Smith v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 11 December 1934
• Docket Number: 42327
• Citation: Smith v. Thompson, 219 Iowa 888, 258 N.W. 190 (Iowa 1934)
• Parties: F. PRICE SMITH, Appellant, v. W. H. THOMPSON, County Auditor (Substituted Defendant for FRANK S. LAMAR), Appellee, F. C. HUBBELL et al., Intervenors
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

258 N.W. 190

219 Iowa 888

F. PRICE SMITH, Appellant, v. W. H. THOMPSON, County Auditor (Substituted Defendant for FRANK S. LAMAR), Appellee, F. C. HUBBELL et al., Intervenors

No. 42327

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

December 11, 1934

REHEARING DENIED MAY 17, 1935.

Appeal from Woodbury District Court--MILES W. NEWBY, Judge.

An action involving the validity of chapter 89 of the Laws of the Forty-fifth General Assembly, known as the Salary Reduction Act.Constitutional questions only are involved.The facts and questions in issue appear in the opinion.--Reversed.

Reversed and remanded.

Yeaman Yeaman & Yeaman, Brown & Margolin and Graham & Graham, for appellant.

Edward L. O'Connor, Attorney-general, Clair E. Hamilton, Assistant Attorney-general, Max E. Duckworth, County Attorney, and Franklin E. Gill, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

Carl Adams, for intervenors.

ANDERSON, J. MITCHELL, C. J., and ALBERT, KINDIG, KINTZINGER, and DONEGAN, JJ., concur.STEVENS, J., dissents.

OPINION

ANDERSON, J.

This case involves the validity of chapter 89 of the Laws of the Forty-fifth General Assembly, known as the Salary Reduction Act.

Plaintiff states in his petition, and it is admitted in the record, that he was duly elected treasurer of Woodbury county, Iowa, in November, 1932, and on January 1, 1933, he qualified as such and assumed the duties of said office; that his salary amounting to $ 3,775 per annum or $ 314.58 per month had been fixed and determined by the board of supervisors in accordance with the provisions of the 1931 Code, and he had drawn his salary on that basis up to the month of May, 1933; that on June 1, 1933, the plaintiff made written demand upon the auditor for the issuance of a salary warrant to him in payment of his salary for the month of May, 1933, in the sum of $ 314.58, which demand or request was refused by the auditor of Woodbury county for the reason that the Forty-fifth General Assembly had passed an act known as Senate FileNo. 479(now chapter 89 of the Acts of the Forty-fifth General Assembly), reducing the salary of county treasurers, and a warrant was tendered to the plaintiff by the county auditor in the sum of $ 229.12, the reduced amount of the salary of the county treasurer as fixed by the provisions of the legislative act referred to; that the plaintiff refused to accept the warrant representing the reduced salary for the month of May, 1933, and commenced this action in mandamus to compel the issuance and delivery to him of a warrant in the sum of $ 314.58, and alleging the invalidity of the act of the legislature referred to.Answer was filed by the county auditor and Woodbury county, and petition of intervention was also filed by certain named taxpayers who asserted that they were taxpayers and property owners in Woodbury county, and would be adversely affected if the plaintiff should prevail, and joined with the defendants in the defense of the action.There was a trial to the court upon the issues presented and a finding and judgment dismissing plaintiff's petition.The plaintiff appeals.

The appellant assigns numerous errors and relies upon several propositions of law, all attacking the validity of the act in question.We will notice some of them.

The appellant contends that the act is in contravention of section 29 of article 3 of the stateconstitution because it contains two or more subjects, two or more objects, and is omnibus in form, subject, and object.Section 29 of article III of the constitution provides:

"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."

It is true that the title to the act is omnibus in form, and, to some extent at least, unintelligible and misleading.For instance, the first clause of the title reads, "An Act to repeal section fifty-one hundred twenty-six (5126) and enact a substitute therefor and to amend sections eighty-eight-c one (88-c1)", and approximately fifty other and different sections contained in at least eleven different chapters of the Code.The first clause of the title, quoted above, is not again referred to in the act itself.Again sections 5221,5223,5225,5229, and5231 are included in the title as sections to be amended.These numbered sections are not again mentioned in the body of the act.Again section 29 of the act reduces the compensation of the members of the General Assembly and the lieutenant governor and this change is not mentioned in the title.Again we find that the sections of the act itself are not numbered consecutively, sections 31,35,37,39,41, and52 being omitted from the bill as enrolled, which condition adds to the confusion and unintelligible feature of the title.However, the last clause of the title recites, "all relating to statutory salaries and compensation of state, county, and city officers", and this must be held to be a description of the subject-matter and object of the act in question.

The omnibus form and incongruous subjects appearing both in the title and body of the act indicates a hurried, if not careless, consideration in the preparation of the bill as presented to the legislature and as finally considered by it, which cannot be commended or approved, and which necessarily must have some weight in the consideration of the constitutional legality of the act which we will later discuss.However, we are of the opinion that the discrepancies and errors which we have noted are not sufficient in themselves, without more, upon which to base a holding that the act is invalid.

Inasmuch as the general assembly in drawing the title saw fit to specifically enumerate the sections of the statutes which it proposed to repeal or amend, rather than to draw the title in general language, it must be held that the omission in the title of any reference to the sections governing the salary of the members of the general assembly and of the lieutenant governor must be held to invalidate section 29 of the act(section 29, article 3, state constitution;Henkle v. Keota,68 Iowa 334, 27 N.W. 250) and this invalidity must be considered as having a bearing upon the constitutionality of the act, which we will later discuss.

It is also claimed by the appellant that the act is not uniform in operation, is class legislation, and is in contravention of section 6 of article 1 of the state constitution which provides that "all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens."We are constrained to hold that the act is not subject to this attack.This operation of the act applies equally to all citizens who fall within any particular class, as mentioned in the act.It is apparently true that the classification adopted does not bring within the influence of the act all of the state, county, and municipal officers, but it is not necessary that the salaries of all state, county, and municipal officers be determined upon the same basis.It must be conceded that the legislature has the power to fix and determine salaries of all officials where they have not delegated that power to some other governmental agency.Salaries of state and other officers are fixed in the sound judgment of the legislature with a view to, and a knowledge of, the amount of work to be done in each particular office or class of offices.The act in question extends to and includes equally all persons who are or may be in like or similar circumstances and is uniform in its operation and application; and it cannot be said where salary differences are based on population, the amount of work to be done, and the responsibility in each particular office, that the fixing and determining of the salaries of the respective officers and the offices included in this act is arbitrary or unreasonable, or that it does not have uniform operation or application, or that it grants to any citizen or class of citizens privileges or immunities which upon the same terms do not belong to all citizens falling within the various classes.Polk County v. Cope,176 Iowa 19, 157 N.W. 245;City of Des Moines v. Bolton,128 Iowa 108, 102 N.W. 1045, 5 Ann. Cas. 906;Cook v. Marshall County,119 Iowa 384, 93 N.W. 372, 104 Am. St. Rep. 283;Clear Lake Live Stock Association v. Weir,200 Iowa 1293, 206 N.W. 297.

Some question is made as to the right of the legislature to reduce the salaries of public officers during the term for which they are elected, but it must be conceded, as a general rule that the relation between a public officer and the people is not in the nature of a contract, and that such office has in it no element of property.It is a public trust, created for the benefit of the state and not for the benefit of the individual citizens thereof, and the prospective emoluments of a public office are not property in any sense.Crozier v. Lyons,72 Iowa 401, 34 N.W. 186;Eckerson v. City of Des Moines,137 Iowa 452, 115 N.W. 177;Shaw v. City Council of Marshalltown,131 Iowa 128, 104 N.W. 1121, 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 825, 9 Ann. Cas. 1039.It must be held that the legislature has the power to fix and determine salaries of all officials where they have not already delegated that power to some other governmental agency, if such power is not limited or proscribed by constitutional provisions.Cook v. Marshall County,119 Iowa 384, 93 N.W. 372, 104 Am. St. Rep. 283.And it follows that the act in question is not subject to attack...