State v. Bowles

• Decision Date: 12 January 1928
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 994
• Parties: STATE ex rel. DAY et al. v. BOWLES et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

116 So. 662

217 Ala. 458

STATE ex rel. DAY et al. v. BOWLES et al.

8 Div. 994

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 12, 1928

Rehearing Denied May 10, 1928

Appeal from Circuit Court, Morgan County; James E. Horton, Judge.

Proceeding in the nature of quo warranto by the State, on the relation of J.L. Day and others, against Thomas A. Bowles and others. From a judgment dismissing the petition, relators appeal. Affirmed.

J.M Kelley, of Hartselle, and A.J. Harris and E.W. Godbey, both of Decatur, for appellants.

Tennis Tidwell, of Albany, and S.A. Lynne, of Decatur, for appellees.

BOULDIN J.

The proceeding is in the nature of quo warranto, on the relation of citizens of Morgan county to oust respondents from the exercise of official prerogatives alleged to be in usurpation of powers vested by law in the board of revenue of the county.

Respondents by answer, claim their authority under a local statute approved August 24, 1927, known as the Morgan County Court House Commission Act. Local Acts 1927, p. 249.

Demurrers to the answer challenge the constitutionality of this act upon several grounds. Demurrers being overruled, the relators declined to plead further, and the petition was dismissed.

The assignments of error on appeal go to the rulings on demurrer. The purpose of the litigation is to test the constitutionality of the legislative act in question.

The main contention of appellants is that the Court House Commission Act is violative of section 105 of the Constitution, saying: "No special, private or local law, *** shall be enacted in any case which is provided for by a general law, or when the relief sought can be given by any court of this state; and the courts, and not the Legislature, shall judge as to whether the matter of said law is provided for by a general law, and as to whether the relief sought can be given by any court."

Stated concisely, the view of appellant is: That the "case *** provided for" by this local law, "the matter of said law," is the construction and equipment of a court house for Morgan county; that such matter is provided for by general law conferring plenary powers on the board of revenue, in the erection of court houses (Code, § 212), with power to levy special taxes to pay the debt incurred therefor (Code, § 213).

The act in question creates a court house commission composed of five citizens of the county named in the act; empowers the commission to build and construct, on a site named in the act, a court house of such size, material, plans and specifications as the commission may determine, to make contracts, and, in general, to exercise all the powers in the premises heretofore held by the board of revenue.

A county is a unit of government invested with important functions of local character, and also in relation to the state, its revenues, the administration of its laws, etc. These functions involve the exercise of legislative, judicial, and executive or administrative powers. These powers are, in the main, conferred and defined by state legislation, and to be exercised by a governing body or bodies of legislative creation.

Among the powers conferred and duties imposed by legislation is that of erecting, furnishing, and equipping necessary public buildings, including a court house, the seat of government, a place to house its records and hold the courts with office space and equipment for the transaction of public business.

A statute creating a commission, a governing body, with the power and duty to adopt plans, make contracts, arrange the financing, levy taxes, and provide proper supervision for the erection of a court house, commits to such commission legislative and administrative powers, discretionary in character calling for a personnel of decided fitness.

Without regard to other features of the act before us, the creation of a special court house commission, with personnel named by the Legislature, was manifestly a primary, if not a controlling, purpose in this legislation.

It does not necessarily reflect upon the capacity or character of the personnel of the board of revenue chosen for fitness to perform the wide range of duties pertaining to county affairs, and it may be, without any regard to the unusual task of providing a suitable court house. The demands of the general duties of the board of revenue may have been such that it was deemed best to withdraw the responsibility of building a court house from that board and vest it in another. In any event, the creation of a special governing body in this behalf was purely a matter of legislative discretion. The courts have no power to control legislative discretion, nor even to inquire into the motives of legislators.

This court has in numerous cases had occasion to consider the application of section 105 of the Constitution to local legislation, and in some has sought to define in general terms its scope of operation on matters not withdrawn from the field of local legislation by section 104.

Sufficient to say now, it is settled, we think, by our decisions, that this section does not withdraw the legislative discretion to prescribe or change the governing agencies of counties by local legislation suited to the varied needs of counties of widely different conditions as to population, wealth and local requirements.

Such legislation need not be based upon enlargement or curtailment of govermental functions. General laws may already meet all the demands in that regard, and agencies may be provided by general law; yet, if a substantial object of the local law is to abolish one agency and invest its functions in another, to consolidate agencies, to provide additional ones to take over and reduce the labors of existing agencies or to create new ones deemed to be better fitted to exercise in whole or in part functions theretofore committed to an existing agency, such local act is not within the inhibition of section 105 of the Constitution.

In this connection we deem it proper to say section 105 is not intended to strike down as to this class of legislation the provisions of sections 42 and 43 of the same Constitution defining the three co-ordinate departments of government, and committing the legislative, executive, and judicial power each to a separate body of magistracy. These sections are fundamental in our institutions. To say by judicial construction that the creation of a court house commission is mere matter of form or detail, not of the substantial "matter of such law," is to enter the domain of legislative discretion, to pass upon the need of such law in the particular...