State v. Sawyer

• Decision Date: 24 May 1916
• Docket Number: 9392.
• Parties: STATE EX REL. WALKER v. SAWYER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

88 S.E. 894

104 S.C. 342

STATE EX REL. WALKER v. SAWYER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL.

No. 9392.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

May 24, 1916

Mandamus by the State, on the relation of N. F. Walker, as Treasurer of the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind against Carlton W. Sawyer, Comptroller General of South Carolina. Writ to issue as prayed for.

A. E Hill, of Spartanburg, for petitioner.

Thos H. Peeples, Atty. Gen., and W. H. Townsend, of Columbia, for respondent.

HYDRICK J.

Section 24 of the act to make appropriations to meet the expenses of the State government for the present fiscal year, as enrolled, ratified, and approved, reads:

Section 24. School for the Deaf and the Blind.

Item 1. Maintenance ................................................	$37,000 00
Item 2. Scholarships ...................................................	600 00
Item 3. Insurance ......................................................	293 33
Item 4. Repairs and improvements .....................................	2,000 00
Item 5. Repairs, main building (provided that $17,500.00 be appropriated in 1917, and $17,500.00 in 1918) .....................	10,000 00
Item 6. Shoe shop equipment ............................................	500 00
Item 7. To purchase linotype machine .................................	1,500 00
	----------
Total ...........................................................	$51,893 33

The respondent refused to issue his warrant for the sum mentioned in item 5, on the ground that the appropriation thereof is conditioned upon the appropriation of $17,500 in 1917, and a like sum in 1918, and therefore it will not be available until the condition has been performed.

The petitioner alleges that the words "provided that" were inserted in item 5 without authority of the Legislature, and should be rejected, and, for proof thereof, refers to the original bill which accompanies the act, and to the memoranda indorsed thereon by the presiding officers of the two Houses, and to the journals of the two Houses, from which, he alleges, it appears conclusively that those words were inserted in the enrolled act by mistake, or at least without authority of the Legislature.

In State ex rel. Hoover v. Chester, 39 S.C. 307, 17 S.E. 752, it was held that an enrolled act which has been duly ratified by the two Houses, as authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers thereof, and approved by the Governor and sealed with the seal of the state and deposited in the archives of the state, is itself conclusive evidence of its terms, and the courts cannot go behind such an act and inquire whether each and every word found therein has actually received the assent of the Legislature. The principle of that case has been repeatedly reaffirmed by this court. The recent case of Regents v. Sawyer, 88 S.E. 7, is not to the contrary, for, although the court did refer to the provisions of the original bill and the amendments thereto, as they appeared in the journals of the two Houses, the decision was based entirely upon the construction of the language used in the act as ratified and approved. We cannot consider the evidence referred to for the purpose of showing that those words were improperly inserted in the act. The words "provided that" are usually used to express a condition, limitation, or exception. Perhaps, no words more apt for that purpose could be chosen. But they are not always so used; and their meaning must be gathered from the context and a consideration of the whole instrument. See "Provided," 6 Words and Phrases, 5749.

While it is an elementary rule of construction that words used in a statute should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, this, as all other rules, is subject to the prime object of ascertaining and giving effect to the legislative intention. In doing this, we are not to be governed by the apparent meaning of words found in one clause, sentence, or part of the act, but by a consideration of the whole act, read in the light of the conditions and circumstances as we may judicially know they appeared to the Legislature, and the purpose sought to be accomplished.

"The words of a statute are to be understood in the sense in which they best harmonize with the subject of the enactment and the object which the Legislature has in view. Their meaning is found, not so much in a strictly grammatical or etymological propriety of language, nor even in its popular use, as in the subject or in the occasion on which they are used, and in the object to be attained." Endlich on Interpretation of Statutes, § 73.

At section 295, the same author says:

"When the language of a statute, in its ordinary meaning and grammatical construction, leads to a manifest contradiction of the apparent purpose of the enactment, or to some inconvenience or absurdity, hardship or injustice, presumably not intended, a

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