126 Ky. 791 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1907
Opinion of the Court by
Affirming.
The appellant, the Bank of Columbia, obtained a judgment in the Taylor circuit court against the county of Taylor for the sum of $4,000, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum from the 25th day of March, 1897, until paid. Afterwards it moved the fiscal court to make a levy to pay its judgment. This they declined to do, whereupon the bank instituted an action against the members of the court to compel them to make the levy for the payment of its judgment. Without going into the proceedings of
On the 13th day of January, 1902, D. S. Wade was appointed collector of taxes both for State and county purposes, and accepted the apointment and qualified for the positions by taking the oath of office and executing the bonds required by law, with appelleés J. N. Turner and Henry R. Turner as his sureties on both bonds. The bond executed to the county is as follows: “We, D. S. Wade, special collector of poll tax and ad valorem tax of Taylor county for the year 1902, and J. N. Turner and Henry R. Turner, his
As preliminary to a discussion of the responsibility of the collector, T). S. Wade, for his failure to collect the bank’s claim, it is necessary that we should examine certain sections of the Kentucky Statutes of 1903 bearing upon the question in hand; and, in order that these may be before our mind during the discussion, they are copied herein in full. Section 4129: “The sheriff, by virtue of his office, shall be collector of all state, county and district taxes, unless the payment thereof is, by law, directed to be made to some
With these sections of the statute before us, we will now proceed to discuss the duty of the collector, Wade, to collect the levy made for the payment of the bank’s judgment. Observe that by the terms of section 4129 the sheriff, by virtue of his office, shall be the collector of all State, county, and district taxes, unless the payment thereof is by law specially ilirected to be made to some other officer. The words “by law” do not mean an order of the fiscal court. They mean a statute, and therefore, where there is a sheriff in a county, it is his duty to- collect all State, county, and district taxes, unless by the terms
There can be little doubt that the fiscal court, by what they did in the matter, were undertaking to nullify the judgment of the circuit court. The appointment of the special collector, Trotter, of whom nothing was ever afterward heard, and who in no way attempted to quality as collector, or discharge the duties of that office, point to the fact that this was an arrangement by which the fiscal court could seemingly comply with the judgment, but without, in fact, accomplishing anything. This unlawful pur
The judgment is reversed for further procedure consistent with this opinion.