State v. Farmer

• Decision Date: 30 June 1917
• Docket Number: No. 19298.,19298.
• Citation: 196 S.W. 1106,271 Mo. 306
• Parties: STATE ex rel. EMMONS v. FARMER et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

196 S.W. 1106

271 Mo. 306

STATE ex rel. EMMONS v. FARMER et al.

No. 19298.

Supreme Court of Missouri. In Banc.

June 30, 1917.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Callaway County; David H. Harris, Judge.

Mandamus proceedings by the State, on the relation of J. H. Emmons, against L. D. Farmer and others. Judgment for relator, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

This is a proceeding by mandamus, whereby it is sought to compel defendants, who are the judges of the county court of Callaway county, Mo., and the clerk of said court, respectively, to issue to relator a warrant on the county treasurer of said county for the sum of $166.66, in payment of relator's salary as clerk of the circuit court of Callaway county for the month of August, 1915. The alternative writ issued herein by the court nisi was upon trial therein made peremptory, and defendants appealed.

The facts are few and simple, and touching them there is no dispute; they run substantially thus: Relator is now, and has been since the 1st day of January, 1911, clerk of the circuit court of Callaway county. He is now serving his second term as such clerk; the term for which he was first elected having expired on the 31st day of December, 1914. On the 1st day of January, 1915, having been re-elected, relator duly entered upon his second term as such circuit clerk.

It is conceded by the pleadings that pursuant to the method pointed out by statute for ascertaining the population of Callaway county, said county contains between 25,000 and 30,000 population. At the September term of the county court of Callaway county, relator, in all things following the provisions of an act of the Legislature, passed in 1915, and approved March 22, 1915, and which act pursuant to the express provisions thereof took effect July 1, 1915, presented to the county court his account for salary as circuit clerk for the month of August, 1915, accompanied by reports in proper form. Defendants refused to order, or to issue and sign a warrant for relator for such salary, on the ground that the act of 1915 which had put all circuit clerks of this state upon a salary basis of compensation, was unconstitutional. The act in question is entitled:

"An act changing the method of payment of salaries of clerks of circuit courts, except in any county wherein the clerk of the circuit court is ex officio recorder of deeds of said county; and provided further that the provisions of this act shall not apply to any county which now contains or may hereafter contain a city of 75,000 inhabitants or more, or to any county which now contains or may hereafter contain eighty thousand inhabitants and less than one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in which circuit court is held, in two or more places in said county, providing for the appointment and payment of deputies, and requiring clerks to pay into the county treasury all fees collected by them." Laws 1915, p. 378.

The above act in section 1 thereof provides, in brief substance, that clerks of the several circuit courts of the several counties of this state shall annually receive for their services in lieu of all fees a certain specified salary, based upon the population of the given county, and concretely provides, in cases of all counties having a population such as Callaway county has, that the circuit clerk thereof shall receive the sum of $2,000 per annum. There are provisions in section 2 of said act for the appointment and payment of deputy clerks, which, however, have no relevancy here. Section 3 of said act provides that the salaries of the circuit clerk and his deputies shall be paid by warrants drawn upon the county treasury in monthly installments, at the end of each month, and that the circuit clerk and his deputies shall present their accounts to the county court and such court shall draw its warrant upon the county treasury accordingly. It is provided by section 4 of the act that all fees heretofore retainable by the several circuit clerks as and for their compensation shall be duly collected by them and paid over monthly to the county treasurer.

All of the above facts are either conceded by the pleadings, or they are admitted by the respective parties in the briefs filed. It is contended by defendants, who are the appellants here, that the act of 1915, pursuant to which relator demanded payment from the county, is void, because it is in violation of the provisions of section 8 of article 14 of the Constitution and of section 28 of article 4 thereof. These are the only points made or urged upon us, and to them alone will our attention be directed in the subjoined opinion. The question whether mandamus is upon the facts a permissible remedy was not raised below, nor is it raised here. Both sides in both courts conceded tacitly its applicability; hence we take the case as it comes up to us, without passing upon the question.

Judson Sanderson, Pros. Atty., and H. N. Eversole, both of Fulton, for appellant. Frank W. McAllister, Atty. Gen., S. P. Howell, Asst. Atty. Gen., De Witt C. Chastain, of Butler, Alex Z. Patterson, of Jefferson City, and J. R. Baker, of Fulton, for respondent.

FARIS, J. (after stating the facts as above).

I. It is contended that the act of March 22, 1915, is unconstitutional for two reasons: (a) The title thereof is not expressive of the contents of the act, and (b) it increases the compensation of clerks of the circuit courts during the terms for which they are elected. It is plain that if either contention be found tenable this case must be reversed.

The constitutional provision first above invoked is a familiar one, and stated, in substance, it prohibits the passing of any bill containing more than one subject, "which shall be clearly expressed in its title." Const. 28, art. 4. So much of the title of the act as the contention made renders pertinent reads thus: "An act changing the method of payment of salaries of clerks of circuit courts," etc.

Confining the contention to yet narrower limits, it is urged by defendants that the act does not in fact change the method of payment of the salaries of circuit clerks, because before the act passed they had no salaries, but what it actually does is to change their compensation; that is, concretely applied to the facts here, it raises the amount of compensation of circuit clerks, and therefore, since before the passage of this act their pay was compensation and not salary, the use of the latter word in the title of the act is misleading. It is obvious that counsel seek to draw a distinction between remuneration by fees, which they somewhat arbitrarily denominate "compensation," and payment in cash in regular monthly installments, which they denominate "salary." Therefore they urge, since under the law existing when the act of 1915 was passed the remuneration paid to circuit clerks was not salary but was compensation, that is, fees, the use of the word "salary" was not properly descriptive of the contents and purposes of the latter act. Obviously, if the Legislature had in mind the maximum sums fixed by statute (Laws 1915, p. 378), which could be annually retained by circuit clerks, then such remuneration so fixed could properly and without misnomer be called a "salary." For we have had this word "salary" defined for us in this state thus:

"A periodical allowance made as compensation to a person for his official or professional services or for his regular work. Standard Dict. Salary is regarded as a per annum compensation." Henderson v. Koenig, 168 Mo. loc. cit. 367, 68 S. W. 72, 57 L. R. A. 659.

The Legislature manifestly held in mind, as it had the right in law to do, that the statutory provision existing when relator entered upon his current term of office was, considered as a whole, "per annum compensation." So the title was not misleading so far as concerns this specific contention.

Moreover, the language of the Constitution includes both fees and salary under the comprehensive term "compensation," as witness this language:

"The compensation or fees of no state, county or municipal officer shall be increased during his term of office." Sec. 8, art. 14, Const.

Clearly fees are not salary; so if the provision of the section quoted supra includes salary at all—and no one would be so bold as to deny that it does—then the word "compensation" is the generic term, and includes, as used in the above provision of the Constitution, salary, fees, pay, remuneration for official services performed, in whatever form or manner or at whatsoever periods the same may be paid. As stated, no one will deny that the word "compensation" as used in the above provision includes salary. We have time and again tacitly so ruled by considering without question cases in which that form of remuneration which we call "salary" was alone involved. State ex rel. Rumbold v. Gordon, 238 Mo. 168, 142 S. W. 315, Ann. Cas. 1913A, 312. It is clear that the makers of our Constitution used the word "compensation" as the comprehensive generic term, and thereafter added the word "fees" as an inclusive and explanatory second thought, although remuneration by fees was already included by the use of the term "compensation," as witness the punctuation,...