Vaughan v. State

• Decision Date: 06 November 1924
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 847
• Citation: 102 So. 222,212 Ala. 258
• Parties: VAUGHAN, Probate Judge, v. STATE ex rel. DAWSON.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

102 So. 222

212 Ala. 258

VAUGHAN, Probate Judge, v. STATE ex rel. DAWSON.

2 Div. 847

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 6, 1924

Rehearing Denied Dec. 4, 1924

Appeal from Probate Court, Dallas County; S.F. Hobbs, Judge.

Petition for mandamus by the State of Alabama, on the relation of Percy Dawson, against Watkins M. Vaughan, as Judge of Probate of Dallas County. From a judgment overruling demurrer to the petition, respondent appeals. Transferred from Court of Appeals under section 6, page 449, Acts 1911. Reversed rendered and remanded.

Craig &amp Brown, of Selma, for appellant.

Pettus Fuller & Lapsley and A.M. Pitts, all of Selma, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

The petitioner, who is the sheriff of Dallas county, seeks by the writ of mandamus to compel the probate judge of that county to issue the county'swarrant for the payment to petitioner of certain sums of money alleged to be due him under the provisions of the act approved September 24, 1919 (Gen.Acts 1919, p. 686).

Section 1 of the act provides:

"That sheriffs in counties of not less than 53,401 nor more than 58,501 population, according to the federal census of 1910, or according to any subsequent federal census, shall be allowed six hundred dollars per annum to pay for the use of or expense of the use of automobiles to be used by them in the discharge of the duties of their office, said sum to be paid in monthly installments of fifty dollars per month on the last day of each month."

The act is in form a general law, and was passed as a general law without any compliance with the requirements of section 106 of the Constitution for the passage of local laws. The respondent's contention is that the act cannot be sustained as a general law, and, being invalid as a local law under section 106, must be held as invalid entirely, and be nullified by judicial sentence.

The population of Dallas county, by the census of 1910, was exactly 53,401; and by the census of 1920 it was 54,697. The only two counties having within 10,000 of the population of Dallas, by the census of 1910, were Tuscaloosa (47,559), and Madison (47,041); and the only counties having a population in excess of that of Dallas were Mobile (80,854), Montgomery (82,178), and Jefferson (226,476).

By the census of 1920 the population of Tuscaloosa county has increased to 53,680, bringing it within the operation of the act in question. No other county has so increased, so that until the publication of the next federal census only the two counties of Dallas and Tuscaloosa will be within the terms of the act.

The test by which the character of an act, whether general or local, is to be determined, was authoritatively stated by this court, per...