Wright v. Hardwick
Citation | 109 S.E. 903,152 Ga. 302 |
Decision Date | 02 December 1921 |
Docket Number | (No. 2822.) |
Parties | WRIGHT, Comptroller General. v. HARDWICK, Governor. |
Court | Supreme Court of Georgia |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; J. T. Pendleton, Judge.
Mandamus on petition of the Governor, T. W. Hardwick, against W. A. Wright, Comptroller General. Judgment in favor of the petitioner, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
The General Assembly passed an act, approved by the Governor August 5, 1921 (Laws 1921, p. 230), which reads as follows:
On the same date the executive order was issued the Governor, in pursuance of it and of the provisions of the act of the General Assembly, drew his warrant upon the state treasurer, reciting that as Governor he had sold and assigned to the Bank of Tifton of the rentals arising from the lease of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, and to be due and payable to the state of Georgia, under said lease, for the month of August, 1923, the sum of $10,000, and that the Bank of Tifton had paid to the state of Georgia the full purchase price thereof, and therefore ordered and directed the treasurer of the state to pay to the Bank of Tifton, or order, the sum of $10,000 out of the special fund setaside in the treasury of the state by the executive order, in pursuance of the act, the same to be payable out of the rentals to be derived from said lease of the Western & Atlantic Railroad for the month of August, 1923, this warrant to be due and payable on August 1, 1923.
When the warrant, as the law requires, was presented to the comptroller general to be countersigned by him, he declined to countersign it, on the ground that he was advised that the warrant was illegal and void because issued under the authority of an act of the General Assembly which is unconstitutional.
To this petition the comptroller general filed a response admitting all the allegations of fact which the petition contained, but setting up various grounds why the warrant is illegal and void and should not be countersigned.
On the hearing of the rule the judge of the superior court overruled the grounds set up in the response of the comptroller general, and entered a judgment making the rule absolute. To this judgment the comptroller general excepted.
Anderson, Rountree & Crenshaw and Clifford L. Anderson, all of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Geo. M. Napier, Atty. Gen., A. G. Powell and Little, Powell, Smith & Goldstein, all of Atlanta, and Seward M. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.
FISH, C. J. (after stating the facts as above). [1] 1. One ground set up in response to the mandamus nisi, and urged as cause why it should not be made absolute, is that the act of the General Assembly under which the petitioner, the Governor of the state of Georgia, claims the right to draw said warrant, is unconstitutional and therefore void, in that such warrant when drawn and countersigned becomes a debt contracted by and on behalf of the state, contrary to the provisions of article 7, § 3, par. 1 (Code § 655S), of the Constitution of the state of Georgia, reading as follows:
"No debt shall be contracted by or on behalf of the state, except to supply casual deficiencies of revenue, to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, and defend the state in time of war, or to pay the existing public debt; but the debt created to supply deficiencies in revenue shall not exceed, in the aggregate, two hundred thousand dollars."
The brief filed here for the plaintiff in error says on this point:
An executive warrant drawn in accordance with the plan of the legislative act here under review is quite different in character from the ordinary warrant drawn by the Governor on the Treasurer. This act authorizes the Governor to assign and set aside not exceeding five years of the rental arising from the existing lease of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, as a special fund to be used exclusively for the purpose of paying warrants drawn by the Governor against it in discharging obligations of the state already created and incurred by law. The Governor is authorized to discount these warrants, and he is directed to place the proceeds arising therefrom in the treasury of the state for the purpose of meeting and discharging the obligations of the state already created and incurred, and for which appropriations have been made by law, the warrants to be duly countersigned by the comptroller general. It is plain that thus far the act does not undertake to provide for the contracting of a debt by or on behalf of the state; for the scheme manifestly is to provide an undertaking for the payment of debts of the state by discounting, without recourse as it were, its warrants payable exclusively out of a special and specified fund. The act, however, further provides that—
"The holders of said warrants shall further have all the rights and privileges which the original obligees of said then incurred obligations might have had against the state." Section 2:
From this last provision, when considered in connection with the plan of the act, does there arise a contractual relation betweenthe state and a purchaser who discounts a warrant that creates or results in a debt against the state?
(1) After due consideration of this important question we have arrived at the conclusion that no debt by or in behalf of the state is so created. The warrants in pursuance of the act are drawn against a certain specified fund which it is anticipated will be in the treasury to meet them at the time...
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