210 Ga. 119 | Ga. | 1953
Mabel Abbott MacNeill, as Treasurer of Fulton County, filed a suit under the provisions of our declaratory-judgment statute which proceeded to judgment against Fulton County, the Commissioners of Roads and Revenues of Fulton County, the City of Atlanta, and W. 0. Duvall, as Chairman of the Joint Bond Commission of Fulton County. Her petition in substance alleges: The Commissioners of Roads and Revenues of Fulton County decided to submit to the voters of the county a proposal to issue bonds for traffic improvement in
The petition was not demurred to, but the defendants in due time filed. answers, in which they admit the pleaded facts, but deny that the amendment to article XI of the Constitution of 1945, as ratified on November 4, 1952, prohibits Fulton County and its Commissioners of Roads and Revenues from using county-bond funds for the purpose for which a part of them had been set apart on April 1, 1953. Further answering the petition, the defendants Fulton County and the Commissioners of Roads
On the hearing the judge found: First, that an actual controversy and a justiciable dispute existed between the parties, and that jurisdiction of the court to render a declaratory judgment was shown by the pleadings; and, second, that the constitutional amendment which was ratified on November 4, 1952, does not prohibit Fulton County from expending the proceeds of its bond issue of July 1, 1952, for the purpose of building an Expressway System in Fulton County located wholly or in part within the corporate limits of the City of Atlanta, including an expenditure from such bond funds in Fulton County for the purpose of paying for a right of way within the incorporated area of the City of Atlanta for the purpose of building such Expressway System. The plaintiff excepted and assigned error on the second ruling only.
While other questions may have been raised by the pleadings which the trial judge could have determined and settled by a declaratory 'judgment in the case at bar, we must, however— since this court, under article VI, section II, paragraph IV of the Constitution of 1945 (Code, Ann., § 2-3704), has no original jurisdiction but is a court only for the trial and correction of errors of law — confine our consideration of the case to the rulings actually made by the judge to which there is an exception. See Johnson v. Lancaster, 5 Ga. 39 (4); Vanderford v. Brand, 126 Ga. 67 (54 S. E. 822). We will, therefore, move on and deal with the only ruling upon which error is assigned in the bill of exceptions. It is not insisted, nor could it successfully be, that Fulton County’s bond issue of July 1, 1952, is for any reason illegal, or that the funds derived therefrom could not have been lawfully used, prior to November 4, 1952, for the purpose for which $400,000 was set apart on April 1, 1953, by the board of county commissioners; but it is contended and argued that an amendment to article XI of the Constitution of 1945, which was ratified by the people of Georgia on November 4, 1952, inhibits the use of Fulton County bond funds as well as other county funds for traffic-improvement purposes of any
Judgment affirmed.