25 Mich. 83 | Mich. | 1872
By act of April' 12, 1871 (Sess. Lates, Vol. S, pp. 155 and 156), the legislature provided, “that each county auditor of Wayne county shall receive a salary of one thousand dollai’S per annum, to be paid quarterly from the county treasury; which sum shall be iu full for all services and expenses, and traveling fees, in attending upon the duties of his office; any auditor receiving further or other compensation for his services, or expenses, or traveling fees, in attending to the duties of his office, shall he deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,” etc.
The board -of auditors, however, in disregard of this act, allowed to the relator, in excess of this salary, the sum of fifty dollars for services as one of the county auditors; and ' drew their warrant for the amount upon the county treasurer, who refused to pay the same; and application is now made to this court for a mandamus to compel the treasurer to pay it.
The relator insists that this act of the legislature is in violation of section 10, of article X., of the state constihition, which is in these words: “The hoard of supervisors,
As the services of the county auditors are “ services performed for the county,” it is insisted that the power of the auditors to fix the compensation for their own services is necessarily included under this provision. And if constitutions and statutes were always to be construed like mathematical axioms, this reasoning would be very conclusive, since the whole must include all its parts; and “ all services rendered for the county,” would necessarily include the services of the auditors, so far, at least, as they were performed exclusively for the county. But, in legal reasoning, and in the construction of constitutions and statutes, we are often compelled to content ourselves with conclusions somewhat less certain than those involved in mathematical axioms; because neither conventions nor legislatures always rise language with mathematical accuracy, and neither the human mind nor human affairs, will always submit to merely mathematical rule. For various reasons, and upon various grounds, exceptions or qualifications are sometimes implied, though not expressed. An act or constitution which should give to justices of the peace, or to a certain court, the right to try all cases involving certain amounts, or of a certain character, would give neither the justice nor the judge the right to try his own cause, or give final judgment in his own favor, though the case in every other respect should fall within the class he was expressly authorized to try. An exception of such cases would be implied; and the exception would be just as valid and just as readily recognized by all courts as if it had been expressed. I do not mean to say that the like exception in the present case,
As to the nature of the provision itself, if it is to be construed, as claimed by the relator, to give the board the power, exclusive of that of the legislature, to fix the amounts to be alloAved to all officers, for services to be performed for the county, their own included, and to preclude the legislature from prescribing the fees or salary to be. paid, and to determine, without control from the legislature or the courts, all claims of every nature for which the county is liable, including claims in their own favor; then, it gives to the board both a legislative and a judicial power, absolute and unlimited, upon all questions of this kind; legislative, in prescribing in advance the rule and rate of compensation, and judicial, in determining, without appeal
Now, the maxim, that no man shall be judge in his own cause, is one so deeply rooted in the minds of the American people, and, up to the time the constitution was adopted, so uniformly applied to this and the like boards, that to give them this power of final adjudication upon their own claims and of fixing the' amount of their own compensation without appeal or review, the language should be so clear as to admit of no other reasonable construction.
Neither this board of auditors nor the boards of supervisors were created for the first time by this constitution; they were both in existence and full operation, and had been so for years, when the constitution was framed; and their compensation (as well as that of the county commissioners who preceded them) had been always fixed by the legislature. In no instance had they been allowed to fix their own compensation or adjudicate upon their own claims. The constitution recognized and adopted them as existing boards, giving to the board of supervisors, and authorizing the legislature to give them, certain specified additional powers, but adding nothing to the powers of this board of auditors, except what may be claimed under this section, and being wholly silent as to the compensation, or mode . of fixing the compensation, of the members of either board, or their power to adjudicate upon their own claims.
Is it not, then, a fair and even a strong inference, that if the convention had intended to abrogate a principle so long recognized as fundamental, and always applied to the same boards which they were thus recognising and continu
But the question, whether this section (§ 10 of Art. X) of the constitution gives to the boards of supervisors, or auditors, such exclusive power over the subject of compensation for services, which are by law made a charge upon the county, as to exclude the power of the legislature to establish the rule of compensation, or to authorize the amount to be fixed by some other board, when not performed for the exclusive corporate benefit of the county, is not a new one. Our predecessors in this court in 1855, in the first case arising under this section, held that certain charges for removing a person sick with the small
But neither this question, nor the nature or extent of the power of the board to prescribe the salaries of particular .county officers (such as clerk, prosecuting attorney, or county superintendent of schools) is here in question, and we express no opinion upon them.
The only question is, whether the board has the exclusive power to fix the compensation for the services of its own members, and to adjust and allow their own claims.
In People v. Supervisors of Macomb County, above cited, it was said that the “primary object of this provision (§• 10, Art. X.) of the constitution, must be apparent. It was, to take , away and entirely abrogate the right of appeal from decisions made by boards of supervisors, in fixing compensation, and adjusting claims, which, before the revision of the constitution, existed by law. This is 'the legitimate and only legal effect of the provision. The language employed in it, when fairly analyzed and considered in connection with the prior right of appeal and the still .existing law, will bear no other rational construction.”
On looking into the debates and journal of the convention which framed the constitution, we find much to confirm this view of the real object and purpose of this section. Tiie sole contest — and it was long, and often renewed and repeated — was whether the right of appeal, which formerly existed, should be taken away, and the decision of the board made final and conclusive; without any suggestion from any quarter, that the claims to be presented to the board, were to be in any way different in their nature from what they had usually been, or that their disposition was to rest upon any different principles. And, what may now seem to be a little remarkable, while all seemed to take it for granted that the board, if théy erred at all, would err by
Had there been any idea that the members of the board were to be allowed to do this without any control from the legislature, and without appeal or review, it is more than' probable that some member, at least, would have expressed some apprehension lest too much might be allowed. These debates, and the actions of the convention, were published daily and scattered broad-cast among the people, and therefore have a tendency to show the understanding and intention ■of the people in adopting the constitution. The first legislature under the new constitution, composed largely of men who had been members of the convention, exercised the power of prescribing and fixing the compensation of the members of boards of supervisors (Laios of 1851, p. fixing it at the same rates as then already fixed for the ■county auditors of Wayne county {Rev. Stat. of 1846, ch. 14, § 84), which was allowed to stand; and from that day to this the compensation of the members of both boards has continued to be fixed by the legislature.
This consideration would by no means be a controlling one, if the constitution was clear against the exercise of the power; but when the language of the instrument is
The' motion for a mandamus must, therefore, be denied, with costs.
In regard to the power of the county auditors over claims generally, I think the language of the constitution is so much broader than that of any previous statute as to give them legislative, as well as quasi judicial, authority, to the exclusion of any other interference.
But I agree that, in regard to their own claims, there is such an incongruity iu their acting on both sides, and representing adverse interests, that there should be an exclusion of the power asserted, unless clearly given beyond mistake. They are not a general legislative body, but officers acting only within a limited sphere, and the general common-law disabilities of such officers, which would exist if this provision were statutory, should apply as well to constitutions as to statutes, so long as they are within the same equity. I .agree, therefore, in the result arrived at by my brethren.