38 So. 2d 902 | Miss. | 1949
Appellant filed in the circuit court a petition for a writ of certiorari to review the proceedings of the board of supervisors of Panola County, whereby there had been excluded from said county, pursuant to an election held therein, the transportation, storage, sale, distribution, receipt and manufacture of beer and wine. The writ was issued and upon a review of the proceedings the lower court dismissed the petition, quashed the writ, and affirmed the orders and proceedings of the board of supervisors, from which action this appeal is taken.
Section 10208 of the Mississippi Code of 1942 makes detailed provision for the holding of an election in any county of the state, upon a petition of 20% of the qualified voters of the county, to determine the question whether the transportation, sale, etc., of such beverages shall be permitted therein, and provides that no election on this question can be ordered more often than once in five years. It is contended by appellant's first assignment that it is essential to the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors to order such an election that it must affirmatively adjudicate the fact to be that no such election has been held within the past five years, and that, since there is no such adjudication in the proceedings in this case, the same are void.
In the case of Henry v. Board of Sup'rs of Newton County, Miss.,
The second and last assignment is that the orders of the board of supervisors are void because they fail to show any lawful authority for holding the meetings at which the orders were adopted. These orders were adopted in November and December, 1947, and in February, 1948, at meetings of the board held in the second district of the county on the second Monday in each of these months. Except as to the difference in dates, the minutes of the organization of the board are identical and recite as follows:
*415"State of Mississippi | Board of | Batesville, Mississippi "Panola County Supervisors' February 9, 1948 "Second Court District | Court | Regular February 1948 | Meeting.
It is contended by appellant that the orders are void because of the failure of the minutes to adjudicate the existence of any special fact which would authorize the board to meet when and where it did since under the general law of this state boards of supervisors are required to hold their regular meetings on the first Monday in each month. (Hn 2) This requirement, however, applies only to counties having one court district, Section 2875, Mississippi Code of 1942, and the next section provides that in counties having two court districts the board shall likewise hold regular meetings on the first Monday in each month, and, where only one meeting is held in each month, the January meeting shall be held in the first district, the February meeting in the second district, and that the meetings shall alternate thereafter, such meetings to be held on the first Monday of the month; this section further provides that in counties having two court districts the board of supervisors may hold two regular meetings in each month, meeting on the first Monday in the first district, and on the second Monday in the second district, and, if they elect to hold two regular meetings in each month, the board shall enter an order upon its minutes to that effect and shall give five days notice thereof, and after giving such notice the board shall hold regular meetings in each month in each district as provided in this section. Section 2876, Mississippi Code of 1942. *416
By Chapter XXV of the Laws of 1880, Pages 145-149, Panola County was divided into two court districts, and by section 12 of this Act it was provided that: "The said board of supervisors of said county shall alternately hold their sessions or meetings at Sardis and Batesville respectively, the seats of justice of the aforesaid first and second districts, holding their first meeting at Sardis, and their jurisdiction shall extend over the entire county as if it were not divided into separate districts."
It will be noted that by this act the supervisors were not required to hold alternate monthly meetings, but only to hold alternate meetings. If the board elected to hold two regular meetings each month pursuant to authority of the aforesaid Code Section 2876, these meetings were still to be held alternately. Therefore, there is no prohibition of two regular monthly meetings in the Act which created the county into two districts.
The appellant here does not contend that the board of supervisors of Panola County did not by proper order and notice elect to hold two regular monthly meetings, one on the first Monday at Sardis in the first district, and the other on the second Monday at Batesville in the second district. What appellant here contends is limited to the narrow point that the minutes of every regular meeting of the supervisors at Batesville in the second district should affirmatively adjudicate the fact to be that the board has theretofore elected to hold and has given notice of its intention to hold two regular meetings in each month, and that by failing to so adjudicate at each and every meeting its acts, as reflected by its minutes, are void. With that contention we do not agree.
(Hn 3) It is the settled law of this State that, in the absence of proof to the contrary, it will be presumed that public officers performed their duty in the manner required by law. This was held as early as 1848 in Wray v. Doe, 10 Smedes M. 452, and as recently as 1947 in Slush v. Patterson,
It has been held that this presumption applies to minutes of meetings of boards of supervisors, and that the burden is upon the person challenging the legality thereof to show that the meeting was illegal. In the case of Tierney v. Brown,
In the case of Board of Supervisors of De Soto County v. Jones,
In Scott County v. Dubois,
(Hn 5) We do not overlook the fact that certiorari is a statutory remedy designed for the purpose of bringing into review the acts of an inferior tribunal upon the record made by such tribunal on questions of law, Sections 1206, 1207, Mississippi Code of 1942, but this court has held that upon the hearing in the reviewing court evidence may be heard to make manifest the error of law committed by the inferior tribunal. In the case of Gulf S.I.R. Co. v. Adams,
Under this authority the appellant had the right to show, if he could, that the board of supervisors of Panola County had never adopted an order for the holding of a regular meeting at Batesville in the second district on the second Monday of each month, and the burden *419 was upon appellant so to do. Having failed to meet that burden we find no merit in his second contention.
We may add, in conclusion, that the clerk of the board of supervisors, in making up the record pursuant to the writ of certiorari, included therein a certified copy of an order adopted by that board on May 4, 1914, pursuant to Chapter 236 of the Laws of 1914, declaring that thereafter the board would hold two regular meetings each month, the second being in the second district on the second Monday in each month, and also included therein a certified copy of an order adopted by the board on September 7, 1936, pursuant to Section 201 of the Mississippi Code of 1930, which is the same as Section 2876 of the 1942 Code, reiterating its intention to hold two regular meetings each month, the second being at Batesville, in the second district, on the second Monday, and directing the clerk to give notice of such intention as provided by said statute, and also included therein a certified copy of an order adopted by said board on October 5, 1936, adjudicating the fact to be that said notice had been duly given, and ordering that thereafter two regular meetings of the board would be held each month, the first being on the first Monday at Sardis in the first district, and the second being at Batesville on the second Monday in the second district. In the circuit court, the appellant moved the court to strike these orders from the record, which motion was sustained, and the orders were disregarded in the court below. In our decision of this case we have found it unnecessary to consider these orders or to review the action of the circuit court in striking them from the record, since the burden was upon appellant to show that there were no such orders or that they had been repealed or rescinded by subsequent action of the board of supervisors prior to the orders outlawing beer and wine in Panola County. The judgment of the lower court is therefore affirmed.
Affirmed. *420