State ex rel. Reynolds v. Jost
| Decision Date | 12 April 1915 |
| Parties | THE STATE ex rel. WILLIAM C. REYNOLDS et al. v. HENRY L. JOST et al |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Writ issued.
Robinson & Goodrich and Willard P. Hall for relators.
(1) The findings of fact made by the commissioner are binding upon both relators and respondents because no exceptions have been filed to his report by either. So far as we know, no rule has been established by this court upon this subject, but this is the rule that prevails generally in all cases referred by courts to masters, referees and commissioners, and no reason is apparent why it should not apply in this court to findings of fact made in the reports of its commissioners (certainly the practice is for those objecting to such findings to file exceptions thereto). (2) The evidence reported by the commissioner fully sustains all those findings of fact by him that are necessary to support relators' theory of this case. (3) The evidence fully sustains the commissioner's finding that the sum of $ 650,000 was reasonable and necessary for relators' uses during the present fiscal year. (4) The commissioner's findings that the departments of the city need the sums apportioned to them and that the sum of $ 650,000 could not be appropriated to relators' uses without compelling some of said departments to shut down are inaccurate and overdrawn. (5) The police department of Kansas City is a State agency, not a city department. The duty imposed upon respondents to appropriate money for said department is imposed upon them as agents of the State and not as officers of the city, and the statutes in this regard are not unconstitutional in that they deprived the city of any constitutional right to self-government or home rule. Goodnow's Municipal Home Rule, pp. 8-11, 15, 37, 39, 80, 85, 95, 101-103, 107, 108 111, 207, 208, 221-232. The preservation of the public peace by the establishment, regulation and government of a police department for any part of the State is a governmental and not a municipal matter. The power to do this is governmental and not municipal. State ex rel. v. Mason, 153 Mo 23; State v. Stobie, 194 Mo. 14; State ex rel v. County Court, 34 Mo. 546; Baltimore v. Board of Police, 15 Md. 376; People v. Draper, 15 N.Y 532; State v. Covington, 29 Ohio St. 111; State v. Baughman, 38 Ohio St. 455; Americus v. Perry, 114 Ga. 871; State v. Hunter, 38 Kan. 578; Commonwealth v. Plaister, 148 Mass. 375; Redall v. Moores, 63 Neb. 219; State v. Nolan, 71 Neb. 136; Gooch v. Exeter, 70 N.H. 413; Newport v. Horton, 22 R. I. 201; Horton v. Newport, 27 R. I. 283; Burch v. Hardwicke, 30 Gratt. (Va.) 24; Ingersoll on Public Corp., secs. 64 and 65; People ex rel. v. Mahoney, 13 Mich. 481; 1 Dillon on Mun. Corp. (5 Ed.), sec. 97; Cooley on Taxation (2 Ed.), p. 681; Goodnow on Municipal Home Rule, pp. 134, 208, 224, 239; Ingersoll on Public Corporations, sec. 64; 28 Cyc. 486; 20 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2 Ed.), 1223. The general rule is that a State tax must be levied upon the property of the whole State, because, as a general rule, the taxing district for State taxes embraces the whole State. 1 Cooley on Taxation (3 Ed.), 225-233. But there are taxes which are levied for State purposes in the sense that the State is generally interested therein, but which purposes are of so much local concern as to make them of peculiar benefit to the locality to such an extent as to justify levying the taxes exclusively against the local property. Instances of this sort are taxes levied for road and bridge purposes (1 Cooley on Tax., 1297), for the construction of courthouses and for police purposes, in the narrow sense of preserving the public peace (Id., p. 1296). Such taxes are State taxes. They could be imposed upon the whole State, but they may be also imposed upon the particular locality. State ex rel. v. Field, 119 Mo. 593; Hamilton v. County Court, 15 Mo. 1; State ex rel. v. County Court, 34 Mo. 546; State ex rel. v. Mason, 153 Mo. 23; Elting v. Hickman, 172 Mo. 237; Young v. Kansas City, 152 Mo. 661; Davock v. Moore, 105 Mich. 120; Kirby v. Shaw, 18 Pa. St. 258; Philadelphia v. Field, 58 Pa. St. 320; Gordon v. Carnes, 47 N.Y. 608; Mayor v. Howard, 15 Md. 397; Talbot County v. Queen Ann County, 50 Md. 245; Goodnow on Municipal Corporations, p. 103. (6) The Legislature had the power to and it did make the estimate by the police board of the money needed by it conclusive upon respondents. It was not for respondents to question the correctness of the estimate or the needs of the police board. It was no answer to said estimate for respondents to say that they had the money, but could not appropriate it because the departments of the city government needed some of it. The statute makes the needs of the police board paramount to the needs of the city. Sec. 9778, R. S. 1909; State ex rel. v. Commissioners, 107 N.C. 110; State ex rel. v. Mason, 153 Mo. 58; St. Louis v. Shields, 52 Mo. 350; Kirby v. Shaw, 18 Pa. St. 258. (7) The proper remedy to compel the mayor and common council to appropriate the amount of the estimate made by relators was by mandamus. There was no other remedy. 19 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 864; State v. Shakespeare, 41 La. Ann. 156; Perkins v. Slack, 86 Pa. St. 270; Bridge Comrs. v. Philadelphia, 7 Phila. (Pa.) 298, 3 Brews. (Pa.) 596; State v. Merrillon, 24 Ohio Cir. Ct. 249; State v. Jersey Bd. of Finance, 53 N. J. L. 62; State ex rel. v. Mason, 153 Mo. 55; High on Extra. Remedies (3 Ed.), 324. (8) Respondents have all along appeared to assume that the appropriation for the uses of the police department necessarily reduced the revenues of the city applicable to the uses of the city. In this they erred. Respondents could have levied a specific tax for police purposes, and this could not have been included in city taxes for the purpose of determining whether the rate for city purposes exceeded the constitutional limit. Commonwealth v. Commrs., 37 Pa. St. 277; Commonwealth v. Perkins, 43 Pa. St. 400; State ex rel. v. Field, 119 Mo. 613; State v. Street, 117 Ala. 203; Hamilton v. County Court, 15 Mo. 1; State ex rel. v. County Court, 34 Mo. 546; St. Louis v. Shields, 52 Mo. 351; Mayor v. Guthrie ex rel., 1 Okla. 188; Hare v. Kennedy, 83 Ala. 608; Gilkerson v. Federal Justices, 13 Gratt. 577; Douglass v. Harrisville, 9 W.Va. 165; Powell v. Parksburg, 28 W.Va. 706; Norfolk v. Ellis, 26 Gratt. 226; Eyre v. Jacob, 14 Gratt. 434; Norfolk v. Chamberlain, 89 Va. 202, 37 Cyc. 734. (9) The statutes do not delegate to the police board any of the Legislature's legislative powers. Respondents' counsel object because section 9787 fixes only the maximum number of men in the different classes of the service and leaves it to the discretion of the police board to fix the number within that maximum. A like objection was made for St. Louis in the Mason case, 153 Mo. 47, but the objection made there was that the St. Louis statute fixed a minimum and left the maximum to the discretion of the police board. This court met the objection by treating the minimum as the maximum. All seemed to concede that if a maximum had been fixed by the statute it would have been all right. Doubtless it was due to the result of the Mason case that the writer of the statute herein involved fixed a maximum. (10) That the population of Kansas City was 275,000 on April 20, 1914, is not open to question. The police board estimated the population at that number under the power of the statutes and their action in that behalf is final and conclusive. The last Federal census has nothing to do with the matter. 1 Dillon, sec. 153; State v. Dist. Court, 84 Minn. 377; Dunne v. Railroad, 131 Mo. 1; People v. Pope, 6 Utah 353.
Henry L. Jost, Andrew F. Evans and A. F. Smith for respondents.
(1) The case of State ex rel. v. Mason, 153 Mo. 23, so confidently relied upon by relators in this case, is not, in our judgment, a precedent for the determination of this case or an obstacle in the way of a decision of this case in favor of respondents. (a) Because of essential differences in the provisions of the statute relating to St. Louis, under which the Mason case was decided, and the statute relating to Kansas City, under which this proceeding is prosecuted. (b) Because of essential differences between the relations St. Louis, a political subdivision of the State, bears to the State, and the relations which Kansas City, not a political subdivision of the State, bears to the State. (c) Kansas City does not owe its existence to legislative enactment, but to authority conferred by the Constitution upon the people of this locality. It does not levy its tax for municipal purposes by authority of the Legislature, but by authority of the Constitution. The Legislature may not take away a right conferred upon the people by the Constitution. If it may say that taxes levied and collected by the city, under the authority of the Constitution, for municipal purposes, shall not be expended for municipal purposes, but shall be expended for State purposes or for other purposes not municipal, then it seems to follow that the Legislature may also say that Kansas City shall not levy any tax for municipal purposes in excess of seventy cents, for instance, on the one hundred dollars, or any tax at all, for municipal purposes, and thereby nullify, absolutely, the provisions of the Constitution. (d) There are, in fact, a number of essential differences between the statute applicable to St. Louis (Secs. 9802 et seq., R. S. 1909) and the statute applicable to Kansas City (Secs. 9764 et seq., R. S. 1909). By section 9806, the police commissioners of St. Louis are required, without discretion, to employ a specific number of policemen. By section 9787, R. S. 1909, the police commissioners of Kansas City "may, as the service requires, appoint"...
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