97 Ky. 314 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1895
delivered the opinion of the court.
This appeal is prosecuted from a judgment of the Union Circuit Court rendered in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, etc., against T. O. Blackwell. The petition substantially alleges that by an act of the General Assembly of 1870, the magisterial districts of Caseyville and Lindle in said county were authorized to issue $60,000 and $15,000, respectively, in bonds to aid in building the Madisonville & Shawneetown Straight Line Railroad, which bonds were issued and were sold by said railroad company, and that it was also provided that sufficient taxes should be levied by the Union County Court to pay the said bonds, principal and interest, and that the sheriff of Union county should collect said taxes, but if he failed or refused to execute bond for thirty days after the levy of the taxes, the court levying the same might appoint a collector for the same, and that at the February term, 1891, of the county court of Union county the judge thereof levied a tax for the year 1893, on the property in the Caseyville precinct, of five dollars on each one hundred dollars of property therein, and on the property in the Lindle precinct two dollars and fifty cents on each one hundred dollars of property therein, and in said
A general demurrer was sustained to the petition and ■case dismissed. From that judgment plaintiffs have appealed.
The principal, if not the sole question, involved in this appeal is whether or not the collector is a district officer. See. 234 of the constitution is as follows, viz: “All civil officers for the State at large shall reside in the State, and all district, county, city or town officers shall reside within their respective districts, counties, cities or towns, and shall keep their offices at such places therein as may be required by law.”
Sec. 4131 of the Kentucky Statutes provides that if the sheriff fails to execute bond as is required by law that- he shall forfeit his office, and the county court may appoint a sheriff to fill the vacancy until a sheriff is elected, or it may appoint a collector for the county of all money due the State and county or taxing district, authorized to be collected by the sheriff, or it may appoint a separate collector of the moneys due the State, county or any taxing district, during the vacancy in the office of sheriff. It seems that the appointment of a collector for the collection of thetaxesin question is authorized by the act of 1870, supra, and also by the Kentucky Statutes, and that for the purpose of collecting such taxes the collector has all the powers a sheriff would have and is under the same liability.
The law seems to authorize the appointment of a collector for any taxing district as well as for the entire county. There is nothing in the statute requiring the collector to be a resident of the district in which the taxes are
It seems to us that the demurrer wa$ properly sustained.
The judgment of the court below is therefore affirmed.