112 P. 715 | Or. | 1911
delivered the opinion of the court.
“At the last regular term of the county court preceding the first day of July in each year, in each county in this State, the county clerk shall certify to said court a list of all warrants which were issued more than seven years prior to the first day of July of that year, and which have not been paid, stating the amount of each of such warrants, to whom issued, and date of issuance.” Section 2898, L. O. L.
“The court shall thereupon cause to be published in some newspaper published in the county and having a general circulation therein, or if no paper is published in the county, in some paper published in the State and having a general circulation in the county, a notice that if said warrants are not presented for payment within sixty days from said first day of July they will be canceled, and payment thereof refused.” Section 2899, L. 0. L.
“At the first regular term of the county court in each county after the expiration of said sixty days from July first of each year the county court shall make an order that all such warrants which have not been so presented for payment, describing them, shall be canceled; and the clerk shall also collect together all other county warrants which have been issued by order of the county court, and which are still remaining in his hands and unclaimed, and in the presence of the county court shall cancel all of such warrants as were issued more than seven years prior to the first day of July of that year, and thereafter no such warrant shall be paid, nor shall the amount thereof be computed in any estimation or computation of county finances.” Section 2900, L. O. L.
Another provision of the statute imposes on a county treasurer the duty to pay all county warrants when presented to him, but, if there be in the treasury no funds for that purpose when such an obligation is tendered, he is required to indorse thereon, “Not paid for want of
Construing the clause last adverted to in connection with another provision of the code, that an action on a contract or liability, express or implied, must be commenced within six years after the cause of action accrued (Section 6, L. 0. L.), the conclusion was reached that, since more than that time had elapsed after publishing notices that there were on hand funds with which to discharge all the warrants mentioned in the complaint before this action was begun, it was not commenced in proper time and the statute of limitations invoked by defendant constituted a bar to any recovery. This conclusion necessarily results from a construction of the provisions of law applicable to the limitation of actions that are appropriate to the class of obligations involved herein (Sections 6, 2959, L. 0. L.), and is controlling unless an interpretation in connection with such enactments of the clauses of the statute first quoted (Sections 2898-2900, L. 0. L.) warrants the determination of a different limitation, and demands, as a condition precedent to the termination of the right to a recovery of the amount of unpaid county warrants that have been issued more than seven years, the publication of a notice that unless within 60 days such warrants are presented for payment they will be canceled. No declaration is made in the statute last noted that, if county warrants of the kind specified are presented for payment within the 60 days specified, they will be discharged, but the payment thereof is necessarily implied, for it would be idle ceremony to request the presentation of county warrants if no payment on account thereof were to be made.
In Wilson v. Knox County, 132 Mo. 387 (34 S. W. 45, 477), a statute of Missouri provided that a county warrant having been delivered, but not presented for payment within five years from its date, or which having been presented and not paid for want of funds, should not be again presented within five years after the funds should have been set apart for its payment, “shall be barred and shall not be paid nor shall it be received in