19 S.E.2d 508 | Ga. | 1942
1. The purpose of the constitution (Code, § 2-401) is to insure uniform operation of general laws throughout the State, and as a means to that end prohibits enactment of a special law relating to a subject dealt with by a general law. At the time of the enactment of the special law (Ga. L. 1939, p. 834) amending the charter of the City of Atlanta, providing that no suit for injury to person or property can be maintained against the city unless within ninety days from such injury written notice as there prescribed is given to the municipal authorities, there existed a general law (Code, § 69-308), providing that no suit can be maintained against any municipal corporation for injury to person or property unless notice of claim for such injury is given to the municipality in writing and in substance as there prescribed. This general law provides for the case covered by the special law, and the latter is repugnant to the constitution, and therefore is void. Parrish v. Savannah,
2. While under the Code, § 105-1407, the owner of land through which non-navigable watercourses flow is entitled to have the water in such streams come to his land in its natural flow, subject to uses there stated, he can, under the Code, § 105-1408, make no legal complaint because the owner of the land on which the head or source of such stream is located, or others, in some manner disturbs the subterranean water that *619 enters that spring, thereby causing the stream to cease flowing altogether. But while the averments of the petition relating to diversion of water constitute no cause of action, yet other averments of damage to fence and land adjacent to the right of way of the trunk sewer constitute a cause of action; and hence the petition was not subject to general demurrer, and the court did not err in overruling the same.
The petition further alleges, that defendants in some manner unknown to her diverted the water which normally and naturally flowed into the four wells on her property, causing two to dry up completely and the water in the other two to become so low as to render them practically worthless, and thereby decreasing the value of her land by at least $2500; that on October 18, 1940, which was more than ninety days after the alleged injuries to her property, petitioner presented to the governing authorities of the City of Atlanta a written notice of her claim for damages, in accordance with the provisions of the Code, § 69-308, a copy of which notice is attached as an exhibit and made a part of the petition, and more than thirty days have passed since the claim was thus presented, but the City of Atlanta has taken no action thereon. By amendment it was alleged that by the act of the General Assembly of 1939 (Ga. L. 1939, p. 834), it was sought to amend the charter of the City of Atlanta by incorporating therein the following provision: "That no action for damages to persons or property of any character whatever shall be instituted against the City of Atlanta, unless within ninety (90) days from the happening or infliction of the injury complained of the complainant, his executor or administrator, shall give notice to the mayor and general council of the City of Atlanta, by filing a claim with the clerk of council, of his injury, *621 in writing, stating in such notice the date and place of the happening or infliction of such injury, the manner of such infliction, the character of the injury, the amount of damages claimed therefor, and the names and addresses of all witnesses." The petitioner alleges that this charter amendment is unconstitutional and void as a special law applicable only to the City of Atlanta and violating article 1, section 4, paragraph 1, of the constitution of Georgia (Code, § 2-401), which declares that "Laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation throughout the State, and no special law shall be enacted in any case for which provision has been made by an existing general law," there being in force and effect at the time said law was enacted a general law which provides for notice to be given to municipal corporations before suit can be maintained for injury to person or property, and specifies the form and contents of such notice, said general law being section 69-308 of the Code, the petition quoting the general law in full. The petition further avers that the charter amendment offends the constitutional provision quoted, because at the time of its enactment there existed the following general laws which prescribed the time and conditions precedent to the filing of suits: sections 3-1001 and 3-1002 of the Code, providing that actions for injury to realty or personalty may be brought within four years after the right of action accrues; section 3-1004, providing that actions for injuries to persons shall be brought within two years; and section 3-106, which provides that no demand shall be necessary to the commencement of an action, except in such cases as the law or contract prescribes. The charter amendment is also assailed upon the ground that it is violative of the due-process clauses of the Federal constitution (Code, § 1-815) and the State constitution (Code, § 2-103).
To the petition as thus amended the City of Atlanta filed general and special demurrers. The general demurrer assails the amended petition upon the grounds (a) that no cause of action is alleged, and (b) notice of the claim for injury sued for was not given to the city within ninety days, as required by the charter amendment of 1939. Upon hearing before Judge Hugh M. Dorsey some of the special demurrers were sustained, with leave to amend. The general demurrer was overruled, and the City of Atlanta excepted to that ruling. *622
1. In 1882 this court, in Collins v.Macon,
The language of this paragraph of the constitution is clear and unambiguous, and its purpose is obvious. It in part declares that "Laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation throughout the State, and no special law shall be enacted in any case for which provision has been made by an existing general law." Territorial uniformity is definitely required, and the subject-matter of an existing general law is put beyond the reach of special laws. The broad objective of this paragraph of the constitution was manifestly to prevent the confusion and uncertainty that would necessarily result if there existed at the same time a general law and a special law dealing with or regulating the same subject-matter. It was intended to insure that once the legislature entered a field by enacting a general law, that filed must thereafter be reserved exclusively to general legislation and could not be open to special or local laws. The terms of the constitution do not limit this rule to those fields and subjects which have been completely exhausted by a general law. It embraces every field and subject which has been covered, though superficially, by a general law. If such a law is not exhaustive and fails to reach every minute element of the subject dealt with, the remedy, and the only constitutional remedy for a more exhaustive legislative treatment, is by amendment of the general law by a general enactment. It can not be done by amending or supplementing the general law by a special law. This provision of the constitution would be nullified if by play upon words and definitions the courts should hold valid a special law when there existed at the time of its enactment a general law covering the same subject-matter. The mere fact that the special law deals with some remote segment or element of the general subject embraced in the general law, which segment or element is not dealt with by the general law, does not alter the fact that such a special law is enacted *624 in a case where provision has been made by an existing general law. The General Assembly in the exercise of its judgment might wish that portions of the subject dealt with by the general statute should remain free from regulation by law. In the present case the general statute as to demand or notice fixes no specific time limit for making the demand, but merely makes the demand a prerequisite to suit, leaving the injured party free to make the required demand at such time as he may wish, limited only by the limitation statutes fixing the times within which his suit must be brought. By failing to limit the time of making the demand the legislature clearly indicated that it was not desired to carry the immunity of a municipal corporation beyond the limits fixed by that law. It would be difficult to find a general statute that expressly treats every conceivable element of the subject-matter of the law, but instead of leaving the untreated elements as a field in which special legislation can be constitutionally enacted the legislature has simply indicated its choice for the time being not to expand the general law. If subsequently to the enactment of such a law it is ever desired to expand the law on the subject dealt with, this can and must be done by amendment of the general law, rather than by a special law.
Counsel for the city seek to sustain the special law amending the charter, by the rulings in the following cases: Paulk v.Sycamore,
In Hancock v. State, supra, the existing general law declared that "any person who shall manufacture or cause to be manufactured" domestic wines may lawfully sell the same "in quantities not less than one quart." The special act there under attack prohibited the sale of such wine by the drink in named places. This court held that the special law permitted everything permitted by the general law, and that the things prohibited by the special law were not covered by the general law; and it was stated that the ruling in Papworth v. State, supra, where a special law was held invalid because the general law existing covered the same subject-matter, was inapplicable. The opinion was concurred in by only five Justices.
In Trammell v. Rome, supra, the decision was planted upon the stated conviction of the court that the general law there involved dealt solely with the subject of raising revenue, and that the special law dealt only with the subject of police regulation. Whether or not these reasons for sustaining the special law were sound, it was there recognized that a special law to be valid must deal with a subject not covered by the general law.
In Sheppard v. Edison, supra, it is asserted that the special law there under attack provided a method and procedure for the municipality to pursue in condemning property, which was in all material respects identical in substance with the existing general law prescribing the method and procedure to be followed by all municipalities *626
in condemning property; and, without citation of any authority, it was ruled that because the two statutes are identical the special law does not offend article 1, section 4, paragraph 1, of the constitution. While two of the Justices dissented in that case, the dissent was from other rulings, and not the one on the constitutionality of the special statute. The ruling that because the substance of the special law was the same as the general law, the special law was not rendered void under the constitution, was perhaps based upon language in Mathis v. Jones,
In Head v. Wilkinson, supra, this court simply held that section 22 of the act there under consideration was a part of the act; and that since the act was a general one, section 22 was not a special law, and that said section did not offend the constitutional provision here involved. In Steele v.Waycross, supra, the decision was based upon the construction of the special statute as covering a field not dealt with by general law, in that the general law provided for interest only upon executions, while the special law provided that the assessment should draw interest prior to the issuance of an execution. Nothing ruled in Upson v. Almand, supra, sustains the contention of the plaintiff in error.
Before the adoption of the constitution of 1877, containing the provision here invoked, this court, in Adams v. Albany,
Whatever may have been the decisions of this court upon the subject now considered, there is announced in Mathis v.Jones,
There can be no doubt that the interpretation of this clause of the constitution announced in Mathis v. Jones has been the law since that opinion was rendered. Any subsequent decision by this court that may be in conflict with the rulings there made is to the extent of such a conflict not binding. In that opinion it was said: "A law territorially general, and a subsequent law territorially special, for the same order of cases, are mutually exclusive of each other. The legislature may have either, but in the nature of things can not have both." This language simply means that a special law dealing with the subject that has already been dealt with by *629 an existing general law can not stand under the constitution. It was also stated in that opinion: "You can not make a general statute cease to be general otherwise than by another general statute repealing it. That is, under the constitution of 1877, you can not repeal a general law in part by a local law; for in the eye of the constitution, every local law is special relatively to a general law. They [general statutes] can be killed but not mutilated; the smallest of their territorial members can not be cut off." The simple meaning of the quoted ruling is, that as applied in the present case, since the existing general law has fixed as to every municipality in this State one and only one prerequisite to suit, the enactment of a special law relating to one municipality, and adding further prerequisites to a suit against that municipality, confers upon that municipality a greater degree of immunity than is enjoyed by the other municipal corporations throughout the State, and the uniformity of the general law is thereby arrested. At another point in that opinion it is said: "All special or local laws must find material upon which to operate outside of the scope of general laws. They can withdraw nothing from the domain of general laws which lie within their purview; for to do this would destroy their uniform operation as general laws for the State at large."
It can not be reasonably asserted that the matter of time in which the demand required by the general statute shall be given does not lie within the purview of that general law; and when the special law here assailed fixes a definite time in which such demand must be made upon the City of Atlanta, it thereby withdraws from the domain of the general law something which lies within the purview of that law. That opinion further states: "Touching anything whatever of a local nature there may be a local law, provided no existing general statute applies to it;but the same thing can not be regulated one way by a generalstatute, and another way by a subsequent local statute. To allowthis would be to allow a local statute to limit a prior generalone — that is, to repeal it pro tanto, which, under the presentconstitution, can not be done." (Italics ours.) The special law here involved has as its subject-matter a written demand or claim as a prerequisite to suit against the City of Atlanta for injuries to person or property, and it requires that this demand or claim be served within ninety days from the date of injury. Its content, in addition to the content *630 prescribed for the notice or demand required by the general statute, provides that the claim must show the amount and the names and addresses of the witnesses. The general statute has for its subject-matter written notice of claim or demand as a prerequisite to suit against a municipality for injuries to person or property. It specifies no time in which the demand must be given. Without a more detailed comparison it is obvious that the subject-matter of the two laws is the same, and that the special law seeks to take from the purview of the general law the matter of fixing the time in which the notice or demand must be given. The special law thus attempts to regulate the giving of this notice or demand one way, while it is by the general law regulated another, and under the ruling in Mathis v. Jones this can not be done; and such a special law violates article 1, section 4, paragraph 1, of the State constitution (Code, § 2-401).
The city relies strongly upon the decision in Parrish v.Savannah,
2. That portion of the amended petition seeking damages because of alleged interference by defendants' negligence with the underground flow of water to the four wells does not show any cause of action. Code, § 105-1408; Stoner v. Patten,
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.