State ex rel. Michener v. Harrison

• Decision Date: 15 December 1888
• Citation: 19 N.E. 146,116 Ind. 300
• Parties: State ex rel. Michener, Attorney General, v. Harrison et al.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

116 Ind. 300

19 N.E. 146

State ex rel.Michener, Attorney General,

v.Harrison et al.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

December 15, 1888.

Appeal from circuit court, Boone county; Thomas J. Terhune, Judge.

Action by the state on the relation of the attorney general against Thomas H. Harrison, and his official sureties, to recover alleged over-payments made to Harrison as a public officer. A demurrer to the complaint was sustained, and the state appeals.

Louis T. Michener, Atty. Gen., for appellant. Wesner & Wesner and Harrison & Higgins, for appellees.

Zollars, J.

In 1883 Thomas H. Harrison was elected president of the boards of trustees for the hospital for the insane, the asylum for the blind, and the institution for the education of the deaf and dumb, and gave bond as such, with his co-appellees herein as sureties. From the time of his election and qualification until this action was commenced, in March, 1887, he drew from the state treasury, as salary and compensation, the sum of $1,600 per annum. The attorney general claims that he was entitled to but $900 per annum, and instituted this action in the name of the state, upon his bond, to recover back from him and his sureties the amount drawn in excess of $900 per annum. By the first section of the act of 1879 it was provided that the governor, with the consent of the senate, should appoint two trustees for each of the benevolent institutions above named, and should also, with like consent, appoint a president of the board of trustees of said institutions. It further provided that the president and the two trustees of each of said institutions should constitute the board of trustees for the government thereof, Acts 1879, p. 4; Rev. St. 1881, § 2768. The third section of that act provides that the boards shall organize by the selection of one member as treasurer and one as secretary, and that the president of the boards shall be the president of each board, respectively. Rev. St. 1881, § 2770. The fifth section provides that the president and trustees of each of said institutions shall be and constitute a board for the management of the business and affairs thereof, with power to make all proper rules, regulations, and by-laws for its government; that they shall have a regular meeting at or about the close of each month, and shall meet at least one other time during each month for the purpose of informal consultation or the transaction of current and incidental business. Other sections of the act clothe the several boards with authority to appoint superintendents, and to supervise the appointments of other subordinates. They must receive and pass upon reports from the superintendents, audit and allow bills, supervise the improvements and repairs of the buildings and grounds, furnish supplies for the several institutions, etc.; in short, the whole care, maintenance, preservation, management, and supervision of the several institutions is lodged with the board of trustees of each, respectively. Each board of trustees is responsible for the management of the institution over which it is placed. The act of 1883, (Acts 1883, p. 15,) which superseded and repealed the first and second sections of the act of 1879, does not effect the duties and responsibilities of the president and the several boards of trustees, but is more emphatic in making the president of the several boards an essential member of each. The first section of that act is as follows: “Be it enacted * * * that the government and management of the Indiana hospital for the insane, of the asylum for the blind, and of the institution for the education of the deaf and dumb, shall be, and is hereby, vested in three several boards of trustees, consisting of two trustees for each of said institutions and one president for the three several boards, which president shall be the third trustee of each of said boards. * * * The said boards shall, on their organization, and every two years thereafter, select one of their number as secretary and one as treasurer thereof.”

Under these acts there can be no complete board of trustees for either of the institutions without the president. He must meet with each of the boards as a member of it. He must do the work of a member of each board. He is responsible with each board for the management of the institution under its supervision. Being a member of all the boards, with general supervisory powers and duties, he must perform those duties, and be responsible for the management of all the institutions. And thus it is that the president of the boards must assume the responsibility and perform the duties imposed upon him as the officer having the general supervisory powers, and must also perform as much service as one of the trustees in each of the several boards, and assume the responsibility of such a trustee. Counsel for appellee argue that by reason of these multiplied duties, and the responsibilities resting upon the president, he ought to receive the same compensation as one of the trustees of each of the boards, and also compensation for the additional duties and responsibilities imposed and resting upon him as president of all the boards. That argument, while it might more properly be addressed to the legislature, and cannot have weight where there is no ambiguity in the statutes, is yet entitled to some consideration where, as here, there is doubt as to the proper construction to be given to the statutes bearing upon the question of compensation.

The act of 1879, which provided for the appointment of boards of trustees for the benevolent institutions, and for the “more efficient management and uniform government of the same,” contained a section providing for compensation, which is still in force, and is as follows: “The president of the boards shall receive as compensation for his services a salary, payable quarterly, at the rate of nine hundred dollars per annum; and the trustees of the insane asylum shall, in like manner, be paid salaries at the rate of six hundred dollarsto each; and the trustees of the institution of the deaf and dumb shall, in like manner, be paid salaries at the rate of four hundred dollars to each; and the trustees for the asylum for the blind shall, in like manner, be paid salaries at the rate of three hundred dollars to each,” etc. Rev. St. 1881, § 2778. A cardinal rule in the construction of a statute, or a particular section of a statute, is to ascertain the intention of the law-makers in its enactment; and in order to determine what that intention may have been, all of the different sections of the statute, and the several acts of the legislature upon the same subject, must be construed together. It is also well settled that for the purpose of arriving at a proper construction of a doubtful statute other statutes upon the same subject may be considered, although they may be no longer in force. City of Evansville v. Summers, 108 Ind. 189, 9 N. E. Rep. 81, and cases there cited; Telegraph Co. v. Steele, 108 Ind. 163, 9 N. E. Rep. 78; End. Interp. St. § 366. It is manifest that those rules should be applied here, and that the section last above quoted should be construed in connection with the several sections of the act of which it forms a part, and in connection with the section of the act of 1883, above set out. It will be proper, also, to keep in mind the first two sections of the act of 1879, which were repealed by the act of 1883. Thus, considering the statutes together, the proper construction of section 2778, supra, becomes a question not clear of doubt, and opens a field for discussion.

As already stated, the attorney general contends that $900 per annum is provided as a full compensation for all services rendered by the president of the boards of trustees, whether exercising his general supervisory powers or acting with each separate board as a member of it. That contention cannot be said to be without reason. It may plausibly be argued that, under the act of 1879, of which section 2778, supra, forms a part, the president of the boards of trustees becomes a member of each board by virtue of his position as president only; and that, while acting with each separate board, he is performing his duties as president; and that the act of 1883 does not materially change his relation to the several boards; and that, by reason of these considerations, the compensation to him as president was intended to cover all services in any way to be performed by him. On the other hand, counsel for appellees contend that, under the act of 1883, supra, $900 per annum is provided as compensation for the services and responsibilities imposed and resting upon the president of the several boards in the discharge of his general supervisory powers; that he is made a trustee of each of the several boards, and is therefore entitled to the compensation provided for a trustee of each of the boards with which he acts, and of which he is a member. That contention, again, is not without reason. The act of 1879 very clearly made the president a member of the several boards, and, as already stated, without him neither one of the boards could be complete. The duties and responsibilities of a member of each of the several boards was imposed and rested upon him. For all practical purposes, at least, he was one of the trustees of each of the several boards.

The act of 1883, in more specific terms, declares that the president for the several boards “shall be the presiding officer, and the third trustee of each of said boards.” The title under which he is to be elected is the “president of the boards,” but the act seems to make him a trustee in each of the several boards just as clearly and emphatically as it makes him the president. It lodges and vests the government and management of the benevolent institutions in the several boards of trustees, and provides for the election of three boards. Two of the members of each board are to be elected with the...