert, of Elizabethtown, for appellees.

THOMAS J.

In 1905 there was established, under the provisions of section 4464 of the Kentucky Statutes, the Hodgenville graded common school district No. 32, which included the city of Hodgenville, together with some contiguous territory. The order calling the election as entered by the county court provided for the collection of an ad valorem tax for the purpose of the contemplated graded school of 40 cents on the $100 worth of property situated therein and the collection of no poll tax. By an act of the Legislature at its 1914 session, the school laws, with reference to graded schools was amended, and a part of the amendment (being a proviso to section 4482 of the Kentucky Statutes) is as follows:

"Provided, that after July 1, 1914, any graded common school which has been regularly voted and organized, and which does not levy as much as fifty cents on each one hundred dollars' worth of taxable property, shall have the power, and their charters are hereby amended so as to empower them to levy any rate of tax for operating expenses, not to exceed fifty cents on each one hundred dollars' worth of taxable property, and one dollar and fifty cents poll tax, and that their boards of education be and the same are hereby authorized to exercise this power, when, in their judgment, the demands of the school make it expedient." Section as amended by Acts 1914, p. 162.

After the taking effect of this amendatory act, the trustees of Hodgenville graded common school district No. 32, by appropriate orders, levied an ad valorem and poll tax upon the property and each poll in the district in compliance with the amendment, which in the present case was an additional 10 cents ad valorem tax on each $100 worth of taxable property, and in addition levied a poll tax of $1.50 on each poll in the district.

Questioning the right of the trustees to do this, and assailing the validity of the amendment, the appellant, for himself and all other taxpayers in the district, filed this suit against the district and the trustees, and the tax collector of the district, seeking to enjoin the collection of any of the taxes which had been levied pursuant to the amendatory act. The assault made upon this amendment is best stated in the language of the petition as follows:

"He says that the said pretended order and levy and the said act of the General Assembly are in violation of the rights of this plaintiff and the other white taxpayers in said district as guaranteed to them under the Constitution of the commonwealth of Kentucky, and the Constitution of the United States of America, and that the attempted increase of ten cents on each $100 worth of taxable property, and the attempted levy of $1 per capita tax on the male inhabitants of said district over the age of 21 years, are without warrant of law and are null and void."

Particularizing, it is insisted that the amendatory act is unconstitutional because the title thereof fails to comply with the requirements of section 51 of the Constitution, and because it violates the provisions of sections 2, 19, 157, and 184 of that instrument; otherwise, it seems to be conceded that both the statute and levy complained of are unobjectionable.

The title of the act is as follows:

"An act to amend sections 4464, 4464a, 4480, 4482, article 10, Kentucky Statutes, Carroll's Edition, 1909, and repealing section 4464b thereof, and amending said article 10, of said Statutes, relating to schools, by adding thereto section 4500b."

The purposes of section 51 of the Constitution in requiring that an act of the Legislature shall relate to but one subject and it shall be stated in the title, is to place it so that the title of the act should not be a means of deception to either the members of the Legislature or the public at large, but that it should reasonably inform them of the contents of the act by a reference to the title; and it is the uniform rule wherever this constitutional provision prevails, that if the subject-matter of the act was germane to the subject stated in the title the requirements of the constitutional provision would be fully met. Pennington v. Woolfolk, 79 Ky. 13; Ex parte City of Paducah, 125 Ky. 514, 101 S.W. 898, 31 Ky. Law Rep. 170, and many other authorities which could be cited.

According to the opinions of the court supra, it is sufficient to amend an act by reference only to the sections of the Kentucky Statutes proposed to be amended, provided the amendatory matter was germane to the subject treated of in the section amended. Indeed, this statement of the rule so completely fulfills the requirement of the section of the Constitution being considered, as well as the purposes of such requirement, that we would unhesitatingly so determine if the question was one of first impression. All of the sections referred to in the title of the amendment here involved treat exclusively of graded common schools in this commonwealth, and the subject-matter of the proviso in the amendatory act is unquestionably germane to the general subject of graded common schools. We therefore find no merit in this contention of appellant.

It is attempted to be shown that the 1914 act in some mysterious and to us invisible manner violates the federal Constitution and section 19 of our Constitution, in that it impairs vested rights or impairs the obligations of a contract. Between what persons, and concerning what particular subject-matter this supposed contract exists whereby vested rights were created is not by any means clear, nor is it clear as to when or how such supposed contract was entered into. Surmising, however, that this supposed contract in some manner grew out of the election in 1905, and assuming, for the purpose of argument only, that the voters at that election contracted with somebody to pay an ad valorem tax upon their property of 40 cents only on the $100 worth thereof, and in the same manner obligated themselves to pay no poll tax, for graded schools in the district, the appellant's contention would still be untenable, because the supposed contract would be only an immunity, privilege, or gratuity entered into at the...