54 Fla. 577 | Fla. | 1907
— On December 19th, 1903, the city of Sanford filed in the circuit court for Orange county a bill in equity against the county of orange and H. H. Dickson, chairman of the board of county commissioners for Orange county for an accounting and payment to the city of Sanford of one half the amount realized by the county commissioners from county, road and bridge taxes for the years 1893, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1898, 1901 and 1902, upon property within the city of Sanford under a provision of Chapter 4312 Acts of 1893, entitled “An Act to Abolish the Present Municipal Government of the City of Sanford, Florida, and Organize a City Government for the Same, and to provide its Jurisdiction and Powers,” which provision is as follows: “One half of the amount realized from' any and all road and bridge taxes' levied on property within the city of Sanford by the county commissioners of Orange county, shall be turned over annually to the municipal authorities of the city of Sanford, to be used in the repairing, working, improving and laying out the streets and bridges thereof, as may be prescribed by ordinance.”
. The trial court held the quoted provision of the act to be not in conflict with section 16 of article 3 of the constitution.
The defendant county answered in brief that it has always refused and declined to pay the complainant whatsoever claimed by virtue of the act referred to, although
A replication was filed and testimony was taken. The bill of complainant was dismissed on final hearing and the complainant appealed assigning as errors, the decree dismissing the bill of complaint and not decreeing an accounting. The defendant assigned as cross error the ruling sustaining the validity of the provision of the charter of the city of Sanford under which the claim here is made by complainant
Even if the provision of Chapter 4312 Acts of 1893 incorporating the city of ,'Sanford and providing ¡its jurisdiction and powers requiring the county commissioners of Orange county to pay one half of the road tax collected on property in the city of Sanford over to the municipal authorities, of such city' to be used for streets and bridges, is properly connected with ór is germane to the subject expressed in the title of the act so as to charge the county commissioners with a duty to pay the money, such payment was only ‘for' the purpose of ápplying it to roads and streets. Tire city is in laches in asking for it, and if it has been used for road purposes and is consequently not in fund, the county commissioners cannot be required at this late day to account for it to an agency to be used for roads and streets. Upon the showing made the county commissioners have complied with the law Chapter 4065 addressed to them, and the city of Sanford being at most only an agency for using the funds for road and
The decree is affirmed.
Shackleford, C. J., and Cockrell, J., concur;
Taylor, Hooker and Parkhill, JJ., concur in the opinion.