25 Wis. 506 | Wis. | 1870
The question presented in this case is, whether the plaintiff was entitled to recover from the county the charge for publishing the delinquent tax list of the treasurer of the county for the year 1868. The court found, rather as a conclusion of law than as a matter of fact, that the plaintiff was not authorized by law to publish the delinquent tax list for that year, for the reason that the defendant had an existing, binding contract with one Carl Zillier for publishing the same, under the provisions of ch. 560, Private Laws of 1866. By this law the county board of supervisors of Sheboy-gan county was authorized to contract for all county printing relating to taxation in that county, at any sum less than that allowed by the general statute. The general statutes (ch. 22, Laws of 1859, and ch. 71, Laws of 1862), confer upon the county treasurer the authority to cause the delinquent list to be published in some newspaper printed in his county, upon or after the first Monday of April next after its return to him, and fix the fees of the printer at twenty-five cents for each lot or tract, for all the insertions. Sec. 55, ch. 22. Chapter 560 contains no repealing clause, but its manifest effect was to take Sheboygan county out of the operation of the general law, so far as the publication of the delinquent tax list was concerned, and devolve the duty of providing for its publication upon the county board. Consequently, Carl Zillier made a proposition to the board to publish the delinquent list for 1868, for five cents a description, and this proposition was accepted by a resolution passed by that body December 4, 1867. But by an act of the legislature (ch. 390, Private Laws of 1868), published March 26, 1868, ch. 560 was repealed, and the duty of
We are clearly of the opinion that the county treasurer was the only person authorized to direct the publication of the list. The arrangement made by the board with Zillier, in December, 1867, had been superseded by the act of the legislature of 1868, which took effect before the time for publishing the list had arrived. But it is objected that this arrangement between the county and Zillier was in the nature of a contract, for publishing the delinquent list for 1868, and that the legislature had no power to impair the obligation of this contract by repealing the law under which it was made. The proposition, however, that Zillier had such a vested right in the law of 1866, which conferred upon the county board the power to direct the publication of the delinquent list, as to preclude a repeal of that law by the legislature, seems to us. quite inadmissible. This matter related to the collection of the public revenue in She-boygan county, and concerned the policy of the state in regard to taxation in that county. Suppose the legislature had passed a law in January, 1868, that the delinquent list should not be thereafter published at all in any newspaper, but that the notice of the sale of lands should be given in some other way : could not the legislature have so provided,- and made the enactment apply to Sheboygan. county as well as other counties in the state ? It ■ seems to us that it would have been entirely
By the Court. — The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the cause remanded with directions to enter judgment for the plaintiff.