State ex rel. Stortroen v. Lincoln

• Decision Date: 02 June 1916
• Docket Number: No. 19634[65].,19634[65].
• Citation: 133 Minn. 178,158 N.W. 50
• Parties: STATE ex rel. STORTROEN v. LINCOLN, County Auditor.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

133 Minn. 178

158 N.W. 50

STATE ex rel. STORTROEN

v.LINCOLN, County Auditor.

No. 19634[65].

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 2, 1916.

Appeal from District Court, Ottertail County; John A. Roeser, Judge.

Application by the State, on the relation of P. A. Stortroen, for mandamus to William Lincoln, as County Auditor of Ottertail County. From a judgment for respondent, relator appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

A statute enacted without the usual declaration as to the time it shall take effect, but which acts upon certain specified classes or persons at different dates, as to some from the date of enactment and as to others at a future date, goes into effect as an entirety and at the time prescribed by law for the taking effect of statutes after approval by the Governor.

Chapter 423, Sp. Laws 1891, fixing the salary of the county officers of Ottertail county, held to have taken effect and become a law prior to the amendment of section 33, art. 4, of the Constitution in 1892, by which special legislation upon the subject-matter of that statute was prohibited.

The special act was not repealed by implication by chapter 292, Gen. Laws 1895, nor by chapter 294, Gen. Laws 1903.

Chapter 294, Laws 1903, was a repeal in part of the special act, but was not a modification thereof within the meaning of section 33, art. 4, of the Constitution, wherein it is provided that special laws may be repealed, but shall not be amended, extended, or modified.

The word ‘modify,’ as used in that section of the Constitution, must be construed as synonymous with enlarge and extend, and a statute which removes or takes from a special statute a distinct and severable part is not a modification thereof. Brown & Guesmer, of Minneapolis, for appellant.

Anton Thompson, of Fergus Falls, and Gunderson & Leach, of Alexandria, for respondent.

BROWN, C. J.

For reasons satisfactory to the Legislature, into which we have no right to inquire, it was deemed advisable and proper expressly to prescribe and limit the salary and fees of certain officers of the county of Ottertail, and to that end chapter 423, Special Laws 1891, was enacted. By that act the salary of the county treasurer was fixed at $1,600 a year, and that of other county officers as therein prescribed. Relator herein was duly elected as county treasurer at the general election of 1910, re-elected in 1912, and again in 1914, and is now discharging the duties of his office under his last election. He accepted the salary as fixed by the special act during his entire term of service, except for the year 1915, and since the commencement of this proceeding. In August, 1915, he brought this proceeding to compel the issuance to him of county warrants as and for his salary as county treasurer upon the basis of the salary as prescribed by chapter 292, Gen. Laws 1895, for the time served during the year 1915, and for the difference between what was paid under the special salary act and that prescribed by said chapter 292 for the years 1911 to 1914, inclusive. Relator's right to the salary claimed was put in issue by respondent in his answer to the alternative writ. On the trial below the court held the special salary act valid and the exclusive measure of relator's compensation, and the alternative writ was discharged, and the proceeding dismissed. Judgment was entered accordingly, and relator appealed.

It is contended by relator: (1) That the special salary act never became a law of the state, and is unconstitutional, inoperative, and void; (2) that, if the act be held valid and in force from the date of its approval by the Governor, it was repealed by implication by chapter 292, Laws 1895; and (3) if so in force and not repealed by that statute, that it was repealed by chapter 294, Gen. Laws 1903.

While the questions presented are worthy of serious consideration, and have been so considered, we are unable to concur in either of relator's contentions. We consider the questions in their order.

[2] 1. The special act was duly passed by the Legislature and was approved by the Governor on April 6, 1891. The act does not conclude with the usual declaration, ‘This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage,’ but instead thereof concludes as follows: ‘This act shall not apply to the salary or fees of any officer named in sections one and three thereof until from and after the first Monday in January, 1893.’ The act imposed upon the sheriff of the county certain duties to be performed by him during the years 1891 and 1892 in reference to keeping an account of the fees received by him and expenditures made in his official capacity. All inconsistent statutes were expressly repealed.

At the session of the Legislature at which the statute was enacted there was proposed for submission to the people for adoption or rejection at the November, 1892, general election an amendment to the Constitution the purpose of which, among other things, was to prohibit special legislation of the character of the special act here in question; it being therein provided that after the adoption of the amendment there should be no special statutes fixing the compensation of county officers. The amendment was adopted at the 1892 election, and became a part of the Constitution prior to the first Monday of January, 1893, the date on which relator contends the special salary act was designed by the Legislature to become operative and in force. And it is claimed that by reason of this situation, the intervention of the constitutional amendment between the date of the passage of the act and the time it was to take effect, the special act was a violation thereof, because it deals with the prohibited subject, and is unconstitutional and void.

There is force and merit to relator's contention, if his theory of the time the act took effect be conceded. But his claim in this respect cannot well be admitted. The special act has remained undisturbed for nearly a quarter of a century. It has been acted upon by the public, and by all who during that period of time have held public office in Ottertail county. Its validity was first questioned in this proceeding. Every statute is presumed constitutional, and the presumption should strengthen with the passing of time during which the statute remains unchallenged and is acted upon by the people and acquiesced in by those who are affected by its provisions. In the face of such long acquiescence courts should hesitate before declaring the statute invalid. If there is a fair doubt, and the language of the statute be susceptible of a construction consistent with its constitutionality, that doubt and that construction should be resolved in its support, and the statute sustained. 1 Sutherland, Stat. Const. § 82; Cameron v. Railway Co., 63 Minn. 384, 65 N. W. 652,31 L. R. A. 553. The language of this statute relied upon by relator in support of the claim that it did not go into effect until after the adoption of the constitutional amendment is ‘that this act shall not apply to the salary and fees' of certain of the officers affected ‘until from and after the first Monday of January, 1893.’ We think this language might well be construed as simply excluding from the operation of the statute the then incumbents of the several offices, and not as postponing the time when the statute should take effect and be in force. It is quite apparent that in the enactment of the statute the Legislature had in mind that all such incumbents became candidates and were elected upon the basis of the general salary statutes applicable alike to this and all other counties of the state, and to avoid an appearance of legislating adversely to them personally it was, no doubt, thought proper to exclude them from the act during the term they were then serving. A somewhat similar statute was so construed in Sudbury v. Board of Co. Com'rs, 157 Inc. 446, 62 N. E. 45. Such a construction comports with fairness, in view of the particular situation, is consistent with what might well be done in the enactment of legislation affecting private rights of this kind, and is...