People ex rel. Kennedy v. Gies

• Decision Date: 30 April 1872
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The People on the relation of Michael Kennedy v. Paul Gies, County Treasurer of Wayne County

25 Mich. 83

The People on the relation of Michael Kennedy v. Paul Gies, County Treasurer of Wayne County

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 30, 1872

Heard April 23, 1872

Application for mandamus.

Motion for a mandamus denied, with costs.

Van Dyke & Brownson and D. C. Holbrook, for the respondent.

Theodore Romeyn, for the relator.

Christiancy Ch. J. Cooley, J., Campbell, J.concurred. Graves, J., did not sit in this case.

OPINION

Christiancy Ch. J.

By act of April 12, 1871 (Sess. Laws, Vol. 3, pp. 155 and 156), the legislature provided, "that each county auditor of Wayne county shall receive a salary of one thousand dollars per annum, to be paid quarterly from the county treasury; which sum shall be in full for all services and expenses, and traveling fees, in attending upon the duties of his office; any auditor receiving further or other compensation for his services or expenses, or traveling fees, in attending to the duties of his office, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor," etc.

The board of auditors however, in disregard of this act, allowed to the relator, in excess of this salary, the sum of fifty dollars for services, as one of the county auditors, and drew their warrant for the amount upon the county treasurer, who refused to pay the same; and application is now made to this court for a mandamus to compel the treasurer to pay it.

The relator insists that this act of the legislature is in violation of section 10, of article X, of the State constitution, which is in these words: "The board of supervisors, or in the county of Wayne, the board of county auditors, shall have the exclusive power to prescribe and fix the compensation for all services rendered for, and to adjust all claims against their respective counties, and the sum so fixed or defined, shall be subject to no appeal."

As the services of the county auditors are "services performed for the county," it is insisted that the power of the auditors to fix the compensation for their own services, is necessarily included under this provision. And if constitutions and statutes were always to be construed like mathematical axioms, this reasoning would be very conclusive, since the whole must include all its parts; and "all services rendered for the county," would necessarily include the services of the auditors, so far, at least, as they were performed exclusively for the county. But in legal reasoning, and in the construction of constitutions and statutes, we are often compelled to content ourselves with conclusions, somewhat less certain than those involved in mathematical axioms; because neither conventions nor legislatures always use language with mathematical accuracy, and neither the human mind nor human affairs will always submit to merely mathematical rule. For various reasons, and upon various grounds, exceptions or qualifications are sometimes implied, though not expressed. An act or constitution which should give to justices of the peace, or to a certain court, the right to try all cases involving certain amounts, or of a certain character, would give neither the justice nor the judge the right to try his own cause, or give final judgment in his own favor, though the case in every other respect should fall within the class he was expressly authorized to try. An exception of such cases would be implied; and the exception would be just as valid and just as readily recognized by all courts as if it had been expressed. I do not mean to say that the like exception in the present case, if any can be implied, is as clear as in the instance supposed. I use the illustration now only to show that the mathematical argument is by no means necessarily conclusive. This provision, whatever may be the proper inference from it, does not expressly declare that the board shall have the right to fix their own compensation, or allow their own claims, as has generally, if not always been done in the few instances of minor importance, in which it has been the real intention of legislative bodies to grant such a power; it does not expressly refer to the subject of their compensation, or their claims, and it is entirely legitimate to inquire whether there is not something in the nature of the provision itself, considered in connection with the legislative and judicial history of the State, and the action of the convention which framed it, which may furnish a satisfactory inference that such an exception was intended, and should therefore be implied in reference to the services and claims which this board of auditors were empowered to fix and prescribe, and the claims they were authorized to adjust, as would be implied in case of power given to judicial officers, in the instance already mentioned.

As to the nature of the provision itself, if it is to be construed, as claimed by the relator, to give the board the power, exclusive of that of the legislature, to fix the amounts to be allowed to all officers for services to be performed for the county, their own included, and to preclude the legislature from prescribing the fees or salary to be paid, and to determine, without control from the legislature or the courts, all claims of every nature for which the county is liable, including claims in their own favor, then, it gives to the board both a legislative and a judicial power, absolute and unlimited, upon all questions of this kind; legislative, in prescribing in advance the rule and rate of compensation, and judicial, in determining, without appeal or review, the just and reasonable compensation for any service for the county, though performed by themselves, for which they have not, in their legislative capacity, already prescribed a definite compensation; and such would seem to be the nature of the allowance of the claim of fifty dollars to the relator in the present case.

Now, the maxim that no man shall be judge in his own cause, is one so deeply rooted in the minds of the American people, and, up to the time the constitution was adopted, so uniformly applied to this and the like boards, that to give them this power of final adjudication upon their own claims and of fixing the amount of their own compensation, without appeal or review, the language should be so clear as to admit of no other reasonable construction.

Neither this board of auditors nor the boards of supervisors were created for the first time by this constitution; they were both in existence and full operation, and had been so for years, when the constitution was framed; and their compensation (as well as that of the county commissioners who preceded them), had been always fixed by the legislature. In no instance had they been allowed to fix their own compensation or adjudicate upon their own claims. The constitution recognized and adopted them as existing boards, giving to the board of supervisors, and authorizing the legislature to give them, certain specified additional powers, but adding nothing to the powers of this board of auditors, except what may be claimed under this section, and being wholly silent as to the compensation, or mode of fixing the compensation, of the members of either board, or their power to adjudicate upon their own claims.

Is it not, then, a fair and even a strong inference, that if the convention had intended to abrogate a principle so long recognized as fundamental, and always applied to the same boards which they were thus recognizing and continuing [25 Mich. 88] --not creating,--they would have done so by express...