Shelby County v. Tennessee Centennial Exposition Co.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1896
• Citation: 36 S.W. 694,96 Tenn. 653
• Parties: SHELBY COUNTY et al. v. TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION CO. et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

36 S.W. 694

96 Tenn. 653

SHELBY COUNTY et al. v. TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

May 28, 1896

Appeal from circuit court, Shelby county; L. H. Estes, Judge.

Application by the Tennessee Centennial Exposition Company and others for a writ of mandamus against Shelby county and others. From a decree granting the writ, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Turley & Wright and Malone & Malone, for appellants.

James M. Greer, for appellees.

CALDWELL J.

On the 13th day of January, 1896, the county court of Shelby county in regular quarterly session assembled, passed a resolution in usual and proper form, appropriating $25,000 of the county's revenue, then in the county treasury or to be thereafter collected in due course of law, "to provide for an exhibit of the resources of the county in the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, to be held in the city of Nashville during the current year 1896" the fund so appropriated "to be administered" by the "County Court Centennial Committee," composed of George B. Fleece, J. M. Coleman, N. C. Taylor, J. M Goodbar, R. C. Graves, and N. C. Perkins, citizens of Shelby county, "under such rules and regulations" as the court should "from time to time provide." On a later day of the same term, the court, by appropriate resolutions, "authorized" its chairman to issue warrants on the county trustee, "in payment of all orders for expenses incurred by the County Court Centennial Committee," such orders to be first approved by that committee's "executive committee." Some time thereafter the County Court Centennial Committee "was applied to by Miss Lida Thomas, superintendent of public schools for Shelby county, for an appropriation of $50, to enable her to make an exhibit in behalf of the county schools at the approaching Centennial celebration"; and "George B. Fleece, one of the committee, having incurred certain traveling expenses in and about the execution of his duties as a member of the said committee, amounting to $25, applied for a sum sufficient to cover the said expenses." Both of these claims were properly approved, and the County Court Centennial Committee "applied to the chairman of the county court to issue his warrants for said sums, which he declined to do." Thereupon the present action was commenced, as an "agreed case"; the Tennessee Centennial Exposition Company and the several members of the Centennial Committee of the county court of Shelby county being plaintiffs, and Shelby county and John J. Barry, chairman of her county court, being defendants. The plaintiffs "insist that it was the duty of the chairman of said court to have issued warrants upon the application mentioned above," and seek to have him compelled by mandamus to issue them now; while the defendants insist that the chairman should not have issued said warrants, and that his refusal to issue them was right, under all the facts and circumstances of the case." The circuit judge "found the matter of law submitted to the court, upon the agreed statement of facts, in favor of the plaintiffs, and against the defendants," and thereupon ordered and adjudged that the chairman of the county court of Shelby county "issue his warrant for $25, payable to George B. Fleece, and also issue his warrant for $50, payable to Lida Thomas," and that such warrants, when issued, "be delivered to __________, the committee appointed by the county court, as set forth in the agreed case." The defendants have appealed in error.

There can be no reasonable doubt that the "expenses" for which the chairman was authorized to issue warrants were expected and intended to embrace all proper expenditures, whatever the form or nature, to be made by the committee in connection with the contemplated exhibit, and that the court designed that all outlays which the committee should have the right to make should come within, and be paid alone out of, the appropriation of $25,000; hence, in considering the right of the committee to demand warrants for the matters or expenses involved in this case, it becomes necessary to determine, in the first place, whether or not the appropriation itself was validly made. If the appropriation was valid in the first instance, and nothing has since occurred to render it inoperative, the judgment of the court below is clearly right. County courts in this state are creatures of statute merely, possessed of statutory jurisdiction alone, and wholly wanting in common-law powers. All the powers emanate from the legislature, and, in granting these powers, the legislature itself must act within certain constitutional limitations. Nashville & K. R. Co. v. Wilson Co., 89 Tenn. 597, 15 S.W. 446.

The appropriation in the present case was made under and by virtue of a special enabling act, passed in February, 1895, which is as follows:

"An act to empower county courts to appropriate money for an exhibit at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of the state of Tennessee, that the county courts of the respective counties of Tennessee are hereby authorized and empowered to make appropriations of money to provide for an exhibit of their resources at the Tennessee Exposition, to be held in the city of Nashville, state of Tennessee, in the year 1896; and to prescribe ways and means, rules and regulations governing the expenditure of any money so appropriated.

"Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, that this act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it."

Acts 1895, c. 25.

If the exhibition of the counties' resources at the exposition mentioned is to be regarded as "county purposes," then this legislation is undoubtedly authorized by the first clause of section 29, art. 2, of the state constitution of 1870, which declares that "the general assembly shall have power to authorize the several counties and incorporated towns in this state, to impose taxes for county and corporation purposes respectively, in such manner as shall be prescribed by law; and all property shall be taxed according to its value, upon the principles established in regard to state taxation." Obviously, the legislature may authorize counties and incorporated towns to "appropriate money" for county and municipal purposes, respectively, if it has power to authorize them to impose taxes for such purposes. The power to do the latter which is expressly stated, necessarily includes the power to do the former. It follows, therefore, that the legislature acted within its constitutional power in the passage of the act mentioned, if the appropriations therein authorized to be made shall be held to be for "county purposes," in the true sense; and in the latter event it follows, furthermore, that the said act, being complete in form and substance, and free from other constitutional objection, afforded ample authority to the county court of Shelby county for the making of the appropriation called in question in this case. There is no exact rule made by which the courts may always determine what is, and what is not, a "county purpose" or a "corporation purpose," within the meaning of the provision of the constitution just quoted. The question must be decided upon the particular facts of each case. This court has held the building of a railroad into a city to be a corporation purpose (Nichol v. Mayor, etc., 9 Humph. 252); and likewise the building of a railroad near city, when calculated to promote the interests of the city (McCallie v. Mayor, etc., 3 Head, 318; Adams v. Railroad Co., 2 Cold. 645). For the same reason, it was also adjudged that the construction of a railroad through a county is a county purpose. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. County Court of Davidson, 1 Sneed, 637. In accord is the great weight of authority. See cases cited in note on page 479 of 14 Lawy. Rep. Ann. (Daggett v. Colgan [Cal.] 28 P. 51). Referring to legislative power to impose a burden of taxation for a public purpose, Judge Cooley says: "I do not understand that the word 'pu...