State v. Spencer
| Citation | 81 Fla. 211,87 So. 634 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. BUFORD, Atty. Gen. v. SPENCER, Sheriff. |
| Decision Date | 18 February 1921 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Original mandamus by the State, on the relation of Rivers H. Buford Attorney General, against W. C. Spencer, as sheriff.
Motion to quash alternative writ granted.
Syllabus by the Court
Fees collected constitute fund subject to state control and to be applied as Legislature directs. Fees collected by officer represent the charge which the state makes for services rendered by it through its officers, and constitutes a fund subject to the control of the state and to be applied as the Legislature directs.
Act giving county commissioners power to fix compensation of all officers paid by fees held unconstitutional. The effect of chapter 7334, Acts of 1917, is to lodge in the board of county commissioners of the respective counties the power to fix the compensation of all officers who are paid in whole or in part by fees, and in that respect is violative of article 3, § 27, of the Constitution, which provides that the Legislature shall 'fix by law' the 'compensation' 'of all state and county officers not otherwise provided for by this Constitution' and of article 8, § 6, which provides that the compensation of the sheriff, constable, county assessor of taxes, tax collector superintendent of public instruction, and county surveyor 'shall be prescribed by law.'
Act empowering county commissioners to fix salaries of certain officers held unconstitutional. The provision of section 1 c. 7334, that fixes the proportion of the net income of all officers derived in whole or in part from fees or commissions, which the officials shall receive as compensation or salary, and of section 2, which empowers the board of county commissioners to fix the number and compensation of the deputies, clerks, or assistants of all such officers, places the duty of fixing the salaries of such officers in the hands of the county commissioners, and is violative of article 3, § 27, and article 8, § 6, of the Constitution.
Statute fails where unconstitutional portion cannot be declared void without defeating legislative purpose. Where the unconstitutional portion of an act cannot be declared void without defeating the manifest legislative purpose, the entire statute must fail as unconstitutional and void.
Rivers H. Buford, Atty. Gen., and J. B. Gaines, Asst. Atty. Gen., for relator.
John T. G. Crawford, of Jacksonville, and James F. Glen, of Tampa, for respondent.
These proceedings raise the question of the constitutionality of chapter 7334, Acts of 1917, relating to the compensation of county officers heretofore paid in whole or in part on the basis of fees or commissions.
The Constitution provides:
There are further provisions of the Constitution, relating to compensation of other officers, and with regard to them all, is the requirement that their compensation or salary shall be 'fixed' or 'prescribed' by 'law.'
The Constitution of 1885 may have gone into details in some respects that might have been left to legislative control, but the people in framing the Constitution had the right and the power to include in it matters of ordinary legislative detail, and the very particularity with which they did this is an admonition that strict compliance with its provisions is required, and deviation therefrom by the Legislature prohibited, notwithstanding the legislative desire to make such changes in the law as changed conditions seem to require.
Section 1 of chapter 7334 provides:
'The compensation of each county official now paid in whole or in part on the basis of fees or commissions shall be fixed by the net income of such office according to the following schedule:
'All the net income from such office not to exceed eighteen hundred dollars ($1,800); sixty per cent. of the next one thousand dollars ($1,000), or any fraction thereof; forty per cent. of the next two thousand dollars ($2,000), or any fraction thereof; twenty per cent. of the next two thousand dollars ($2,000), or any fraction thereof; ten per cent. of the rest and residue.'
Section 2 provides:
The effect of this section is...
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