State v. Hackmann

• Decision Date: 12 December 1918
• Docket Number: No. 21288.,21288.
• Citation: 276 Mo. 110,207 S.W. 64
• Parties: STATE ex rel. BYBEE v. HACKMANN, State Auditor.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

207 S.W. 64

276 Mo. 110

STATE ex rel. BYBEE v. HACKMANN, State Auditor.

No. 21288.

Supreme Court of Missouri. En. Banc.

December 12, 1918.

Original proceeding by mandamus by the State, on the relation of John Q. Bybee, against George E. Heckmann, State Auditor, to compel the audit of a stenographer's account. Alternative writ made peremptory.

A. T. Dumm, of Jefferson City, for relater. Edward W. Foristel, of St. Louis, for respondent.

FARIS, J.

This is an original proceeding by mandamus to compel respondent, as state auditor, to audit for payment an account of the relator for services rendered by him as a stenographer in taking down in shorthand and transcribing the evidence heard by the state board of equalization. The petition filed herein upon application for our alternative writ makes clear the grounds upon which the relief prayed for is bottomed. Pertinent parts of that petition read thus:

"Your petitioner says that pursuant to said constitutional and statutory provisions, above cited and quoted, the said state board of equalization, acting by and through its duly and legally constituted agent, the secretary of said board of equalization, on the 2d day of July, 1918, employed your petitioner as an expert shorthand reporter or stenographer to take stenographic notes of the evidence taken before said board and to transcribe the same, and that on tie 9th day of July, 1918, the said state board of equalization, by order duly entered on the records of said board, duly approved the appointment and employment of your petitioner for the purposes aforesaid.

"Your petitioner alleges that, pursuant to said appointment and employment as aforesaid, he entered upon the duties of said employment on the 8th day of July, 1918, and continued to take the evidence at hearings before said board for 17 days thereafter, which, at $10 per day, amounts to the sum of $170; that your petitioner was ordered by said board to transcribe the evidence taken by him at the hearings before said board, and to deliver to said board, for the use of the members thereof, one original copy and five carbon copies of said evidence so transcribed; and that your petitioner, in obedience to said order of said board, did furnish to said board one original copy and five carbon copies of said evidence so taken and transcribed by him as aforesaid, charging therefor 15 cents per folio, or 45 cents per page, for said original copy, and 5 cents per folio, or 15 cents per page, for each of said five carbon copies; that there were 330 pages of said evidence, so taken and transcribed by him as aforesaid, which, at 45 cents per page for said original copy, amounts to 148.50; and that the five carbon copies, furnished for him as aforesaid at 15 cents per page for each copy, amount to $247.50; and that the items of said account of your petitioner for his services aforesaid more fully and particularly appear from an itemized statement hereto attached and made a part of this petition and marked `Exhibit A.'

"Your petitioner says that the total of all the items of said account, for the services rendered by him as aforesaid, is $566; and your petitioner says that he presented said account to said state board of equalization for its air proval, and that on the 24th day of September, 1018, said board duly approved your petitioner's account in said sum of $566; and your petitioner says that said charges, so made by him as aforesaid, were and are the legal and reasonable charges for such services.

"Your petitioner says that, on the 27th day of September, 1918, he duly presented to and filed with the said George B. Hackmann, state auditor as aforesaid, said itemized statement and account (so approved by said state board of equalization, as aforesaid) in said sum of $566, for audit, allowance, and payment as a claim against the state of Missouri, and to be paid out of the moneys appropriated for the cost of assessing and collecting the revenue for the years 1917 and 1918, including the contingent expenses of the state board of equalization, said moneys being appropriated by act approved April 9, 1917, entitled `An act to appropriate money for the cost of assessing and collecting the revenue for the years 1917 and 1918, including the contingent expenses of the state board of equalization, with an emergency clause,' and being section 1, page 46 of the Laws of Missouri 1917; that at the time your petitioner presented and filed said account with the said George E. Hackmann, state auditor as aforesaid, for audit, allowance, and payment, there was and is now in the state treasury, to the credit of the appropriation for the cost of assessing and collecting the revenue for the years 1917 and 1918, including the contingent expenses of the state board of equalization, more than sufficient money to pay said account for said sum of $596, and that it then and thereupon became the duty of the said George E. Hackmann, state auditor as aforesaid, to audit and allow said account in said sum of 8566, and to draw his warrant upon the state treasury in favor of your petitioner for the payment of the same; but your petitioner says that the said George E. Hackmann,...