Shelby County v. Hale
| Decision Date | 20 July 1956 |
| Parties | SHELBY COUNTY and Charies Baker, Chairman of the Shelby County Court, Riley C. Garner, Trustee of Shelby County, all residents of Shelby County, Tennessee, v. E. W. HALE, Sr., Dan C. Mitchell and Rudolph Jones, all residents of Shelby County, Tennessee. 4 McCanless 503, 200 Tenn. 503, 292 S.W.2d 745 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
E. W. Hale, Jr., County Attorney of Shelby County, Memphis, for appellants.
John M. Heiskell and Larry Creson, Memphis, for appellees.
George F. McCanless, Atty. Gen., Allison B. Humphreys, Solicitor General, Nashville, and Milton P. Rice, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Atty. Gen., State of Tennessee.
The bill in this cause was filed by the appellees, who at the time were Commissioners of Shelby County constituting the Board of County Commissioners, Shelby County, Tennessee. In this bill they sought a declaratory judgment of thier rights to have paid them the annual salary as prescribed by Chapter 237, Sec. 6 of the Private Acts of Tennessee for 1911, as amended by Chapter 91 of the Private Acts of 1955 as and from April 4, 1955. The bill, of course, under the Declaratory Judgments Act, T.C.A. Sec. 23-1101 et seq., seeking the declaration as to the constitutionality of an act of the Legislature, made the Attorney General of the State a party defendant.
The bill recited as a fact that Chapter 91 of the Private Acts of 1955 was approved and ratified by a unanimous vote of the Quarterly County Court of Shelby County on April 4, 1955, which date was within 60 days after the sine die adjournment of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee for the year 1955, and that the approval of said Act by the County Court of Shelby County was duly certified by the Chairman of that court to the Secretary of State for the State of Tennessee.
The bill further alleged that the appellants had declined to recognize the rights of the appellees, as asserted therein, because they had been advised that Chapter 91 of the Private Acts of 1955 is in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of Tennessee, art. 11, Sec. 9, which amendment was set forth therein and is referred to as 'The Home Rule Amendment'.
The Attorney General of the State filed a separate answer in which he admitted the allegations of fact set forth in the bill, but his interpretation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of Tennessee was that this amendment prohibited the alteration by special, local or private legislation of the salary of a county officer prior to the end of the term for which such public officer was selected whether or not the same had been approved by the legislative body of the county and he was therefore of the opinion that Chapter 91 of the Private Acts of 1955 was unconstitutional as violative of the Sixth Amendment. This answer raises the question to be determined herein.
The two Chancellors of Shelby County, sitting in banc, sustained the bill and concurred in holding that Chapter 91 of the Private Acts of 1955 was a valid and constitutional amendment of Chapter 237, Section 6 of the Private Acts of 1911, it having been unanimously approved by the local legislative body of Shelby County, Tennessee.
As a result of this ruling Shelby County and the Chairman of the County Court and the Trustee constituting the Board of County Commissioners of Shelby County, Tennessee, have prayed and perfected an appeal. The Attorney General of the State in the first instance thought that probably the matter was of local concern and thought that if it could be worked out locally that he would not contest the matter but since the Commissioners saw fit to have a court of last resort pass on the question, and since the question was of importance to all counties of the State, the Attorney General has likewise filed a brief and takes the position that the act is unconstitutional as violative of Article 11, Section 9 of the Constitution of the State. Briefs have been filed, able arguments heard and we now have the matter for disposition.
The question as presented by the assignments is in effect novel. It, for the first time, involves the direct construction of the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Tennessee. Article 11, Section 9 of the Constitution of Tennessee is found in Volume 1, Tennessee Code Annotated, at page 762 and 763. The Sixth Amendment () is the second paragraph of Article 11, Section 9. We quote from the beginning of Section 9 through the second paragraph which is the Sixth Amendment, as follows:
'Power over local affairs--Home rule for cities and counties--Consolidation of functions.--The Legislature shall have the right to vest such powers in the Courts of Justice, with regard to private and local affairs, as may be expedient.
'The General Assembly shall have no power to pass a special, local or private act having the effect of removing the incumbent from any municipal or county office or abridging the term or altering the salary prior to the end of the term for which such public officer was selected, and any act of the General Assembly private or local in form or effect applicable to a particular county or municipality either in its governmental or its proprietary capacity shall be void and of no effect unless the act by its terms either requires the approval by a two-thirds vote of the local legislative body of the municipality or county, or requires approval in an election by a majority of those voting in said election in the municipality or county affected.' (Italics ours.)
One reading the second paragraph above plainly and understandably finds that the clear language of this section is that the General Assembly shall have no power to enact legislation which has the effect of (1) removing an incumbent from a county or municipal office, (2) abridging the term of such office or (3) altering the salary of such office during the term thereof. We have italicized in the quotations from the Constitution above the first few words which to us have a clear and understandable and applicable application to these three things that we have numbered immediately above. We have likewise italicized the first few lines of the second part of this section which to us (and the language seems clear to mean this to us) is a distinct provision in which the General Assembly has power to...
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