79 S.W.2d 407 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1935
Affirming.
The appellant was a candidate in the regular primary election in 1933 for the Republican nomination for the office of county attorney of Whitley county. *115 He was awarded the certificate of nomination, and at the following regular November election for that year he was elected to the office and took the oath and was inducted therein on the first Monday of the following January, 1934. Pursuant to chapter 131 of the Session Acts of 1932, which was and is an amendment to section 1072 of our prior Statutes, the fiscal court of Whitley county met the first Monday in May, 1933 (being the year in which appellant was elected), and by order, duly entered and signed, the salary for the incoming regular term for that office was fixed at $1,000. No one appealed therefrom or in any manner attempted to question the propriety of the order, until on February 20, 1934, when an appeal therefrom was attempted to be taken by appellant, by his taking the necessary steps for perfecting one in such cases, to the circuit court of that county. When the attempted appeal was reached in the latter court, the county, through its employed counsel, filed a special demurrer to the attempted procedure which the court and parties seem to have treated as a motion to dismiss the appeal, and which was followed by an order to that effect, to reverse which appellant prosecutes this appeal. Waiving, as did the parties and the court, the regularity of presenting the question (i. e., the right of appellant or any other person to prosecute the appeal more than sixty days after the order was entered by the fiscal court) involved, we will dispose of it as if the appellee had regularly moved for a dismissal.
That an appeal from an order of the fiscal court of a county fixing the salary of its officers may be maintained, and is the proper procedure for one dissatisfied therewith, has been held by us in a number of cases construing section 978 of the 1930 Edition of Carroll's Kentucky Statutes; some of the latest ones are Monroe County Court v. Miller,
Another proposition of law is as well settled as the one to which we have just referred, and which is: That no one has an inherent right to appeal from a court judgment, and that the right to do so, in the absence of some constitutional provision to the contrary, rests exclusively with the Legislature, and which it may grant or withhold at its discretion. However, in making provision therefor, or in denying the right, the legislative action must not be discriminatory, but framed in such manner as to apply to all parties similarly situated, equally and without partiality to any. Counsel for appellant seems to question that proposition, and cite our opinions in the cases of Paducah Hotel Co. v. Long,
Wherefore, the judgment is affirmed.