138 So. 403 | Miss. | 1931
Having insufficient funds in its treasury to pay its legal and undisputed outstanding warrants and other obligations, the board of supervisors of Covington county passed an order for the issuance of bonds in the sum of twenty-seven thousand five hundred dollars, for the purpose of taking up said warrants and other obligations, *770 as authorized and required by section 5977, Code 1930, which reads as follows: "Every municipality and every county in this state which has or may hereafter have legal and undisputed outstanding warrants or other obligations, and insufficient funds in the treasury to pay them or any of them, is empowered and required to at once prepare for, and take up such warrants and other obligations from the proceeds of serial bonds which shall be issued for such purpose, as is provided by law for issuance of bonds for the payment of outstanding obligations. Such bonds to pay such outstanding obligations shall be issued regardless of the amount thereof, and no election shall be held on the question of the issuance of such bonds for the payment of such obligations, but the prompt issuance of sufficient bonds to pay all of such legal and undisputed warrants or other obligations is made mandatory on such counties and municipalities."
The order of the board of supervisors providing for the issuance of said bonds expressly adjudicated that the county had outstanding against the general county fund in allowed warrants and other legal obligations, the sum of fourteen thousand four hundred twenty-two dollars and ninety-one cents, and against the general county road and bridge fund, the sum of thirteen thousand fifty-six dollars and forty-six cents, amounting in the aggregate to twenty-seven thousand four hundred seventy-nine dollars and thirty-six cents; that there were no funds in the county treasury to pay this outstanding indebtedness or any part thereof; and further found that "upon due and careful investigation all of said unpaid warrants, for which there exists no funds to pay, as well as the legal outstanding obligations are undisputed and are legal and binding obligations and warrants of Covington county, Mississippi, unpaid, now due or owing by said county to the party, or parties to whom said warrants were issued, or legal obligations made and contracted for, as listed." To this order, and as a part *771 thereof, there was attached an itemized list of the said outstanding warrants and obligations, or claims against the county, there being included therein items of almost every conceivable character or class of county expenses, including the expense of various courts held in the county during the previous year. From this order of the board directing the issuance of the bonds, there was no appeal.
The transcript of the proceedings of the board of supervisors, in the matter of the issuance of these bonds, was regularly referred to the state bond attorney, who rendered an opinion, in writing, addressed to the said board, that the proposed bonds were legal and should be validated; and thereupon, in accordance with the provisions of chapter 10, Code 1930, the transcript and record of the proceedings were duly referred to the chancellor of the district for validation. Thereupon the matter was set for hearing, and proper legal notice to the taxpayers of the date of the hearing was published. On the date fixed for the validation proceeding, certain taxpayers, the appellants herein, appeared and filed objection to the issuance and validation of the bonds, denying the truth or existence of the various facts adjudicated by the board of supervisors, and challenging the validity of most of the items making up the aggregate of twenty-seven thousand four hundred seventy-nine dollars and thirty-six cents outstanding claims against the county; the legal effect of all of these objections being, in their final analysis, to deny that the challenged items "were legal and undisputed outstanding warrants or other obligations against the county." A written answer to, or traverse of, the several objections was filed, and thereby sharp issues of fact were presented.
Upon the trial of the cause, objections were interposed to the testimony offered to substantiate the issues raised by the objections to the validation of the said bonds, and the answer thereto, and the court sustained the objections to this testimony. Thereupon a motion was made to dismiss *772 the objections on grounds, in effect, as follows: First, that the objections, as filed, set forth no legal grounds which, if true, would give the chancery court jurisdiction to inquire into them; second, that each and all of the allowances shown by the list included in the order of the board of supervisors had been adjudicated by that board; and, third, that each claim had been adjudicated by the board of supervisors to be a legal, outstanding, and undisputed obligation against the county, and there had been no appeal from that order so adjudging, and that the chancery court was without jurisdiction to pass on the validity of any claim or warrant in question; the only remedy being by appeal to the circuit court — or, in other words, that the objections sought to be interposed in the validation proceedings constituted collateral attacks on the orders of the board of supervisors, and, therefore, were not germane to the issues to be tried in the validation proceeding. The chancellor sustained this motion, and entered a final decree validating the bonds; and from this decree, the objectors appealed to this court.
In the case of Choctaw County v. Tennison (Miss.),
In the case of Board of Supervisors v. Holley,
The case of Green v. Hutson,
In the case of Johnson v. Board of Sup'rs of Yazoo County,
Section 5977, Code 1930, makes it mandatory for counties and municipalities which have "legal and undisputed outstanding warrants or other obligations, and insufficient funds in the treasury to pay them or any of them," to issue bonds for that purpose. In the case at bar, the order of the board providing for the issuance of bonds, shows on its face all the necessary jurisdictional facts, and expressly adjudicated that the county had "legal and undisputed outstanding warrants or other obligations, and insufficient funds in the treasury to pay them or any of them," amounting to twenty-seven thousand four hundred seventy-nine dollars and thirty-six cents, and listed therein the claims making up the total of these liabilities. The objectors had the right of appeal from this order, but failed to avail themselves of this right. The objections sought to be interposed in the validation proceeding constituted collateral attacks on *775 the validity of the final judgment of the board of supervisors that the listed claims and obligations were properly payable by the proposed issue of bonds, and the action of the court below in sustaining objections to the evidence offered in support of the objections to the issuance of the bonds, and in sustaining the motion to strike such objections, was correct.
The appellants also contend that it was error for the court below to hear the cause unless and until the state's bond attorney had been notified to appear and attend the hearing. But it does not appear that this objection was in any manner raised in the court below, and aside from that fact, there is no merit in the contention. Chapter 10, Code 1930, which provides for the validation of bonds, does provide that when objections to the issuance of bonds have been filed in any validation proceeding, the bond attorney shall be notified to appear and attend the hearing; but the failure to give this notice, or the failure of the bond attorney to attend the hearing, does not affect the right or power of the court to proceed with the hearing on the date fixed therefor, and does not affect or invalidate any of its proceeding. The powers conferred by this statute upon the state's bond attorney are in no sense judicial, and the duties imposed are merely to advise and assist certain constituted public authorities in the issuance of bonds and the validation thereof. Bacot v. Board of Supervisors,
The decree of the court below will, therefore, be affirmed.
Affirmed.