State v. Allison

• Decision Date: 30 March 1900
• Citation: 56 S.W. 467,155 Mo. 325
• Parties: STATE ex rel. EXCHANGE BANK OF RICHMOND v. ALLISON, Treasurer.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

56 S.W. 467

155 Mo. 325

STATE ex rel. EXCHANGE BANK OF RICHMOND v. ALLISON, Treasurer.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March 30, 1900.

COUNTIES — FISCAL YEAR — BEGINNING — COUNTY WARRANTS — REGISTRATION — PRIORITY — PLEADING — CERTAINTY.

1. A return to an alternative writ of mandamus, which, after a general denial, averred that outstanding, unpaid county warrants for necessary current expenses had been registered, presented, and protested, prior to those of the plaintiff, sufficient to exhaust all of the revenue of the county for that fiscal year, is not objectionable for uncertainty.

2. Under Rev. St. 1889, § 3166, providing that no warrant shall be paid out of the county's revenue for any one year until the expenses incurred in maintaining the county for that year are paid, a county treasurer cannot refuse to pay warrants issued for the current expenses of the county for the fiscal year because warrants issued prior to the fiscal year were unpaid.

3. Under Rev. St. 1889, § 3166, providing that county warrants "for any one year" shall be paid in the order they were registered with the county treasurer, warrants registered between January 1st and May 1st are entitled to priority of payment over those registered after May 1st, since the fiscal year of a county begins January 1st.

4. Under Rev. St. 1889, § 6570, providing that the word "year" shall mean a calendar year, unless otherwise expressed, and section 8589, providing that the fiscal year of the "state" shall commence on January 1st and end December 31st in each year, the fiscal year of a county begins on January 1st and ends on December 31st, since the natural meaning of the words would include a county, as a part of the state.

Gantt, C. J., and Burgess, J., dissenting.

Appeal from circuit court, Ray county; E. J. Broaddus, Judge.

Mandamus by the state, on the relation of the Exchange Bank of Richmond, against Wesley M. Allison, as treasurer of Ray county to compel the payment of certain county warrants held by the relator. From a judgment awarding a peremptory writ, and from an order denying a new trial, defendant appeals. Reversed.

J. W. Shotwell & Son, for appellant. Lavelock, Kirkpatrick & Divelbiss, for respondent.

VALLIANT, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court of Ray county awarding a peremptory writ of mandamus against the defendant (the appellant), the treasurer of the county, requiring him to pay certain county warrants held by the relator. The case was submitted for final judgment on demurrer to the return to the alternative writ. Therefore the facts presented in the record are undisputed. The facts are that the relator, the Exchange Bank of Richmond, held certain warrants, amounting to $302.95, regularly issued under order of the county court during the year 1895 for current expenses of the county during that year, and drawn against the county revenue fund for that year, duly registered, presented, and protested for nonpayment. These warrants of the relator were issued after May 1, 1895, for county expenses incurred after that date. At the time they were presented, and payment refused, the county treasurer had on hand, belonging to the county revenue fund for that year, $1,700; but the reason he refused to pay them was that there were outstanding, unpaid, registered warrants issued prior to May 1, 1895, amounting to $32,000, of which $22,000 were issued prior to January 1, 1895, for county expenses incurred before that date, and $10,000 were issued between January 1 and May 1, 1895, for necessary current expenses of the county incurred during that period, and which warrants were registered, presented for payment, and protested before the issuance of relator's warrants, and the money on hand was held to be applied towards the payment of those senior warrants.

In the brief for respondent there is some criticism of the form of the return, the argument being that it does not with sufficient certainty state facts to justify the refusal to pay the relator's warrants. The rule of pleading in such case is correctly stated by the learned counsel. A mere general denial is not a sufficient traverse of the material recitals in the writ. The denial must be direct and specific, and matter in avoidance must also conform to the rules of pleading in respect of certainty. State v. Williams, 96 Mo. 13; State v. Trammel, 106 Mo. 510, 17 S. W. 502. But the point in this return is not its denials, but its averment that there were outstanding warrants drawn on the county revenue fund to the amount of $10,000, issued to pay for necessary current county expenses incurred between January 1st and May 1st of that year, and which were registered, presented, and protested before those of the relator were issued. If, under the law, those outstanding senior warrants were entitled to be paid before those of relator of more recent date, the fact is sufficiently pleaded in the return.

And the respondent is correct in the second proposition advanced in its brief, viz. the revenue provided for any one fiscal year must be first applied to the payment of the ordinary and usual expenses incurred in conducting the necessary business of the county for that year. It was so expressly decided by this court in Andrew Co. v. Schell, 135 Mo. 31, 36 S. W. 206. Therefore, as to $22,000 of the $32,000 of outstanding county warrants, they afforded no reason for the nonpayment of the relator's warrants, and, with reference to the remaining $10,000 of those warrants, they, also, were no answer to the relator's demand, if the relator is right in his contention that the fiscal year for the county began May 1, 1895; but if the fiscal year for the county began January 1, 1895, then the relator's warrants must wait on the payment of those issued, presented, and registered before May 1st of that year. The sole question, then, is, when does the fiscal year for the county begin? That question has already, since the judgment of the circuit court in this case, been answered by this court in two decisions: Wilson v. Knox Co., 132 Mo. 387, 34 S. W. 45, 477, and State v. Appleby, 136 Mo. 408, 37 S. W. 1122. But respondent asks us to review the subject again, and we will not refuse to do so, in the light of the earnest argument in that behalf.

The judiciary, in its own sphere, is independent of both the other departments of government; and, therefore, in the interpretation of instruments passing under its judgment, it acts independently of suggestion or direction of the legislature, unless the instrument under consideration for construction is the utterance of the legislature itself, made contemporaneously with, or as in conformity to, such suggestion or direction, or unless it is an act done in view of the legislative definition. But when the legislature issues a codification or revision of laws, and, as a part of it, lays down definitions and rules of construction of terms therein expressed, the courts get at the meaning of the lawmakers by applying those definitions to those terms, and following those rules of construction. The definition, under those circumstances, is authoritative, and to be read into the statute, as a part of itself. Therefore, when the legislature declares, as it has in section 3166, Rev. St. 1889, as interpreted by this court in Andrew Co. v. Schell, supra, that no warrant shall be paid out of the county's revenue "for any one year" until the necessary expenses incurred in maintaining the county for that year are paid, and when, in the same revision, it further declares (section 6570): "* * * First, words and phrases shall be taken in their plain or ordinary and usual sense; * * * third, the word `month' shall mean a calendar month, and the word `year' shall mean a calendar year unless otherwise expressed and the word `year' shall be equivocal to the words `year of our Lord,'" — it would seem to leave no room for construction as to the meaning of the words "for any one year," in the section first quoted. That an artificial year, for a particular purpose, may be designated, either in a matter of private contract or a public act, is unquestioned; and it is not unusual that such is the case in statutes relating to the public revenue. Under the Revised Statutes of 1865, the fiscal year began October 1st, and ended September 30th, of each year (Gen. St. 1865, c. 10, § 11); and so the law was until the act of March 13, 1868 (Acts 1868, p. 178), when that statute was amended, defining the fiscal year as beginning January 1st and ending December 31st, and so it has remained ever since (Rev. St. 1889, § 8589). It is contended, however, that the statute applies to state affairs only, and not to those of a county; it being in the chapter treating particularly of the state treasury department. The language is: "The fiscal year of the state shall commence on January first and terminate on the thirty-first day of December in each year, and the books, accounts and reports of the public offices shall be made to conform thereto; and all reports required by law to be made to the general assembly shall be made during the first twenty days after the meeting of the general assembly." This is the same as the law was in 1865, except that January and December are now substituted for October and September, and the reports to the general assembly are now required to be made within the first 20 days instead of the first week of its session. The argument for the relator is that the term "public officer," therein used to designate those required to conform their books, etc., to those dates, are state officers alone. This argument, drawn as it is from the language and immediate context of the statute (it being a section in the chapter creating the state treasury department), is not without force; but, taking the section in connection with the whole subject of revenue as treated in the chapter, we think the construction of the relator put upon it is too restricted. The revenue...