State v. St. Louis Cnty. Court

• Decision Date: 31 March 1855
• Citation: 20 Mo. 499
• Parties: THE STATE, AT THE RELATION OF BATES, v. THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY COURT.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

20 Mo. 499

THE STATE, AT THE RELATION OF BATES,

v.THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY COURT.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1855.

1. The provision in the act establishing the St. Louis Land Court approved February 23, 1853, that the judge should receive the same compensation as the judge of the St. Louis Court of Common Pleas then received means, not only that he should receive the same amount, but from the same sources.

Edward Bates, Judge of the St. Louis Land Court, presented his petition for a writ of mandamus to the St. Louis County Court, requiring the latter to allow and pay to him out of the county treasury such an amount as, together with two hundred and fifty dollars received from the State Treasury and forty-one dollars received on account of judgment fees, would make up his quarter's salary of seven hundred and fifty dollars; or show good cause to the contrary. In answer to the writ, the county court appeared by attorney, and as cause for the refusal to pay, alleged that there was no law of the State by which that court was authorized or required to pay or cause to be paid any portion of the salary of the judge of the Land Court.

C. Gibson, appeared for the relator.

A. Todd, for the county court, insisted that the judge of the land court was a State officer, and of course to be paid out of the state treasury, it not being otherwise expressly provided.

SCOTT, Judge delivered the opinion of the court.

By an act of the general assembly passed 23d February, 1853, a land court was established for St. Louis county. This court was required to be held by a judge elected by the qualified voters of St. Louis county. Edward Bates, the plaintiff, was elected to that office, and after being qualified, he entered upon the discharge of his duties. He has received a salary as judge, up to this time, the same in amount and payable in the same manner as the judge of the St. Louis Court of Common Pleas, the statute creating the land court enacting that the judge thereof shall receive the same compensation as the judge of the St. Louis Court of Common Pleas. The judge of the Court of Common Pleas received at the date of the act referred to, as a salary, first, an annual sum of one thousand dollars, payable quarterly out of the state treasury; secondly, certain fees provided by the statute and taxed upon final judgments rendered in said court; and thirdly, an additional amount payable out of the county treasury, the whole compensation not to exceed three thousand dollars.

On the 5th of March, 1855, an act was passed directing that the judges of the St. Louis circuit court, the St. Louis court of common pleas, and the St. Louis criminal court shall be each paid a salary of two thousand dollars out of the state treasury. Since the passage of this act, the county court of St. Louis county refuses to pay any portion of the salary of the judge of the land court, maintaining that the whole of his salary is of right payable out of the state treasury. For the purpose of determining this question, this writ of mandamus has been awarded, and the facts stated in the petition admitted by the county court.

1. It was contended on the part of the defendant that the judge of the land court is a state officer, and as such entitled to receive his salary from the state treasury as all other state officers; that the act of the legislature creating the land court, in enacting that the judge thereof should receive the same compensation as the judge of the St. Louis court of common pleas, intended merely to fix the amount of the compensation, leaving the payment thereof to be made, as the salaries of all other state officers, out of the common treasury.

There is one difficulty attending this view of the subject not easily...