107 Ind. 343 | Ind. | 1886
appellant, Joseph ~W. Stout, presented a claim against the county of Grant to the board of commissioners of that county, at its March term, 1884, for an alleged
The claim thus presented was rejected by the commissioners, whereupon the appellant appealed to the circuit court, where a demurrer was filed and sustained to the complaint, and where a final judgment upon demurrer was rendered against the appellant.
No formal pleadings are required in the presentation of a claim against a board of county commissioners. It is only necessary to file a written statement or account giving the nature of the claim, and so identifying it as to bar another proceeding upon it. Board, etc., v. Adams, 76 Ind. 504; Board, etc., v. Emmerson, 95 Ind. 579.
But where the parties elect to file formal pleadings upon such a claim, and to form Issues of law upon the facts contained in any of such pleadings, the sufficiency of the facts thus pleaded may be ruled upon as in other cases. Board,
The question intended to be presented, and upon which alone a decision is invoked, in this case, is the same as the one involved in the cases of Edger v. Board, etc., 70 Ind. 331, and Parker v. Board, etc., 84 Ind. 340, and that is, to what annual compensation is a county auditor entitled under the 22d section of the act of March 31st, 1879, above referred to, for each one thousand inhabitants, where the population of his county, as shown by the last census, exceeds twenty thousand? The section in question reads as follows:
“ Section 22. The auditor of each county shall be allowed the sum of twelve hundred dollars per year for his services, and no more, except as provided for in this act. When the population of his county exceeds fifteen thousand, as shown by the last preceding census taken by the United States, the additional sum of one hundred and twenty-five dollars for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of fifteen thousand 'shall be allowed said auditor in addition to his salary of twelve hundred dollars; and if the population of said county shall be more than twenty thousand, said auditor shall be allowed the additional sum of one hundred dollars for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of twenty thousand in said county. Each auditor shall be allowed one hundred dollars per year for making all reports, required by law, to the auditor of State. Such allowance shall be made in quarterly instalments by the board of county commissioners during their regular sessions in March, June, September and December, and paid out of any county revenue of such county not otherwise appropriated; but payment shall not be made in advance of services rendered.”
In the cases named, this court construed this section of the statute to mean that a county auditor was entitled to receive only an annual compensation of $100 for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of twenty thousand, and hence counsel for the appellant concede that, so far, the weight of authority
It is true, as contended, that in construing a statute the probable intention of the Legislature must be kept constantly in view, and that where the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous, the expressed intention of the Legislature must prevail, there being then no room left for construction. Case v. Wildridge, 4 Ind. 51; Buskirk Pr. 353; Taylor v. Board, etc., 67 Ind. 383; United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, 399; 1 Kent Com., pp. 460-468.
It is also true that the courts can not extend the plain meaning of a statute by the substitution, or addition, of words or phrases, without encroaching upon the legislative department of the government. Trustees, etc., v. Ellis, 38 Ind. 3. But the legislative intention, as collected from an examination of the whole, as well as the separate parts, of a statute, will prevail over the literal import of particular terms, and will control the strict letter of the statute, where an adherence to such strict letter would lead to injustice, to absurdity, or to contradictory provisions. Mayor, etc., v. Weems, 5 Ind. 547; Buskirk Pr. 353; Middleton v. Greeson, 106 Ind. 18; Miller v. State, ex rel., 106 Ind. 415.
It is likewise true that the certificates of the speaker of the House of Representatives and of the president of the Senate, respectively, that an act has passed both Houses of the General Assembly, are conclusive upon the courts, and hence can not be impeached by the production of facts inconsistent with the truth of such certificates. Evans v. Browne, 30 Ind. 514;
So, in cases of doubt or uncertainty, acts in pari materia,. passed either before or after, and whether repealed' or still in force, may be referred to in order to discern the intent of the-Legislature in the use of particular terms, or in the enactment of particular provisions, and, within the reason of the same rule, contemporaneous legislation, not precisely in pari . materia, may be referred to for the same purpose. Prather v. Jeffersonville, etc., R. R. Co., 52 Ind. 16, 32 ; Douglass v. Howland, 24 Wend. 35, 45; Taylor v. Board, etc., supra; Bishop. Written Laws, sections 75, 76.
The history of a country, its topography, and general condition are elements which enter into the construction of the laws made to govern it, and these are matters of which the courts will take judicial notice. Williams v. State, 64 Ind. 553 (31 Am. R. 135).
It is a historical fact, and therefore a matter within the-common knowledge of all, that at the time of the meeting-of the Legislature in 1879, there was, and that for several years previously there had been, a strong public sentiment in favor of a reduction of the fees and salaries of public , officers, and that the pressure of that ptublic sentiment had constituted an important factor in the general elections wjiich immediately preceded that meeting of the Legislature. That circumstance, taken in connection with some of the leading . as well as minor provisions of the act of March 31st, 1879, justifies the inference that the object in passing that act was a reduction rather than an increase of fees and salaries. The t act of .March 12th, 1875, which the act under consideration
Notwithstanding the contention to the contrary, there is some obsurity in the phraseology of section 22 of the act of 1879, herein above set out. Its proper construction depends upon the antecedent to which the phrase, “the additional sum of $100 for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of twenty thousand,” ought to be applied. It is conceded that the sum of $125 allowed for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of fifteen thousand is additional to the fixed salary of $1,200. It is also conceded that the legislative intent was to change the rate of compensation which had theretofore been allowed to a county auditor, in addition to his fixed salary, when the population of his county exceeds twenty thousand.
The fair inference would, therefore, seem to be that, in the ■absence of an express declaration to the contrary, this changed rate of compensation continues to be, as before, additional to the auditor’s fixed salary. This inference is strengthened by the conclusion, already announced, that the evident intent of
"We are, consequently, again brought to the conclusion that the phrase, “ the additional sum. of one hundred dollars for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of twenty thousand,” ápplies to the fixed salary of the county auditor as its antecedent, and that, for that reason, there are now two separate and distinct rates of additional compensation, each additional, and only additional, to the auditor’s fixed salary, that is to say, $125 for each one thousand inhabitants over fifteen thousand and not more than twenty thousand, and $100 for each one thousand inhabitants in excess of twenty thousand. Any other conclusion would result, as a matter of the merely literal interpretation of an obscurely constructed, and equivocally connected, sentence of a statute, in a very great, and-very unequal and unusual increase in the salaries of a large number of the county auditors of the State, inconsistent with the apparent general policy of the entire statute, and hence presumably at variance with the intention of the Legislature.
It may be, and probably is, true that the present rate of compensation is inadequate in some of the more populous counties, but that circumstance can not be permitted to prevail against the general policy, and fairly expressed will, of" the Legislature.
Conceding that this court, as at present constituted, might, as an original question, feel inclined to place a different construction upon the section of the statute involved in this cause, we would, nevertheless, regard the reasons for such a different construction as too shadowy and unsatisfactory, and the lapse of time too great, to justify us in overruling the case of Edger v. Board, etc., supra, and the later case founded upon it. Three regular sessions of the Legislature, and several extra sessions, have been held since the case of Edger v. Board, etc., supra, was decided, and nothing has been enacted changing, oi’ in any manner extending, the limit of compensation
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.
Howk, C. J., and Elliott, J., did not participate in the decision of this cause.