Turner v. Cochran

• Decision Date: 18 February 1907
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MARION H. TURNER ET AL. v. MORRIS E. COCHRAN ET AL

42 So. 876

89 Miss. 206

MARION H. TURNER ET AL. v. MORRIS E. COCHRAN ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 18, 1907

November 1906

FROM the chancery court of Jasper county, HON. JAMES L. MCCASKILL Chancellor.

The appellants, Turner and others, were complainants in a proceeding to enjoin the appellees, Cochran and others county officials, from putting into effect an act of the legislature (Laws 1906, ch. 168) dividing Jasper county into two court districts, and providing for the erection of public buildings in the new district, and the issuance of bonds of that district for the purpose of meeting the expenditures incurred thereby, and levying a special tax on the property in the new district. Section 20 of the act in question (Laws 1906, ch. 168) provided for the location, character, and cost of the buildings to be erected by the board of supervisors and section 21 thereof authorizes the board to issue the bonds of the new (second) district in the requisite amount the payment of which was to be met by taxes authorized to be levied by the board on the property situated in the district. Laws 1906, p. 197. A temporary injunction was granted, and at the hearing, on a motion to dissolve the injunction, the court below dissolved the same, and complainants appealed to the supreme court.

Affirmed.

Amis & Dunn, for appellants.

We submit that the provisions of section 20 of the act of 1906 are arbitrary, and that if the legislature possesses the power to prescribe the maximum and minimum costs of a court house and jail, for the second district of Jasper county, as above attempted, that such power is an exceedingly dangerous one. That the act in this respect operates to suspend the general laws of the state of Mississippi, as found in sections 313 and 315 of the code of 1906, will not be disputed. Section 313 of the code of 1906, which is a general law, wisely submits to the discretion of the board of supervisors the right to determine the material, the dimensions, and the plans and cost of remodeling or repairing or building a new court house or jail for the county. Court houses and jails for counties are erected and repaired at the cost of the taxpayers of the individual county. It is purely a county affair. The burden must be borne alone by the taxpayers of the particular county, and the legislature, which is the representative body of the entire state, ought not to have the power to say what amount the taxpayers of the particular county shall pay for the erection of a court house for the county. The exercise of such a power is violative of the spirit of the constitution and the genius of our institutions; it amounts to the imposition of the burden of taxation without representation. A county is a constitutional and legal subdivision of the state; it is an entire sovereignty. As to the powers which are conferred upon it as such, and in the exercise of these powers, it should be left alone and undisturbed by legislative enactment. To substitute the legislative will for the local will of the county would be destructive of the foundations upon which our system of state, county, and municipal government rest. We contend that when the legislature fixed a maximum and minimum price to be paid by the particular county, for a court house, it invaded the peculiar and exclusive province of the county authorities, as recognized by the state constitution, and also by all general laws; and its act in so doing is void.

It should be noted, in this connection, that the bonds provided for by section 21 of the act are to be issued without consulting the taxpayers of the district as to whether the bonds shall be issued, the time they shall run, or the amount of such bond issue. We submit that the bill is void in this respect. We do not question the power of the legislature to arbitrarily create a taxing district, composed of territory less than one county or more than one county, and to provide also that the property located within such district shall be taxed for a special purpose, provided the purpose of the object sought to be accomplished is not general in its character or nature. The trouble here is that there is an attempt to carve out and create a taxing district, and to impose a special tax upon a given part of a county, in order to raise funds with which to make certain improvements which are common to all counties, and which, when called into being, would be the property of the entire county of Jasper and not the peculiar special property of the said second district. Court houses and jails and the furnishing of same, are county properties. The county, as such, would hold the title; no other agency is provided for, by which the title may be held and protected. Inasmuch as court-houses and jails are general in their character to counties, and become and are the general property of the county, no special tax, limited to only a part of the property, can be levied, in order to realize funds with which to construct the same, without violating the provisions of section 112 of the constitution of the state, which provides that taxation shall be uniform and equal throughout the state, and that property shall be taxed in proportion to its value. To illustrate: suppose that the public convenience should require that a county bridge should be constructed over some stream, running through the western portion of Jasper county, would it be insisted that the legislature has the power to create a special bridge taxing district, and to levy special taxes on property alone situated in that district, in order to realize funds with which to construct the bridge? Certainly not, for the reason that bridges are the general, common property of the county at large, and in order to construct and maintain the same, a general tax is levied upon all of the property throughout the county uniform in character and even in the burdens which it carries to the taxpayers. To illustrate again: the city of Jackson has the power to levy and collect taxes for the purpose of providing funds with which to construct public school buildings in the city. But, suppose that conditions should arise that would make it desirable for the city of Jackson to construct a schoolhouse in a given locality; would it be competent for the city of Jackson, or even the legislature in that case, to fix certain lines, the territory within which should constitute a special taxing district, and that the property therein alone should be taxed to build...