Woollen v. The Board of Comm'rs of Jefferson County

• Decision Date: 29 November 1853
• Citation: 4 Ind. 331
• Parties: Woollen v. The Board of Commissioners of Jefferson County
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

4 Ind. 331

Woollen v. The Board of Commissioners of Jefferson County

Supreme Court of Indiana

November 29, 1853

APPEAL from the Jefferson Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed with costs.

J. G Marshall and W. M. Dunn, for the appellant.

J Sullivan, for the appellees.

OPINION

Perkins J.

Woollen, the treasurer of Jefferson county, at his settlement with the commissioners of said county in 1851, charged two and a half per centum for disbursing that portion of the county revenue collected on the tax-duplicate, and claimed an allowance, by the commissioners, of said charge. They refused to allow it. Woollen appealed to the Circuit Court where the decision of the commissioners was affirmed. Woolen appealed to this Court.

The controversy grows out of a difference in the construction given by Woollen and the commissioners respectively, to the statutory provisions fixing the compensation of county treasurers. Those provisions are in the R. S. of 1843.

Section 71, p. 221, enacts that "the fees to be allowed the county treasurer, for the collection of taxes, shall be eight per centum on the first one thousand dollars, seven per centum on any sum between one and two thousand dollars, six per centum on any sum between two and three thousand dollars, five per centum on any sum between three and four thousand dollars, four per centum on any sum between four and five thousand dollars, and three per centum on any sum over five thousand dollars, by him collected as aforesaid."

Section 90, on page 195 of the same statutes, provides that "each county treasurer" "shall be allowed for his services, two and one-half per centum on all moneys received, and a like per centum on all paid out," "excepting the receipt of that collected on the tax-duplicate, and excepting that which is paid out to the state as her revenue, and excepting that on which some other rate of compensation or fee for receiving or paying out, or both, is fixed by law."

Now, the question is, whether the exceptions in section 90 take the whole amount, both as to its collection and disbursement, of the moneys collected for the county upon the tax-duplicate, out of the operation of the main provision of said section, and place it, as to the entire compensation the treasurer is to receive for collecting, securing, and disbursing, under the operation of section 71 above quoted.

We do not consider it very clear upon the language of those sections, and, hence, must endeavor, if possible,...