199 S.W.2d 137 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1947
Affirming.
In January, 1946, when the present members of the Fiscal Court of Graves County went into office for the current term of four years, the statute fixed their compensation at $6 for each day of actual attendance of the meetings of the body and permitted compensation of $6 for each cay they served on the committee of the court supervising the county roads. The Fiscal Court followed the policy of controlling and supervising those roads. KRS
The fiscal court of Graves County and its several members filed this suit for a declaratory judgment that the 1946 Act does not affect their previously fixed compensation and that the members may continue to receive the stipulated per diem for serving on road committees. Another alternative plea has been abandoned. It was stated in the petition that the fees for serving on the road committees constituted 90% of the entire compensation of the members of the fiscal court. It is further alleged that the County Attorney, who is a defendant, has insisted that the members are no longer entitled to be paid these fees.
An answer joined the issues and challenged the right of the plaintiffs to maintain the suit for a declaration of rights. This is on the ground that on August 1, 1946, *709 shortly before the suit was filed, the members of the fiscal court had voted themselves sums in excess of $25 on account of services on the road committees, and that that order could be appealed to the circuit court. The court held that the suit could be maintained, and adjudged that the 1946 amendment to the statute does not affect the rights of the justices of the peace during their terms which had begun and their compensation fixed prior to the effective date of the Act, either for attendance on meetings of the fiscal court or for services as a committee supervising the roads of the county, namely, $6 per day.
The challenge to the plaintiffs' right to maintain the suit for a declaratory judgment rests upon Oldham County ex rel. Wooldridge v. Arvin,
An Act of 1902, which amended Section 1845, Kentucky Statutes, later embodied in KRS
It is not only a judicial rule for construing legislative acts, but legislative order, KRS
"Generally, invalid sections of a statute may be eliminated without affecting valid portions, if the valid portions are so clearly separable from the invalid ones that they can stand, and be operative without the assistance of the invalid ones; but if the valid and invalid provisions are so dependent, each upon the other, or so connected, each with the other, as to warrant the belief that the Legislature intended them as a whole and would not have enacted the statute unless all provisions could be carried into effect, the whole of the statute must fail."
If we should construe Section 3 of this Act, KRS
Wherefore the judgment is affirmed.