63 So. 83 | Ala. | 1913
— In the latter part of the year 1912 the board of revenue of Jefferson county entered into a contract with Wallace Bros. & Young, whereby said Wallace Bros. & Young obligated themselves to construct a public road in accordance with certain plans and specifications, and Avhich is known as the “Stouts Mountain Road.” The road was to be three miles in length, and its total cost was to be $6,711.92. Wallace Bros. & Young Avere required to make, as a part of their contract, a bond in the sum of $10,000 “for the faithful performance of their contract.”
By an act approved April 5,. 1911, the “state highway commission” was created, and its powers defined. . Of course, the act is to receive that construction at the hands of the conrts which will carry into effect the legislative purpose Avhich called it into existence. The true purpose of the act is expressed in that part of its title which says that it Avas enacted “to give state aid and state supervision over all public roads, culverts and bridges of the state for construction of a permanent nature and the maintenance thereof wherein any portion of the” funds of the state is “used for such purpose.” It is manifest that the Legislature intended, when it passed the act, to foster and encourage road building in Alabarga, to provide a method whereby public roads shall be skillfully and intelligently constructed and maim tained, and to protect the counties and people of the state from losses necessarily entailed in building roads unskillfnlly and in ignorance of scientific, methods. For this reason, section 7 of the act (see Pamph. Gen. Acts 1911, p. 223) provides: “That as soon as practicable
1. It is, however, the evident purpose of the Legislature that no county shall receive, as aid to it in the construction of any public road, from the state money in excess of one-half of the cost of such road. This is rendered certain by section 6 of the act, which provides as follows: “No money shall be drawn from the state road fund by any county until the said county shall have appropriated and rendered available a sum of money equal in amount to the sum to be drawn from the state road fund.”
2. It is also clear that the state intends — in order that a stimulus may be applied to counties in the matter of road building under the act — that no county shall receive any part of the fund which is appropriated to its use for one year, unless that fund is used by the county by the end of the next succeeding year. This is evident from the language of section 10 of the act, which provides as follows: “That on or before the first day of February of each year every county treasurer or other proper authority shall certify to the state highway commission the amount of money expended for all purposes in road construction and maintenance and for bridges in his county during the preceding year. On or before the
The language of the above-quoted section 10 must be read in connection with the language of that part of section 9 of the act which is as follows: “Where any work is done by contract the state highway commission shall require a bond of the contractor for the faithful performance of the work, the amount of the bond to be double the contract price and to be approved by the members of the commission. The highway engineer may authorize partial payments to any contractor performing any highway or bridge improvement, under the provisions of this act as the same progresses. The progress estimates shall be based upon materials in place and labor expended thereon, but not more than eighty-five per cent, of the contract price of the work as it is completed shall be paid in advance of the full completion and acceptance of such improvement. At least fifteen per cent, of the full contract price of any such work or improvement shall be withheld until the work is satisfactorily completed and accepted by the state highway engineer. Provided, however, that in cases of emergency where it is necessary for the court of county commissioners or
When so read, we think that, unless there is “a, bond of the contractor” which is “approved by the members of the commission ” no money can be held to have been used by a county in any one year which is not represented by material actually supplied or work actually done on the state aid road during that year. Of course, if a mile of the road has in fact been built during a particular year, then the money for building the road has actually been used by the county, within the meaning of the act, during that year, although no money has actually been paid out by the county for the mile of road so built. The work is there in the road to show for the money, and it does not matter to the state whether the debt thereby created has been paid or not. When, however, the building of a state aid road is actually begun in a given year, under a contract taken and approved by the state highway commission, then it was the manifest purpose of the Legislature to declare that the contract shall determine what amount, in each year, the county is to be held to have used. In the instant case the contract is not before us, and we do not know its terms. We find, however, in the answer of the state highway commission, the following : “Respondents say that the contract for the work to be done on the roads of Jefferson county, as set forth in petition, was not approved by respondents, nor was the bond of the contractor approved by them, as required by section 9 of the act creating the state highway commission, until the 16th day of December, 1912, and was then only approved by them for the expenditure of the state, funds appropriated for the year 1912.”
3. As it is the purpose of the act to require that every dollar of the state’s money which is appropriated for the use of a county shall speedily find its way into its equivalent in a public road of that county, and that any money which is so appropriated, which is not used by the county for which it was appropriated within the year succeeding such appropriation, “shall revert to and become a part of the general fund for the improvement of the state highways of Alabama,” we think it evident that Jefferson county was not authorized to defeat the last-quoted provision of the act, in so far as the appropriation for 1911 is concerned, simply by letting a contract in the latter part of 1912 for the building of a road which could not have been completed in the year 1912 in the absence of an agreement, express or implied, on the part of the state highway commission, that the contractual liability thereby created would be accepted by the commission as an actual use of the money appropriated for 1911 for the stated purpose. The mere appropriation by Jefferson county of the sum of $4,000 to be used in constructing said road was not alone sufficient to authorize it to demand of the state highway commission the appropriation of $2,000 for the year 1911 and the sum of $2,000 for the year 1912. It had, under the terms of the act, to go further than this. It had to show that
4. It seems that in the year 1911 there was appropriated for the use of Jefferson county, out of the fund for the improvement of the state highways, the sum of $2,000. Under- the terms of the act Jefferson county had, until January 1, 1913, the right to the use of this fund for the purpose of building, under the terms of the act, a state aid road. In the year 1912 a like sum was appropriated for the use of the county, and the county has, until January 1, 1914, the right to use said sum for the indicated purpose under the terms of the act. In August, 1912, the county of Jefferson took up with the state highway commission the building of the road to which we have above referred. The commission agreed to the construction of the road, and the engineer of the commission approved the plans and specifications of said road on August 26, 1912. The county of Jefferson thereupon, on the 24th day of October, 1912, made a contract, to which we have already referred, with Wallace Bros. & Young for the construction of said road, and • in the contract agreed to pay him $6,711.92 therefor.
This- contract, however, was not approved by the state highway commission until the 16th day of December, 1912, and then gnly “for the expenditure of the state’s funds appropriated for the year 1912.” We know this because the answer of the commission to the petition in this case says so, and the court sustained a demurrer to that answer. We must, therefore, treat that statement in the answer as true.
The contract, therefore, cannot be invoked as creating a just claim against the state aid fund, -by virtue of the contractual liability thereby created, until its approval on December 16, 1912. Taking into consideration the
Modern conditions require that many of our laws shall find practical administration through commissions raised for that purpose, and courts should uphold all of their reasonable rules, regulations, and orders, when they are made in good faith for the purpose of giving wise effect to the laws which they are required to adrninister. — Railroad Commission of Ala. v. Northern Alabama Ry. Co., 182 Ala. 357, 62 South. 749; Whaley v. State, 168 Ala. 152, 52 South. 941, 30 L. R. A. (N. S.) 499; State v. McCarty, 5 Ala. App. 212, 59 South. 543. We are therefore of the opinion that the county of Jefferson, if the answer of the state highway commission is true, is not entitled to have the $2,000, which was appropriated to its use in 1911, paid over to it.
5. It appears, however, that Jefferson county, within the meaning of the act, expended the sum of $2,000 upon the state aid road in 1912. It had, under the terms of the act, until January 1, 1913, within which to expend the $2,000, which was appropriated to it for road pur
It follows from what we have above said that, in our opinion, the trial court improperly granted the peremptory writ of mandamus in this case. This cause is therefore reversed and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.