Town of Highgate v. State.

• Decision Date: 15 February 1887
• Citation: 7 A. 898,59 Vt. 39
• Parties: TOWN OF HIGHGATE v. STATE.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

7 A. 898

59 Vt. 39

TOWN OF HIGHGATE

v. STATE.¹

Supreme Court of Vermont.

February 15, 1887.

Exceptions from Franklin county court, September term, 1885, Walker, J., presiding. Petition underact No. 11, Laws 1884. Heard on commissioners' report. The court rejected the report, and dismissed the petition, to which the petitioner excepted. The facts sufficiently appear in the opinion.

G. G. Austin and J. A. Fitch, for petitioner.

G. W. Burleson, State's Atty., for the State.

VEAZEY, J. It is doubtful if any statute was ever enacted in this state that would admit of so unlimited an expenditure of public money, which was so uncertain and doubtful in its provisions and meaning, as No. 11 of the Acts of 1884, relating to highways and bridges. Standing alone, it would require a large amount of interpretation in order to get it into shape suitable to base a judgment upon it. It would be easy to show that it ought to be held void for uncertainty, but for the rule that the interpretation which renders a statute null and void cannot be admitted. Vatt. Rules, No. 16. But fortunately, at the same session, and approved on the same day, another statute (No. 18) was passed, relating to the same subject. It is a well-settled rule that all statutes in pari materia are to be read and construed together, as if they formed parts of the same statute, and were enacted at the same time. Potter's Dwar. St. 145, and cases there cited; Sedg. St. & Const. Law, 247, and cases there cited. "All acts in pari materia," said Lord Mansfield in the Earl of Ailesbury v. Pattison, 1 Doug. 29, 30, "are to be taken together, as if they were one law." There is no room for question about the rule when statutes are in pari materia. When are they such? The term imports not only similarity, likeness, but identity. In United Soc. v. Eagle Bank, 7 Conn. 457, the court say: "Statutes are in pari materia which relate to the same person or thing, or to the same class of persons or things." The phrase is applicable to public statutes or general laws, made at different times and in reference to the same subject. It does not apply to private acts of the legislature, conferring distinct rights on different individuals. And so, in the case last cited, the charters of various different banks were held not to be in pari materia. But the English laws concerning paupers and church leases and bankrupts are regarded as laws in pan materia. Hex v. Loxdale, 1 Burr. 445; Duck v. Addington, 4 Term R. 447.

In Indiana, where at the same session an act was passed fixing the salary of an auditor of a particular county, and also fixing the salaries of auditors generally, the supreme court said that the rule of construction was well settled, viz., to regard these enactments in pari materia, to consider them as one statute, and give them such an exposition as will sustain what appears to have been the main intent of the law-makers. Board Com'rs v. Cutier, 6 Ind. 354. Also in New York it was decided, where an act, passed in 1817, for the construction of the Erie canal, vested the fee in the lands taken for the purpose in the people of the state, and lands were taken for the construction of the canal, under an act passed in 1819, omitting any provision as to title, that the people took the same interest under the act of 1819 as they did under the act of 1817. Rexford v. Knight, 15 Barb. 627 "It is to be inferred that a code of statutes relating to one subject was governed by one spirit and policy, and was intended to be consistent and harmonious in its several parts and provisions." Dwar. St. 189.

The object in view—the subject-matter, the substance—of these two acts, (Nos. 11 and 18,) is relief to an excessively burdened town as to its highways. Both point to the same thing, in substantially the same way; the remedy in one case being against an adjoining town, and in the other against the state, that is, all the towns. They relate to the same thing, and to the same class of persons. We think they should be held to be in pari materia. Treating the two acts as one, for the purposes of construction, it is much easier to discern the legislative intent of No. 11, and to give it a construction that will make it serve a useful purpose without danger of abuse. The provisions of No. 18, requiring the commissioners to be sworn, and that their report should contain a finding upon the question of excessive burden, are wanting in No. 11. There is sound reason for such provisions, and it applies as Well where the help is sought from the state as the adjoining town. Treating the two acts as one, we think the legislative intent becomes plain that these provisions of No. 18 should be applied to No. 11.

There is no express provision in No. 11 as to any apportionment of expense between the state and town. It says the commissioners shall report the required expense, and the court shall render judgment as in other highway cases. In other cases, under previous statutes, the court accepted or rejected the report in whole or in part. In No. 18, § 4, there is a provision for an apportionment. There is reason for it where the proceeding is against the state as well as against other towns. We therefore conclude,—from the fact of an apportionment provision in all previous acts, and of the same in No. 18, and of the large discretionary power given to the court in previous legislation upon the subject of highways, and of the reason being the same, and nothing prohibitory or inconsistent appearing in No. 11, and as both acts are to be taken as one law,—that it was the intention of the legislature to give the commissioners and the court the same right as to apportionment under No. 11 as under No. 18. The omission from No. 11 of those natural, usual, and reasonable provisions to be expected in such enactment can be accounted for only on the supposition that the provisions in No. 18, above specified, and perhaps others, were intended to be applied to No. 11....