69 Minn. 202 | Minn. | 1897
At the general election of 1896, six propositions for the creation and organization of as many new counties out of a portion of Polk county were submitted to the electors of the county, pursuant to
The decision of the trial court was right unless the law under which the propositions for the creation of these new counties were submitted (Laws 1893, c. 143) authorizes the establishment of a new county out of a part of the territory of an organized county, with boundaries so that the remaining territory of the original county will not be contiguous, or, in other words, unless the statute authorizes a new county to be formed in the center of an organized county, so as to completely separate the remaining territory of the latter, leaving a part thereof on each side of the new county. Because, if the statute is to be construed as requiring that a proposed new county must be composed of contiguous territory, and that the remaining territory of the parent county must also be left contiguous, it would be useless to pursue the contest in this case; for, whatever its result, the creation and organization of both Garfield and Red Lake counties would be a legal impossibility. If either of these propositions was defeated, and the other county organized, Polk
The pivotal 'question, then, to be decided, is whether the statute authorizing the creation and organization of new counties permits one or more new counties to be carved out of the territory of an organized county, so as to dismember the old county, and leave its territory in two or more completely separated parts, with a new county between them. The statute (Laws 1893, c. 143, § 1; G. S. 1894, § 621) reads thus:
“New counties may be created out of territory to be detached from one or more of the counties already organized, and the boundaries of such organized counties may be thereby changed, as hereinafter provided. But no new county so created shall contain less than four hundred square miles nor less than two thousand inhabitants; and no existing county shall, by the creation of any new county, be reduced in area to less than four hundred square miles, nor so as to contain a population of less than two thousand inhabitants.”
This statute does not in terms require that the new counties shall be made up of contiguous territory, or that the territory left within the jurisdiction of the old county shall be left contiguous. The word “county” is used in this statute in its usual and accepted meaning, and with reference to the declared public policy of the state, from its beginning, that all counties shall be composed of contiguous territory, unless separated by navigable waters. The statute, then, must be construed so as to give to the word “county” such meaning, and also with reference to the rule that general terms of a statute
Judgment affirmed.
BUCK, J., took no part.