138 Iowa 491 | Iowa | 1908
'At the time this controversy arose the plaintiff was the publisher of the Hawarden Independent, and the defendant was the publisher of the Hawarden Chronicle. The board of supervisors of Sioux county determined to select three papers for the county printing for 1906, and two of the number were selected without question. The parties hereto were contestants for the third place, and the plaintiff filed objections to the defendant’s list. After hearing the objections the board awarded the printing to the Chronicle, whereupon the plaintiff appealed to the district
Code, section 441, provides that, where there are several applicants for the printing, the circulation of the respective papers shall be determined as follows: “ The applicants shall each deposit with the county auditor, ... a certified statement, subscribed and sworn to before- some competent officer, giving the names of the several post offices, and the number and the names of the bona fide yearly subscribers receiving their papers through each of said offices living within the county, . . . and the . . . applicants thus showing the greatest number of . . . subscribers . . . shall be the county official papers.” The same section further provides that: “ In case a contest is made by a publisher, the board shall receive other evidence of circulation, and he shall have the right of appeal to the district court, to be taken as in ordinary actions.”
The appellant urges that the statute should be strictly construed, and that only such papers as have filed lists prepared in all respects in strict accordance with the language
But the last clause of the statute provides for a contest of a different kind. That relates to a case where one publisher contests the bona fides of the circulation of his competitor, and in such cases the statute expressly says that evidence other than the statement may be received. In other words, when the circulation of a paper is contested, the list is not conclusive, and no matter what the showing therein made, if it be found from other evidence that the paper has not the largest number of bona fide yearly subscribers within the county, it is not entitled to selection as one of the county official papers. But if, through error or mistake alone, a slight variance from the requirements of the statute is made, we see no valid reason for holding that it is fatal to. the claim of a paper which in fact has the largest number of bona fide yearly subscribers. The purpose of the statute is to advise
The judgment of the district court is right, and it is affirmed.