State Board of Control v. Buckstegge

• Decision Date: 01 July 1916
• Docket Number: Civil 1456
• Citation: 18 Ariz. 277,158 P. 837
• Parties: BOARD OF CONTROL OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA and CHARLES P. OSBURN, Secretary of the Board of Control of the State of Arizona, Appellants, v. L. H. BUCKSTEGGE, Appellee
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

158 P. 837

18 Ariz. 277

BOARD OF CONTROL OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA and CHARLES P. OSBURN, Secretary of the Board of Control of the State of Arizona, Appellants, v. L. H. BUCKSTEGGE, Appellee

Civil No. 1456

Supreme Court of Arizona

July 1, 1916

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the County of Maricopa. Geo. H. Crosby, Judge. Affirmed.

Mr Wiley E. Jones, Attorney General, and Mr. Leslie C. Hardy and Mr. Geo W. Harben, Assistant Attorneys General, for Appellants.

Mr. H M. Fennemore and Mr. Will E. Ryan, for Appellee.

OPINION

ROSS, C. J.

An initiated act adopted at the November, 1914, election undertook to impose the duty upon the board of control of the state of Arizona of ordering the payment of warrants issued by the boards of supervisors of the various counties of the state in the payment of pensions to certain persons therein mentioned. The act, including the title, reads as follows "An act providing for an old age and mothers' pension and

making appropriation therefor.

"Be it enacted by the people of the state of Arizona:

"Section 1. All almshouses within the state shall be abolished, their grounds and buildings shall be sold for the best obtainable price, and the proceeds shall be devoted for the purpose hereafter set forth in this act.

"Sec. 2. In the absence of almshouses, and in order to care for aged people and people incapable of earning a livelihood by reason of physical infirmities, and widows or wives whose husbands are in penal institutions or insane asylums, they being mothers of children who are under the age of sixteen (16) years, a system of pensioning is hereby established.

"(a) The Arizona State Board of Control shall have entire charge of all funds provided for the purpose mentioned, and shall order the same paid by the state treasurer to persons entitled, upon warrants issued by the boards of supervisors of the various counties in the state of Arizona. These boards shall also act as examining boards on the fitness and eligibility of applicants for pensions.

"Sec. 3. The state shall pay to each man and woman sixty (60) years of age and upward the sum of fifteen ($15.00) dollars per month, as long as such pensioners shall continue to live within this state; provided, always, that said recipients shall be citizens of the United States and residents of Arizona for five (5) years last preceding application; to be entitled to this pension they must also be without visible means of support.

"Sec. 4. All widows who are mothers of dependent children, also wives whose husbands have been consigned to penal institutions or insane asylums and who have children under the age of sixteen (16) years looking to them for support, shall each be entitled to fifteen ($15.00) dollars per month, and an additional six ($6.00) dollars per month for each child in their keeping under the age above mentioned, irrespective of the mother's age, provided they are citizens of the United States and residents of Arizona five (5) years last past preceding application.

"Sec. 5. There is hereby appropriated out of the general fund of the state treasury a sufficient amount each year to carry out and put into effect the provisions of this act.

"Sec. 6. All acts or parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed." Laws 1915, p. 10.

The board of supervisors of Gila county, under the provisions of this act, issued its warrant in favor of Catherine Bramham for $15 per month for herself and $6 per month each for her six children, a total of $51 per month; it being made to appear to the said board of supervisors that Catherine Bramham was a widow and the mother of six children under the age of sixteen. Said board also allowed the claim of Gus Wolf for $15 per month upon the showing to it that he was upward of sixty years old and without visible means of support. This action was brought by appellee as a resident taxpayer to restrain the board of control from ordering the said sums to be paid by the state treasurer, it being contended by appellee that said act was without force or effect for various reasons. The appellant board of control demurred to the complaint on the ground that it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, the demurrer was overruled, and, the appellants refusing and failing to further answer, judgment was entered, restraining the board of control as prayed for in the complaint. From this judgment an appeal is prosecuted.

At the outset we will say that it is not our purpose to take up and dispose of all of the objections urged by appellee against this act. We think it apparent that the judgment of the lower court was correct, although we may not agree with all of his conclusions, nor with all of the propositions advanced by the appellee.

It will readily be seen that the purpose and intent of the act is to introduce into the laws of Arizona a pension system for the benefit of certain citizens and persons designated in the act. The purpose is single and easily discernible when the act is held up before the light of reason; no words in explanation of the purpose of the lawmaker can be employed that will make it plainer than the title of the act, "Providing for an old age and mothers' pension and making appropriation therefor." While the object of the act is easily determinable from its title and context, the lack of a clear statement of the means and methods of its enforcement, we think, must necessarily result in its defeat. Standing alone, it is not a complete act, and unless the existing laws supply its defects or omissions, it is difficult to see how it may be carried into effect.

With these observations in mind, let us look into sections 1 and 2 of the act. It is provided in section 1 that "all almshouses within the state shall be abolished." Various definitions of almshouses are given in 2 Corpus Juris, 1160, as follows:

"A house appropriated for the poor; a home provided for the reception or relief of poor persons; a house appropriated for the use of the poor, who are supported by the public or by a revenue derived from private endowment; a place where the poor are maintained at the public expense; an institution supported by charity, which makes no charge whatever for the benefits rendered; any institution whose inmates are supported wholly by charity."

It will be thus seen that an almshouse may be a public institution kept up by the public revenues, or it may be an institution maintained by private endowment and contributions. The central idea is that it is a house appropriated for the poor. The act fails to define almshouses, and we must assume that it is intended to have the meaning ordinarily understood by its use; that is, and house or institution where the indigent sick and poor are cared for without cost to themselves.

We have now in this state, and have had for a great many years, a statutory system for the caring and keeping of our unfortunate poor. The institutions founded under this system have commonly been known and designated as county hospitals or poor farms, the law having cast the burden and duty of looking after and caring for the poor upon the counties. Some of the counties have purchased lands and erected thereon commodious, modern and comfortable buildings in which to house and care for their poor; in others, we believe, the contract for the care and keeping of the indigent sick and poor has usually been awarded to the lowest and best bidder. It is, we apprehend, these institutions that the act was intended to abolish; it was doubtless directed at the system of poor farms and county hospitals throughout the different counties of the state. It is, however, broad enough in its language to include private institutions for the poor and state charitable institutions, but if it was intended to reach state institutions, it would be violative of the mandate contained in section 15, article 22, of the Constitution. That section provides:

"Reformatory and penal institutions, and institutions for the benefit of the insane, blind, deaf, and mute, and such other institutions as the public good may require, shall be established and supported by the state in such manner as may be prescribed by law."

Assuming that the almshouses proposed to be abolished were county hospitals and county poor farms and nothing else, who, in the first instance, under the act, is to determine that question? Is it the board of supervisors of the different counties, or is it the board of control? It is certainly not the board of control, for there is no general law giving this body any power over the charitable institutions of the different counties, and this act does not purport to do so. If it is the board of supervisors whose duty it is to determine, if they have any almshouses, is it also their duty to sell the same and, if so, what disposition shall they make of the purchase price received? Section 1 says:

"The grounds and buildings shall be sold for the best obtainable price, and the proceeds shall be devoted for the purpose hereinafter set forth in this act."

Looking to the general statutes, we find that the "board of supervisors . . . have jurisdiction and power, under such limitations and restrictions, as are prescribed by law: . . . (10) To sell at public auction at the courthouse door, after thirty days' previous notice given by publication in a newspaper of the county, and convey to the highest bidder, for cash, any property, real or personal, belonging to the county, paying the proceeds into the county treasury for the use of the county." Paragraph 2418, Civil Code 1913.

The board of supervisors can exercise no powers except those specifically granted by the statute and in no other way than that fixed by the statute. The...