Storrs v. Heck

• Decision Date: 22 June 1939
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 297.
• Citation: 238 Ala. 196,190 So. 78
• Parties: STORRS v. HECK, STATE COMPTROLLER, ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

190 So. 78

238 Ala. 196

STORRS v. HECK, STATE COMPTROLLER, ET AL.

3 Div. 297.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 22, 1939

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Walter B. Jones Judge.

Petition of Seth P. Storrs for declaratory judgment against I. C Heck, as State Comptroller, and Thomas S. Lawson, as Attorney General. From a judgment favorable to respondents, petitioner appeals.

Affirmed.

Wm. R Rountree, Jr., and Pettus & Fuller, all of Selma, and Richard T. Rives and Hill, Hill, Whiting & Rives, all of Montgomery, for appellant.

Thos. S. Lawson, Atty. Gen., and Wm. H. Loeb, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees.

THOMAS Justice.

The petition sought a declaratory judgment as to salary alleged to be due and unpaid by the State of Alabama. Bagwell v. Woodward Iron Co., 236 Ala. 668, 184 So. 692.

The final decree from which the appeal was taken is in the following words:

"This cause coming on to be heard is submitted for final decree upon the petition, the admissions contained in the answer of respondents, and said answer, all as noted by the Register, and also upon the Journals of the House and Senate of the State of Alabama for the Special Session of 1933, of which the Court takes judicial knowledge, and the Court having heard and considered the argument of counsel is of the opinion that the so-called Sparks Amendment to the Constitution of Alabama known as Article 24 of the Constitution of Alabama is a valid part of the Constitution of Alabama, and that the salary of petitioner, while he occupied the office of Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, and was ex officio member of the State Budget Commission for the period from the 1st day of September, 1933 to and including the 14th day of January, 1935, was fixed and controlled by the Lapsley-Lusk Bill (Gen. Acts 1933, Ex.Sess., p. 124), enacted pursuant to said Sparks Amendment to the Constitution of Alabama (Article 24 of the Constitution of Alabama).

"It is, Therefore, Considered, Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed by the Court that the Sparks Amendment (Article 24) to the Constitution of Alabama is a valid part of the Constitution of this State and that the Lapsley-Lusk Bill (Gen.Acts 1933, Ex.Sess., p. 124) is a valid and constitutional enactment and that the salary of the petitioner as Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, and as ex officio member of the State Budget Commission of Alabama for the period from the 1st day of September 1933, to and including the 14th day of January, 1935, is fixed and controlled by the said Sparks Amendment and Lapsley-Lusk Bill, and that the petitioner is not entitled to any compensation or salary from the State of Alabama other than that which has already been paid to him."

The respondents as comptroller and as Attorney General of Alabama for answer to the contentions of petitioner, which are fully stated in paragraphs one to three inclusive of the bill of complaint, among other things state the following:

"* * *; and respondents further admit the allegation of said paragraph that a majority of the voters who participated in an election held on July 18, 1933, voted in favor of the so-called Sparks Amendment to the Constitution, but respondents specifically deny the allegation contained in said paragraph that 'no valid constitutional amendment was ratified putting into effect the said part of the Lapsley-Lusk bill making said bill effective insofar as petitioner is concerned,' and respondents allege that the so-called Sparks Amendment was legally and validly enacted, ratified and adopted in all respects in accordance with Section 284 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, in that, the requirement of three readings in each House of proposed amendments was not intended to exact such six readings of a proposed amendment in haec verba in both Houses so as to exclude the right of either House, during the course of legislative procedure, to amend the proposed amendment for the purpose of perfecting the same and to insure that it will harmonize with the judgment of the requisite majority of the two bodies, and that said Sparks Amendment when so enacted, ratified and adopted, made effective that portion of the Lapsley-Lusk bill which made the same applicable and effective insofar as petitioner was concerned.

"* * * for further answer to said first paragraph allege and say that said Sparks Amendment was legally and constitutionally enacted in that it was, in all respects, passed and adopted in accordance with the provisions of Section 284 of the Constitution of Alabama and of the other provisions thereof appertaining thereto.

"* * * and for further answer to said paragraph, respondents allege and say that the said Lapsley-Lusk Act is not invalid and unconstitutional under Section 281 of the Constitution of the State of Alabama insofar as it relates to the reduction of petitioner's compensation during his term of office, in that the said provisions of said Lapsley-Lusk Act were validly and constitutionally enacted under and by virtue of authority of the so-called Sparks Amendment, proclaimed ratified August 2, 1933, which said amendment was in all respects legally, validly and constitutionally enacted, adopted and ratified in conformity to Section 284 of the Constitution of Alabama and the other sections thereof appertaining thereto."

Several pertinent propositions of law have been established in this jurisdiction. In Houston County et al. v. Martin, 232 Ala. 511, 169 So. 13, 16, it is stated: "It is a well-settled rule of interpretation, applicable to constitutions as well as statutes, that it is permissible in ascertaining their purpose and intent to look to the history of the times, the existing order of things, the state of the law when the instrument was adopted, and the conditions necessitating such adoption. Fox v. McDonald, 101 Ala. 51, 13 So. 416, 21 L.R.A. 529, 46 Am.St.Rep. 98; 16 R.C.L. p. 51, § 46."

It is insisted here that a city or municipal corporation is not a subdivision of the state to be included in an amendment by the Senate to the Sparks amendment as it was originally passed by the House. Were the words "state or any subdivision thereof", as used in the original bill, sufficient to support an amendment in the Senate reading "State or any County or Municipality thereof"?

The purpose of the constitutional amendment in question was to authorize the Legislature to repeal constitutional limitations so as to reduce the salaries or compensation of state officers so as to avoid further tax levies and a deficit in the state treasury. Gen.Acts 1933, Ex.Sess., pp. 46 to 48 (Amend. 26A); Const.1901, §§ 22, 150, 281 and 284.

It has been declared that such was the history of the Sparks amendment and the purpose therefor is set out in Houston County v. Martin, supra.

Whether the organic law has been effectually amended is a judicial question. State ex rel. Garrow et al. v. Grayson, 220 Ala. 12, 20, 123 So. 573.

Under Sections 284-287, inclusive, of the Constitution, it is not essential that the Legislative Journals affirmatively show that the required three readings of the proposed amendment were had in haec verba in both houses. Jones v. McDade, 200 Ala. 230, 75 So. 988; In re Opinions of the Justices, 223 Ala. 365, 136 So. 585; In re Opinions of the Justices, 227 Ala. 296, 149 So. 781; Doody v. State ex rel. Mobile County, 233 Ala. 287, 171 So. 504.

It is further declared by this Court that bills proposing amendments to the Constitution may be duly amended in substance and in legal effect as a "legislative detail" dufing the course of the legislative procedure for the purpose of desired perfection and harmony to meet the effective purpose of the enactment within the rules that obtain in such matters. In re Opinions of the Justices, 223 Ala. 365, 136 So. 585; Jones v. McDade, supra.

It follows that a substantial and legally efficient compliance with the constitutional requirements of Section 284 of the Constitution, as to "legislative details", necessary in amendments of the organic law is sufficient. Doody v. State ex rel. Mobile County, 233 Ala. 287, 171 So. 504; State ex rel. Garrow et al. v. Grayson, 220 Ala. 12, 123 So. 573; Johnson v. Craft, 205 Ala. 386, 87 So. 375; Realty Investment Co. v. City of Mobile, 181 Ala. 184, 61 So. 248.

In Doody v. State ex rel. Mobile County, 233 Ala. 287, 290, 171 So. 504, 506, it is well observed: "Our cases recognize the mandatory character of constitutional provisions as to amending the fundamental law (Jones v. McDade, supra; Johnson v. Craft, supra), but as to legislative details the rule has been adopted that if the constitutional requirements are met 'in substance and legal effect' it will suffice. 'To hold otherwise,' observed the court in Realty Investment Co. v. City of Mobile, 181 Ala. 184, 61 So. 248, 249, 'would subordinate substance to form, the end to the means, and this, we think, the framers of the Constitution did not intend.' There may be 'a substance in form even' as held in the more recent cases of Tommie v. City of Gadsden, 229 Ala. 521, 158 So. 763, and Salter v. City of Anniston, 220 Ala. 199, 124 So. 663."

We will permit the learned counsel for appellant to state the question presented for decision and insisted upon in argument substantially as follows:

This case involves the question of whether or not the Sparks amendment to the Constitution of Alabama, Article XXIV, was constitutionally adopted, in addition to the question of whether or not the Constitution may be suspended, as suggested in the case of Houston County v. Martin, 232 Ala. 511, 169 So. 13.

The petition avers that Mr. Storrs was Commissioner of Agriculture from January 1931 to 1935, and that on account of the enactment of the Lapsley-Lusk Bill, Gen.Acts 193...