Town of Purvis v. Lamar County

• Decision Date: 26 October 1931
• Docket Number: 29531
• Citation: 137 So. 323,161 Miss. 454
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: TOWN OF PURVIS v. LAMAR COUNTY

137 So. 323

161 Miss. 454

TOWN OF PURVIS v. LAMAR COUNTY

No. 29531

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 26, 1931

Division B

1 HIGHWAYS.

One-half of all ad valorem taxes collected by county on property within municipality for road purposes must be paid to municipality whether taxes were legally collected or not (Laws 1920, chapter 232, section 1; Laws 1928, chapter 129).

2 HIGHWAYS.

That borrowing of money for road purposes, to repay which taxes were collected by county, was without authority, would not aid county in town's suit to recover its portion of taxes collected (Laws 1920, chapter 232, section 1; Laws 1928 chapter 129).

3. HIGHWAYS.

Short notes, made for road purposes in anticipation of current taxes, held not "bonds" so as to relieve county from duty to pay town portion of taxes collected to pay notes (Laws 1920, chapter 232, section 1; Laws 1928, chapter 129).

4. STATUTES.

Statutes, evidencing fixed and long-continued, consistent legislative policy and intent, must not be so construed as to permit inferior administrative boards to resort to administrative devices operating to set aside such intent.

5. STATUTES.

Where statute contains exceptions in express language, there is admonition to courts that exceptions expressed are only ones contemplated, and that further exceptions should not be ingrafted unless necessity is inescapable or propriety thereof be substantially incontrovertible.

6. HIGHWAYS.

Long-continued legislative policy respecting county's payment of portion of taxes collected for road purposes to towns maintaining streets cannot be nullified by argument respecting inconvenience (Laws 1920, chapter 232, section 1; Laws 1928, chapter 129).

HON. J. Q. LANGSTON, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Lamar county HON. J. Q. LANGSTON, Judge.

Action by the Town of Purvis against Lamar county. From a judgment dismissing the suit, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

A. Q. Broadus, of Purvis, for appellant.

The claim of appellant is based upon authority of chapter 232, Laws 1920 and chapter 129, Laws 1928.

But if the tax levy was void on its face the claim of appellant is not based on a legal tax levy, but under the statute it is based on "one-half of the ad valorem taxes collected."

A bond issue for roads in a county or supervisors district or districts would have had to have been in compliance with the provisions of chapter 157 of the laws of 1928 (section 6393, Code 1930) in which case there would have had to have been an election. A bond issue is quite different from the issuance of a loan warrant or note in anticipation of taxes to be collected at the next tax collecting time, as is provided for under section 251, Code 1930.

This statute under which appellant claims cannot be annulled by implication or designing methods or other statutes.

City of Bay St. Louis v. Hancock County, 128 So. 331.

J. T. Garraway, of Purvis, for appellant.

The town of Purvis claims a right to one-half of all road funds collected from property within the corporate limits of the town, collected for general road purposes.

Chapter 232, Laws of 1920; Chapter 129 of the Laws of 1928.

If the decision of the lower court is upheld, it will provide a means whereby every county in the state through its board of supervisors can make it impossible for a town to ever get another penny from a road maintenance levy, by permitting them to do a thing indirectly that they could not do directly.

Warrants are general orders, payable when funds are found and there is property in the rule providing that they shall be paid in the order of presentation; the time of presentation to be indorsed by the treasurer on the warrants. They are thus distinguished from bonds, which are obligations payable at a definite time, running through a series of years, and payable when the time of their maturity arrives, independent of any presentation.

Shelly v. St. Charles County Court, 21 U. S. F. 699-701.

A county cannot resort to any kind of method or tactics to escape the payment of the just proportion of the road taxes due a municipality, which funds the towns have to depend upon as a means of working its streets, under the guise that the levy and collection was for a loan warrant whether the loan warrant was legal or not, and defeat the very purpose and intent of the road laws.

T. W. Davis and L. C. Bridges, both of Purvis, for appellee.

Chapter 157 of the Laws of 1928, under which the public roads in Supervisors District No. 1 in Lamar county were worked during the year 1929, was a complete scheme for the working of the roads and for raising funds for the working of said roads. The board of supervisors of Lamar county, in working the roads under said chapter, and in raising funds for the working of said roads, in said supervisors District No. 1, were limited to methods and ways provided therein for so doing.

Ellis v. Darnell, 112 Miss. 129, 72 So. 878; Lang v. Board of Supervisors, Harrison County, 114 Miss. 371, 75 So. 126; Martin v. Little, 115 Miss. 197, 76 So. 142; City of Bay St. Louis v. Hancock County, 120 Miss. 873, 83 So. 278.

The board of supervisors of Lamar county were without authority of law to borrow or issue a loan warrant and the issuance of said loan warrant was illegal and void. Appellee was without authority of law to make a special levy to retire said loan warrant and the tax levy so made for said purpose was illegal and void. Payment of the said special tax so levied by the tax payers to the tax collector was a voluntary payment, not being an ad valorem tax collected for road purposes of supervisors District No. 1, within the meaning of Chapter 323 of the Laws of 1920, the appellant has no interest therein, and is not entitled to recover any part thereof from the appellee.

Union Land & Timber Co. v. Pearl River County, 141 Miss. 131, 106 So. 277; Ch. 196, Laws 1926, sec. 3276, 1930 Code.; Schmittler v. Sunflower County, 126 So. 39.

A municipality is not entitled to one-half taxes levied to pay road bonds.

Chap. 232, Laws 1920.

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary gives the following definition of a bond:

Such an instrument made by government or corporation as an evidence of debt, usually for the purpose of borrowing money; hence, loosely, any interest bearing certificate issued by a government or a corporation, esp., when a date is set for the payment of principal.

In popular language, any instrument in writing that legally binds a party to do a certain thing may be called a bond.

9 C. J. 7.

Bonds are negotiable instruments and more than merely evidences of debt. The debt is inseparable from the paper which declares and constitutes it.

Blackstone v. Miller, 188. U.S. 189-206, 23 S.C. 227, 47 L.Ed. 439.

Where a fund in the county treasury had been provided and directed by law for the payment of certain claims, creditors holding them have a vested interest in the funds which the Legislature cannot deprive them.

Young v. Hall, 9 Nev. 212; State v. Cummings, 130 Tenn. 566, 172 S.W. 290, L. R. A., 1915 E 274; Demopolis v. Manning & Co., 198 Ala. 217, 70 So. 275; 15 C. J., pp. 582-3 and notes; Beck v. Allen, 58 Miss. 159.

This tax was levied in the interest of the bond holders.

Blue Mountain v. Board of Supervisors of Tippah County, 68 So. 250; Town of Waveland v. Hancock County, 70 So. 561.

OPINION

Griffith, J.

During the year 1929 the county of Lamar, in the maintenance of its public roads, was operating under the provisions of chapter 172, Laws 1916, as amended, with each of the supervisors' districts as a separate road district. The town of Purvis is located wholly within supervisors' district No. 1 of said county, and the streets of the said town were worked and maintained at the expense of the municipal treasury. At the May, 1929, meeting of the board of supervisors the road funds on hand to the credit of supervisors' district No. 1 being found insufficient to maintain the roads of the district during the year, it was ordered that public notice be given of the intention to borrow, for road maintenance purposes, the sum of eight thousand dollars on a negotiable short note. No objections having been filed, the board at its June, 1929, meeting by an order then entered borrowed the said sum, for said road maintenance purposes, from the Lamar County Bank on a note payable on February 15, 1930.

At the November, 1929, meeting of the board, a special levy of seven mills on all the property of the district was made for the purpose of paying said note. The amount of the taxes collected under said special levy on the property within the town of Purvis amounted to the total of two thousand four hundred forty-five dollars and seventy-eight cents. The town acting under chapter 232, Laws 1920, and chapter 129, Laws 1928, seasonably demanded of the county that one-half of said sum be remitted to the municipal treasury for the benefit of the street department of said town, and the demand not having been met, the town made a formal claim therefor, which claim was rejected by the board of supervisors; whereupon the town filed its declaration against the county in the circuit court, setting forth fully all the facts and demanding judgment in the sum of one thousand two hundred twenty-two dollars and eighty-nine cents. The county demurred to the...