State v. Lanier

• Decision Date: 18 May 1916
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 926
• Parties: STATE ex rel. TERRY v. LANIER.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

72 So. 320

197 Ala. 1

STATE ex rel. TERRY v. LANIER.

8 Div. 926

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 18, 1916

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1916

Appeal from Circuit Court, Madison County; R.C. Brickell, Judge.

Petition by the State of Alabama, on the relation of T.T. Terry, for mandamus to M.H. Lanier, President of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Huntsville, to require him to submit at an election of the qualified electors the question of abandoning the commission form of government. From a decree sustaining demurrers to the petition, relator appeals. Reversed, rendered, and remanded.

The petitioner alleges that a petition signed by the requisite number of qualified voters was addressed and submitted to and filed with the judge of probate, and that after a scrutiny of the signatures of said petition he found that they were requisite in number and qualified electors, residents of the city of Huntsville, and in his official capacity did certify and deliver to said M.H. Lanier, president of the board of commissioners, the original petition, together with a certified copy of his certificate, and further certifying to the genuineness of the petition, and that notwithstanding all this said Lanier has refused and declined, and still refuses and declines, to submit the question of abandoning the commission form of government to the qualified electors of the city of Huntsville at a special election as provided by law.

Taylor & Watts and Edward C. Betts, all of Huntsville, for appellant.

Cooper & Cooper, R.E. Smith, and David A. Grayson, all of Huntsville, for appellee.

This case was submitted and considered by the court under rule 46 (64 South. vii) and the opinion of the court was delivered by Mr. Chief Justice ANDERSON.

The title to Acts 1915, p. 770, reads as follows:

"An act to provide a mode whereby cities in the state of Alabama, which shall have heretofore adopted or may hereafter adopt a commission form of government, as authorized by law may after an election upon such question, abandon such commission form of government, and return to the aldermanic form of government, as the same existed therein at the time of adoption of such commission form of government."

The one main subject dealt with in this title is to provide for a change from a commission form of government in cities to the aldermanic form as it existed before the commission form was adopted, and all other things contemplated by the title or provided by the act are cognate and germane to this one general subject. If the object or subject is stated generally in the title, it would include incidents and subsidiary details. Thomas v. Gunter, 170 Ala. 165, 54 So. 283 and cases there cited; Smith v. Stiles, 70 South 905. We think that everything proposed by the title and accomplished by the act was incident and subsidiary to the one general subject of changing the commission form of government of cities to the aldermanic form as it previously existed, and the subject was not only clearly expressed, but was single, and the act does not offend section 45 of the Constitution for failing to clearly express the subject of the enactment in the title or in dealing with more than one subject.

It is contended that this act violates so much of section 45 of the Constitution as provides that:

"No law shall be revised, amended, or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only but so much thereof as is revised, amended, extended or conferred shall be re-enacted and published at length."

This provision of the Constitution reaches those cases only where the act is strictly amendatory or revisory in its character. Its prohibition is directed against the practice of amending or revising laws by additions or other alterations, which without the presence of the original act are usually unintelligible. If the law is in itself complete and intelligible, and original in form, it does not fall within the meaning and spirit of the Constitution.

"It is not necessary, in order to avoid a conflict with this article of the Constitution, to reenact general laws whenever it is necessary to resort to them to carry into effect a special statute. Such cases are not within the letter or spirit of the Constitution, or the mischief intended to be remedied. By such a reference the general statute is not incorporated into or made a part

of the special statute. The right is given, the duty

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