Robertson v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 17 June 1918
• Citation: 118 Miss. 423,79 So. 289
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBERTSON, STATE REVENUE AGENT v. THOMAS

79 So. 289

118 Miss. 423

ROBERTSON, STATE REVENUE AGENT v. THOMAS

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 17, 1918

March 1918

Division B

APPEAL from the chancery court of Lee county, HON. A. J. MCINTYRE Chancellor.

Suit by J. M. Thomas against Strokes V. Robertson, State Revenue Agent. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment affirmed.

Thos H. Johnston, for appellant.

W. D. & J. R. Anderson and Robins & Thomas, for appellee.

OPINION

ETHRIDGE, J.

This is an appeal by the state revenue agent, from the judgment of the chancery court of Lee county, and involves the question of the power of the state revenue agent to bring suits on behalf of drainage districts created under chapter 39 of the Code of 1906. Thomas was treasurer of said district, which had been created in conformity to the Code sections, and certain assessments had been collected by the tax collector, who had deposited the funds so collected in a bank, not having placed them in a depository. The state revenue agent checked up the tax collector's books, found the money had not been paid over to the treasurer of the drainage district or placed in a depository, and made demand upon the tax collector for the funds so deposited in the bank. The tax collector gave a check for the said amount, and this suit was filed in the chancery court to restrain and prevent the revenue agent's collecting the check and retaining his twenty per cent. of the said funds. On the hearing the chancellor held that the revenue agent had no power to bring the suit, and granted the relief prayed in the bill, from which decree this appeal is prosecuted.

The powers and duties of the revenue agent are set forth in section 4738 and section 4739, Code of 1906 (section 7056 and section 7057), which reads as follows:

"The state revenue agent may appoint a sufficient number of deputies. He shall have power and it shall be his duty to proceed to suit in the proper court against all officers, county contractors, persons, corporations, companies, and associations of persons for all past due and unpaid taxes of any kind whatever, for all penalties or forfeitures for all past due obligations and indebtness of any character whatever owing to the state or any county, municipality or levee board, and for damages growing out of the violation of any contract with the state or any county, municipality, or levee board, and shall have a right of action and may sue at law or in equity in all such cases where the state or any county, municipality or levee board has the right of action or may sue. And in all cases of valuation or ownership of property which has escaped taxation, may have subpoenaed witnesses to testify before the board of supervisors, board of mayor and aldermen or levee board.

"4739. Duties.--It is the duty of the state revenue agent to investigate the books, accounts, and vouchers of all fiscal officers of the state, and of every county, municipality and levee board, and to sue for, collect and pay over all money improperly withheld from either, and he has the power to sue and right of action against all such officers and their sureties to collect any such moneys; but if the delinquency appear by a correct open account on the books of the proper accounting officer, the right of the revenue agent to sue shall arise only after he has given thirty days' notice to the delinquent officer to pay over the amounts and he fails to do so. And the right of the revenue agent to sue shall terminate after the lapse of four years from the expiration of the term of any officer. And if he shall examine the books, accounts and vouchers of any fiscal officer of the state, county, municipality or levee board and find them correct, ...