Weeks v. Ruff
| Decision Date | 27 January 1932 |
| Docket Number | 13337. |
| Citation | 162 S.E. 450,164 S.C. 398 |
| Parties | WEEKS v. RUFF, County Sup'r, et al. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Action in the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court by C. D Weeks against H. H. Ruff, as Supervisor of Newberry County and others.
Complaint dismissed.
B. V Chapman, of Newberry, for plaintiff.
R. E. Whiting, of Columbia, and I. H. Hunt and John F. Clarkson, both of Newberry, for defendants.
The plaintiff brings this action to test the validity of Legislative proceedings which culminated in a proposed amendment to section 5, art. 10, of the Constitution relating to 'the issuance of bonds for the payment and funding of certain indebtedness of Newberry county. The prayer of the complaint is that the amendment submitted be declared to be null and void; that the act of the General Assembly which submitted the question of thus amending the Constitution is unconstitutional; and that the defendants be enjoined from issuing bonds of Newberry county in pursuance of said act.
A subsidiary question is made if the act of the General Assembly is upheld, viz., whether the proceeds of the bonds to be issued thereunder may be applied to the payment of interest on the indebtedness to be refunded, which has accrued since the passage of the act.
A brief summary of the history of the case may be made in this wise:
The county of Newberry found itself in debt which if put in the shape of bonds would approach, if it did not exceed, the limitation of 8 per centum of all the taxable property of the county, as it is fixed by section 5, art. 10, of the Constitution of the state.
In order to care for this situation the Newberry House Delegation, at the 1930 session of the General Assembly, introduced in the House a Joint Resolution couched in this language and form:
The resolution was adopted by the House with all the prescribed requirements of the Constitution; the yeas and nays were taken on the passage of the resolution and the vote was recorded in the journal; the vote being unanimous in favor of the passage of the resolution.
Thereupon the Resolution was sent to the Senate, which body returned it to the House with these amendments:
D'
When the joint resolution as amended was returned to the House it was submitted in the following form:
"The Senate amendments were agreed to, and the Bill having received three readings in both Houses (Italics added) it was ordered that the title be changed to that of an Act and that it be enrolled for ratification."
Nothing further appears upon the House Journal in relation to its action upon the Senate amendment to the bill.
The joint resolution was duly ratified and approved by the Governor. See 36 St. at Large, p. 1091.
The question was submitted to the people at the General Election of 1930, and the amendment was adopted. At the succeeding session of the General Assembly of 1931 the amendment was ratified with strict compliance with all constitutional requirements. See 37 St. at Large, p. 103.
The validity of the "Submitting Resolution," and consequently of the constitutional amendment, is attacked upon the ground: The entries appearing upon the journal of the House do not show compliance with the formalities for the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution as they are set forth in section 1 of article 16 of that instrument, in that, they do not show that the amendments were entered upon the journal of the House with the yeas and nays thereon; and that it is not shown that the resolution as amended by the Senate was read three times in the House.
The provisions of section 1, art. 16, thus invoked follow: ***"
It is admitted that the method pursued by the House in passing upon the amendments to the "Submitting Resolution" of the House is that which by long custom has prevailed in that body. It may be conceded that if the proposed amendments are of such nature as to create so radical a difference from the original resolution as to make of it a new act, the failure to read the amendments three times and to spread them on the minutes would be a fatal defect. But if the proposed amendments preserve the identity of the submitting resolution, if it preserve and maintain its intent and purpose, and the change is one of language, or of phraseology and not of substance, the failure so to read and so to enter is not fatal.
The purpose of these provisions of the Constitution relating to amendments is that the members of the General Assembly may be fully apprised of the thing sought to be accomplished by the proposed Resolution. Having heard it read by its title the first time and in full the second time, they may not, having been lulled into security, have passed by them a resolution differing entirely from that which they supposed they were voting upon. Therefore the title must plainly express the contents of the act.
The certificate of the secretary of state attached to the answer of the respondents shows that: The submitting resolution adopted by the General Assembly of 1930 as amended is on file in his office; that it received three readings in each House; that it was signed by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; that it was duly ratified and approved by the Governor; that the Great Seal of the State was duly affixed thereon; it was submitted to the people in the election of 1930 and the majority of the votes thereon was in favor of the amendment; a bill to ratify the amendment was introduced in the 1931 session of the General Assembly and read three times on three several days in each branch of the assembly; that a yea and nay vote was taken on second and third reading in the House; was duly ratified as an act; approved by the Governor and the Great Seal of the State affixed thereon.
The case of Stevenson v. Carrison, 122 S.C. 212, 115 S.E. 251, 252, is authority for the position that if the amendment to the joint resolution is of such a nature as to satisfy the Legislature that it is consistent with the resolution as already approved, the joint resolution as amended does not violate the provisions of section 1, art. 16, of the Constitution.
We quote from the brief of the respondents' counsel: "It is a generally recognized and accepted rule that a construction of the Constitution adopted by the Legislative department and long accepted by the various agencies of government and the people, is, where the meaning of the language construed is capable of two interpretations, entitled to great weight."
Cooley's Constitutional Limitations (8th Ed.) pp. 147, 148, citing many supporting authorities. One of these authorities quoted by Judge Cooley is Rogers v. Goodwin, 2 Mass. 475, which is to this effect:
This is analogous to the principle announced in Herndon v Moore, 18 S.C. 339, and which grew out of the decision of the constitutional issues involved in the case of Davenport v. Caldwell, 10 S.C. 317. After the adoption of the Constitution of 1868, the Legislature passed an act which attempted to confer upon probate courts the power to partition real estate. The power was universally exercised by the probate courts of the several counties of the state. Thousands of acres of land were sold for partition by these courts. The constitutionality of the act conferring the power was attacked in ...
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Brailsford v. Walker
...been modified by the later decision of this Court in the case of Weeks v. Ruff et al., 164 S.C. 398, 162 S.E. 450. We do not think so. In the Weeks case the question as to whether an amendment made in the Senate to a joint resolution which had been introduced in and passed by the House, cre......
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Palmer v. Dunn
...the procedure outlined in Sec. 1 of Art. XVI. Affirmative answer to the question is found in the well-considered case of Weeks v. Ruff, 164 S.C. 398, 162 S.E. 450, 454, which the ratio decidendi of that en banc decision is aptly stated in the concurring opinion of Judge J. Henry Johnson, as......