The Miller Supply Co. v. State Bd. Of Control.
| Decision Date | 20 May 1913 |
| Citation | 72 W.Va. 524 |
| Parties | The Miller Supply Company v. State Board of Control. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
State Action Against What Constitutes State Board of Control.
The State Board of Control is a direct governmental agency of the state; an action on a contract made by that board in the line of its state agency is in reality and substance a suit against the state itself and can not be maintained.
Error to Circuit Court, Cabell County.
Action by the Miller Supply Company against the State Board of Control. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.
Affirmed.
George S. Wallace, for plaintiff in error.
William G. Conley, Attorney General, for defendant in error.
May a suit be maintained against the State Board of Control for goods, wares, and merchandise furnished to one of the state institutions upon the alleged order of that board? Is not such an action one against the state, within our constitutional limitation which reads: "The State of West Virginia shall never be made defendant in any court of law or equity"? These are the questions brought to us. They arise upon the ruling of the trial court in sustaining a demurrer to the plaintiff's declaration.
Our decision is that the action can not be maintained that it was rightly dismissed on demurrer. The State Board of Control is a direct governmental agency of the state. True, the statute creating that board made it a corporation. But still as such corporation it is only a state governmental agency. When it acts, it acts for the state in the administration of state affairs, its contracts are the contracts of the state. Further true, the statute says it may sue and be sued. It may be that by appropriate process some mere ministerial duty of the board may be controlled. This we do not decide, for the question is not now before us. Certain it is, no contract or property right of the state can be brought into litigation in the courts by a suit against that board. The state has a direct, immediate, and total interest in every valid contract made by the State Board of Control, and in truth and in substance any suit on a contract with that board is a suit against the state. Principles recognized and discussed in Miller v. State Board of Agriculture, 46 W. Va. 192, are controlling here. They need not be repeated. It is said that the board involved in that case was not a corporation. That fact makes no distinction. It was a state agency, though not incorporated. Principles applicable to an unincorporated state agency, in relation to whether a suit against it is in substance one against the state, are as clearly applicable to a corporate agency of the state. The same test applies. That test is: Is the matter involved the state's matter?
In Railway Co. v. Conley, 67 W. Va 129, this court held that the particular suit against a state officer could not be considered one against the state itself. But in that...
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