Wilkins v. Woolf

• Decision Date: 07 March 1968
• Docket Number: 1 Div. 437
• Citation: 208 So.2d 74,281 Ala. 693
• Parties: Taylor D. WILKINS v. George P. WOOLF et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 74

208 So.2d 74

281 Ala. 693

Taylor D. WILKINS v. George P. WOOLF et al.

1 Div. 437.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

March 7, 1968.

Wilson Hayes and Tolbert Brantley, Bay Minette, for appellant.

J. B. Blackburn, Bay Minette, for appellees.

HARWOOD, Justice.

In a declaratory proceeding in equity, the Chancellor of the Baldwin County Circuit Court declared unconstitutional Act No. 818 (Acts of Alabama, 1965 Regular Session, Vol. II, pages 1530--1532, approved 2 September 1965).

The Act purports to place certain officials of Baldwin County on salaries in lieu of fees.

Amendment CCXXIX to our Constitution, proclaimed ratified 13 December 1965, provides in parts pertinent to this review:

'The legislature may, by general or local laws, fix, alter, and regulate the costs and charges of court and the fees, commissions, percentages, allowances, and salaries, including the method or basis of their compensation, to be charged or received by the judge of probate, sheriff, circuit clerk, register of the circuit court, tax assessor, tax collector, or any other officer of Baldwin county, and may place any of such officers on a salary and provide that the fees, commissions, percentages, and allowances collected by such officers shall be paid into the county treasury from which their salaries shall be paid. The compensation of such officers shall not be increased or diminished during their terms.'

Pursuant to the authority of the above amendment, notice was duly given that a bill set forth in full in the notice, would be introduced in the Alabama Legislature.

The bill was entitled an act to change the method compensating certain officers of Baldwin County, placing such officers on a salary basis and providing for the operation of their offices on such basis.

A bill identical with the one as advertised was introduced in the legislature, but in its progress through the legislature certain provisions were altered, and some new ones were added.

It was the conclusion of the lower court that the differences between the Act as passed, and the bill as advertised, were so material and substantial as to be violative of Section 106 of our Constitution which requires notice of intention to apply for passage of special, private, or local laws by publishing as provided in Section 106.

In the bill as advertised, it was provided in Section 1 that:

'The following officers shall be entitled to receive annual salaries in lieu of any fees, commissions, percentages, and allowances, except as herein provided.'

The annual salary of the Judge of Probate was fixed at $12,000.00. In the bill as passed, it was also fixed at $12,000.00.

The annual salary of the tax assessor and of the tax collector was fixed in the bill as advertised at $12,000.00, for each official, and was so fixed in the Act as passed. However, in the Act is the following provision, not found in the bill as advertised:

'In addition, the probate judge, the tax assessor, and tax collector shall each be entitled to ten cents per mile for each mile traveled on their annual visits to precincts in October and November of each year as provided by law.'

In the bill as advertised, the salary of the sheriff was fixed at $10,800.00 annually, the salary of the clerk of the circuit court at $7,200.00 annually, the salary of the register at $3,000.00, and that of the coroner at $1,200.00.

The bill as advertised also provided that the fees, commissions, allowances, and court costs collected for the use of the county officers, should be paid into the general fund of the county. The Act likewise so provided.

In the Act the annual salary of the sheriff was fixed at $12,000.00 and that of the circuit clerk at $8,000.00, that of the register at $4,000.00, and that of the coroner at $1,200.00.

Further, in the Act it was provided that the sheriff should be entitled to allowances payable to the state for feeding prisoners, and also such mileage and expense allowances as may be payable according to law for returning or transferring insane persons to or from outside the county.

In the bill as advertised, it was provided that the Act should take effect on the first day of the second month next following the date of ratification of the amendment authorizing the legislature to change the method of compensating the officers named.

In the Act it was provided that it should take effect on the expiration of the current term of the officers affected thereby.

In the bill as advertised, it was provided that the court of county commissioners or other like governing body of Baldwin County should provide compensation for the clerks, deputies, assistants, etc., for the officers enumerated in the bill as advertised in such numbers as might be reasonably necessary for the conduct of the respective officers, each respective officer having the right to select and discharge such assistants.

This provision was amended to the extent that in the Act the maximum annual allowances for salaries for assistants was fixed at $26,000.00 for the probate judge, $40,000.00 for the sheriff, $19,000.00 for the tax assessor, $10,000.00 for the tax collector, and $7,000.00 for the circuit clerk, with an additional proviso that '* * * salary and clerk hire and pay for assistance shall not exceed total amount paid under present fee system.'

Both the bill as advertised and the Act as passed contained identical severability clauses to the effect that 'If any part of the Act is declared invalid or unconstitutional, such declaration shall not affect the part which remains.'

The purpose of Section 106 is to inform all those affected by local legislation of the proposed legislation to the end that they have an opportunity to oppose such legislation if they deem it unwise. Wallace v. Board of Revenue, 140 Ala. 491, 37 So. 321.

The requirements of Section 106 are met if the published notice advises the local public of the substance of the proposed law, of its characteristic and essention provisions, of its most important features. Section 106 does not negative the right of the legislature to shape up and work out details of local legislation. Christian v. State, 171 Ala. 52, 54 So. 1001; Gray v. Johnson, 235 Ala. 405, 179 So. 221.

In State ex rel. Wilkinson v. Allen, 219 Ala. 590, 123 So. 36, it is stated:

'If the details are not published but only the general nature of its substantive features, the public is put upon inquiry as to such details, and bound by a failure to inform itself, continuing through such changes and amendments as may stay within such substantive features as published. But if the publication gives details, the public need not pursue the inquiry further in respect to such details; for the information is complete, and it has the constitutional right to assume that such details will not be materially changed throughout the journey of the bill to its final passage and approval.' (Italics ours.)

Nevertheless in Commissioner's Court of Winston County v. State, 224 Ala. 247, 139 So. 356, this court wrote:

'So we would not be understood as saying the publication of the proposed bill in full would make a provision thereof matter of substance which would otherwise be considered mere matter of detail.'

This statement was approved in Gray v. Johnson, supra.

Another guiding principle of paramount importance is that courts seek to sustain, and not strike down, the enactments of a coordinate department of government. Every legislative act is presumed to be constitutional and every intendment is in favor of its validity. Tucker v. State, 231 Ala. 350, 165 So. 249; Gray v. Johnson, supra. Although a statute may be invalid or unconstitutional in part, the part that is valid will be sustained where it can be separated from that part which is void. State ex rel. Farmer v. Haas, 239 Ala. 16, 194 So. 395. If after the deletion of the invalid part, the remaining portions of an Act are complete within themselves, sensible, and capable of execution, the Act will stand notwithstanding its partial invalidity. Springer v. State ex rel. Williams,229 Ala. 339, 157 So. 219.

Certainly the existence of a severability clause in the Act itself cannot but strengthen this principle.

While the requirements of Section 45 of our Constitution as to the limiting effect of the caption or title of an Act upon the provision of the body of the Act itself, and the limitations imposed by the published notice of an Act as required by Section 16 of our Constitution upon the provisions of the Act itself are not identical, their similarity suggests the same line of reasoning in construing them, and the requirements of both constitutional provisions should receive a broad and liberal construction and avoid so strict a construction as would hamper and embarrass legislation. Gray v. Johnson, supra.

With these principles in mind we now consider the validity of the present Act, and provisions thereof if severable, as the same may have been affected by the published notice.

In the bill as advertised the annual salary of the sheriff was fixed at $10,800.00, that of the circuit clerk at $7,200.00, and that of the register at $3,000.00. In the Act the annual salary of the sheriff was fixed at $12,000.00, plus allowances for feeding prisoners and also mileage and expense allowances for transporting prisoners, or insane persons, to and from points outside the county; the salary of the circuit clerk was fixed at $8,000.00, and that of the register at $4,000.00.

Nothing can be included in the body of an Act which is not expressed in or covered by the title. Kendrick v. Boyd, 255 Ala. 53, 51 So.2d 694. By analogy nothing can be included in the body of any local Act which exceeds those matters expressed in the notice of the Act. Having specifically fixed the annual salaries of the sheriff, circuit clerk, and register, in the notice, the legislature is bound by the salary limits fixed in the notice, and cannot go beyond those limits without violating ...