85 P. 550 | Kan. | 1906
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The legislature of 1905 passed a law (Laws 1905, ch. 167) to authorize the county commissioners of Gove county to build and equip a courthouse without a vote of the people. The maximum cost of the building was fixed at $16,000. Provision was made for the expense of the building and equipment by the levy of a special annual tax of not more than three mills on the dollar for not more than four years, the proceeds of these levies to form a separate fund to be known as the “county building fund,” against which warrants were to be drawn for all obli
“The said board of county commissioners are hereby ■authorized to use and expend in the erection, equipment and furnishing of said court-house and county-office building, in the year or years in which a tax may be levied, as they may deem necessary, in addition to the amount or amounts raised by the levy of the tax ■as herein provided for, such sum or sums from the general fund of said county not otherwise appropriated after all other running expenses of said county shall have been provided for.” (Laws 1905, ch. 167, §3.)
A tax having been levied under color of such statute, ■a suit was begun to enjoin its collection, upon the ground that the act was unconstitutional. An order was made granting a temporary injunction, to reverse which this proceeding is brought. The only attack upon the validity of the statute which if will be necessary to consider is based upon the claim that the ■portion above quoted is void because it attempts to authorize the proceeds of a tax to be used for a purpose different from that for which it was levied. The ■plaintiffs in error practically concede that if this portion of the act means anything at all it is open to the -objection urged, but they argue, first, that it is unintelligible and may be disregarded entirely, and, second, that if it 'is given a construction which renders it obnoxious to the constitution it may be rejected on that •ground without affecting the validity of the remainder •of the act. The three questions to be determined are, therefore: (1) Does the language quoted mean that the commissioners may use in the construction of a court-house such part of the general revenue fund of ■each year as shall prove not to be needed to pay the ■current expenses of that year? (2) As so construed, .is this part of the act void? (3) If so, is it so far an
The criticism of the language of the part of the act which is quoted is based upon the apparent incompleteness of the last clause, introduced by the words “such sum or sums,” the contention being that the omission of “as,” the correlative of “such,” leaves the phrase indefinite and meaningless. It is asserted in the brief of plaintiffs in error that “no pedagogue, however high his learning, could successfully parse this sentence and diagram it.” This may be true, but it is not important. “The rule that bad grammar will not defeat the operation of a statute is old- and well settled.” (26 A. & E. Encycl. of L. 612.) If it be thought necessary to provide the missing “as” it may be located in either of two ways. The sentence may be deemed elliptical, the words “as are” being understood between “county” and “not,” resulting in this reading: “Such sum or sums from the general fund of said county [as are] not otherwise appropriated after all other running expenses of said county shall have been provided for.” Or the phrase “as they may deem necessary” may be transposed so as to follow “such sum or sums,” giving the reading: “Such sum or sums as they may deem necessary from the general fund,” etc. Either of these interpretations would be permissible under the established rules governing statutory construction. (26 A. & E. Encycl. of L., 612, 618.) But probably a sufficient solution of the problem is to be reached by a reasonable consideration of the language as it stands, with a purpose to arrive at its intended effect. So regarded, there is no difficulty in saying that the legislature clearly meant to authorize the commissioners in their discretion to use the unexpended balance of the general revenue fund for several years toward paying: for the construction of the court-house.
Although, as already said, it is practically conceded that this view renders this much of the statute uncon
It remains to consider whether the invalidity of this portion of the act vitiates the whole of it. It would serve no purpose to review the cases deciding the effect of the partial unconstitütionality of statutes. Each of necessity turns upon its own peculiar facts, and throws but little light upon the determination of others. There is no difficulty in stating the general rule, however much doubt may arise in its application. When a court finds that one part of a statute is in contravention of the fundamental law, the inquiry, so far as relates to the effect of this holding on the remainder, is whether the legislature would have passed such remaining and unobjectionable portion without the obnoxious feature. To give effect to any part of such act the court must be convinced that the legislature intended that part to become the law, uninfluenced by any consideration growing out of the provisions that were beyond the legislative power. It is not enough
In the present case it must be assumed that the legislature, in undertaking to decide for the people of a county a matter which it is the general policy of the law to permit them to regulate for themselves, made an investigation of the needs and resources of the community affected and acted upon the basis of the information so obtained — that the probable surplus that might be anticipated from one year’s general revenue was estimated, as well as the amounts likely to be obtained from the special tax levies, and that the amount to be expended for the court-house and the rate of the special tax may have been fixed with reference to these estimates. The act presents a complete and symmetrical plan for accomplishing a given object. In its