Marion School Tp. of Pike County v. Smith

• Decision Date: 13 June 1939
• Docket Number: 27225,27232,27233.
• Citation: 21 N.E.2d 412,215 Ind. 586
• Parties: MARION SCHOOL TP. OF PIKE COUNTY v. SMITH. MILLER, Tp. Trustee, v. DAVIDSON. MARION SCHOOL TP. OF PIKE COUNTY v. McILREE.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

21 N.E.2d 412

215 Ind. 586

MARION SCHOOL TP. OF PIKE COUNTY v. SMITH.

MILLER, Tp. Trustee, v. DAVIDSON.

MARION SCHOOL TP. OF PIKE COUNTY v. McILREE.

Nos. 27225, 27232, 27233.

Supreme Court of Indiana

June 13, 1939

Appeal from Daviess Circuit Court; Frank E. Gilkison, Judge.

Carl M. Gray, of Petersburg, for appellants.

Ely Corn & Nixon, of Petersburg, for appellees.

SHAKE Judge.

Appellees in the above cases, which are consolidated for the purposes of this opinion, entered into separate written contracts with John Survant, as trustee of Marion Township, Pike County, to teach eightmonth terms in its public schools, at salaries of $800 each, commencing August 31, 1934. They taught until January, 1935, when they were discharged by Claude Miller who succeeded Survant as township trustee on January 7, 1935. Appellees brought separate actions for their salaries from the date of their discharge to the end of the school term and recovered. The question for review is presented by exceptions to the overruling of appellants' demurrers to the complaints and the denial of their motions for new trial.

It appears that the appellant township was a participant in the Common School Relief Fund, created by Chapter 167, Acts 1933, § 28-901 et seq., Burns' 1933, Sec. 6431, et seq., Baldwin's Ind.St.1934. There is appended to Section 3 of said act a proviso which reads as follows: 'Provided further, That no trustee of any school township or board of trustees of any school town or school city shall enter into any transportation and/or teacher's contract without the approval of the board of department of education and any contract so entered into without said approval shall be null and void and without effect. Said certificate shall be executed in duplicate.'

It is conceded by the parties that the teachers' contracts upon which appellees sued were not approved by the Board of Department of Education, as required by said proviso. Appellants contend that appellees can not recover because, by the terms of said proviso, any contract not so approved is 'null and void and without effect.' Appellees assert that said proviso is itself null and void because the subject matter thereof is not embraced in the title of the act in which it appears, as required by Section 19 of Article 4 of the Constitution of Indiana: 'Every act shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith; which subject shall be expressed in the title. But if any subject shall be embraced in an act, which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be expressed in the title.'

The title of Chapter 167, Acts of 1933, is: 'An Act providing for the levy of a tax to support the common schools of the state, providing for the apportionment and distribution of the money so raised, repealing all laws in conflict therewith, providing a penalty, and declaring an emergency.'

The body of the act provides for an annual tax levy of seven cents on each $100 worth of taxable property, real or personal, in this state, and in addition thereto a poll tax of fifty cents upon each taxable poll in state, which money, when collected, shall be paid into the state treasury for a Common School Relief Fund. The purpose of the act is to extend state aid to local school corporations whose funds are insufficient to meet the cost of maintaining the minimum educational facilities required by other legislation. Specific duties are imposed upon local school officials, county superintendents, the Board of Department of Education, the State Board of Accounts, the Auditor of State, and the Treasurer of State in the administration of the act. It is unnecessary to set out the details of the many provisions, but it is sufficient to note that nowhere in the act are there any references to the execution or validity of teachers' contracts, except in the proviso to the third section quoted above.

The precise question is, whether the provision of the act which says that teachers' contracts shall be null and void and without effect, unless approved by the Board of Department of Education, is within the title of the act.

It has many times been said that the purposes of Section 19 of Article 4 of the State Constitution are to prevent 'log rolling' legislation; to prevent surprise, or fraud, in the Legislature by means of provisions in bills of which the titles give no intimation; and to apprise the people of the subject of legislation under consideration. Moore-Mansfield Const. Co. v. Indianapolis, etc., R. Co., 1913, 179 Ind. 356, 101 N.E. 296, 44 L.R.A., N.S., 816, Ann.Cas.1915D, 917, Ule v. State, 1935, 208 Ind. 255, 194 N.E. 140. The Constitution of 1816 contained no such provision and the abuses that resulted therefrom are well illustrated by the following excerpt from the Report of Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1850 (p. 1086):

'Mr. Owen. I am in favor of the amendment. Gentlemen say that nothing is to be effected by it. It will, without doubt, prevent incongruous subjects being grouped together in the same bill. Of this I remember a remarkable example, that came under my own knowledge, while a member of the State Legislature. There was a bill introduced by a member, whose name it is not necessary to mention. The title of the bill was to appropriate a portion of the three per cent. fund, coming to a certain county, 'and for other purposes.' It was read a first and second time, by its title as a local bill: on its third reading, some member asked for the reading of the 'other purposes;' and it came out that the last section contained a provision divorcing a man from his wife. (Laughter.)

'Mr Maguire. I have heard much complaint --and there is undoubtedly some ground for the complaint--as to the manner in which legislation has sometimes been conducted in this State. I have a distinct recollection of a case somewhat similar to that referred to by the gentleman from Posey, where a section was inserted in a bill, otherwise unobjectionable, appropriating the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars for a private and local purpose. The bill had a general title, to which was added the words, 'and for other purposes.' The bill passed both branches of the...