63 W. Va. 230 | W. Va. | 1907
Lead Opinion
The county court of Wirt county, on the 31st day of July, 1907, levied, for county purposes proper, 35 cents on every one hundred dollars valuation' of property in said county, and, in addition thereto, 10 cents on the valuation of property in one district, for road purposes, 30 cents in another, 25 cents in three others, 33 1- 3 cents in another and 20 cents in another. Conceiving this levy to be in violation of law, Albert B. White, State Tax Commissioner, and F. T. Lockhart and S. P. Mitchell, citizens, residents and tax-payers of said .county, as relators, have asked, in the name of the State, a writ of mandamus, to compel said comity court to lay levies for county and road purposes in conformity with the law. Their contention is that the court has exceeded the statutory limit upon its power of taxation for county and road purposes.
Section 29 of chapter 39 of the Code, as amended by chapter 63 of the Acts of 1907, requires the county court to make up an estimate, in each year, of the amount necessary to be levied for the current fiscal year, to cover all county debts and liabilities payable during the year, including the probable expenditures for county purposes and proper allowance for delinquent taxes, discount allowed on taxes paid on or before the 30th day of November, expenses of collection and contingencies. Following this requirement and certain directions concerning it, is found the clause relating to the levy, on the construction of which this case turns. It reads as follows: “The said county court shall thereupon levy so many cents on every hundred dollars of the valuation of the property taxable in the county, according to the last assessment thereof, as will cover the estimated amount necessary to be raised for county purposes and as aforesaid approved during the fiscal year; but such levy shall in no case exceed thirty-five cents on the one hundred dollars valuation of property.” In connection with it, the former laws relating to the same subject and the statutes concerning levies for
While these statutes contained no limitation upon the powers of the court to raise money for county and road purposes, prior to the legislation of 1904, 1905 and 1907, there was a limitation in section 7 of article X of the Constitution to which they were necessarily subject and which reads, in part, as follows: “County authorities shall never assess taxes, in any one year, the aggregate of which shall exceed ninety-five cents per one hundred dollars valuation, except for the support of free schools. * * *” That this clause governs the court in respect to both county and road levies was determined by this Court in the case of Brannon v. County Court, 33 W. Va. 789, and Neale v. County Court, 43 W. Va. 90.
Chapter 39 of the Code is entitled “An Act Concerning the County Courts; their Jurisdiction and Powers.” It relates to many things other than the mere levying and disbursing of the county levies; but it deals specially with the subject of county levies, and fails to make any special provision for the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, landings, wharves, &c. Section 23 of that chapter makes it the duty of the county court to cause any road, bridge or public landing belonging to, or under the care or control of, the county to be kept in g;ood repair and condition, but does not prescribe the mode, or manner of doing so. It says nothing about how they shall be kept in good repair and condition. It makes no provision for a levy for that purpose. All this is postponed, or omitted, for provision in another place, chapter 43 of the Code. The levy, authorized and provided for in section 29, is called, in section 30 and others of chapter 39, a county levy. Nothing is said about including in it
The intention, on the part of the legislature, to limit the power of the county court in respect to the road levies, might be argued from the fact that it limited their powers respecting the county levy, the power of the school boards, respecting school levies, and the power of municipal corporations respecting their levies, and cut down the state tax; but, seeing there was such an intent, and also that it was not carried into execution, by the use in the statute of any word or clause, that can possibly be construed as an expression of such intention, we have what the courts term a casus omissus, which it is beyond our power to supply. 26 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law 601, citing a long list of cases, which fully sustain the text. But, if it could be supplied! there is no means by which we can know what limit the legislature would have imposed. The existence of intention to limit road levies being granted, if does not follow by any means that anybody intended to put the aggregate of county and road levies under a thirty-five cent limitation. Had this intention chrys-talized into the form of a legislative bill, the limit of the levy might have been ten, fifteen, twenty or twenty-five cents for road purposes in addition to thirty-five cents for county purposes. It being beyond the power of mortal man to tell what limit would have been fixed, if action had been taken on the matter, how can the court read it in by construction? •We must know what limit was intended before w.e can insert it, though thoroughly convinced that the legislature intended to provide a limit. This principle is well illustrated in the law of amendments. A judgment or decree can sometimes be amended, if there is anything in the record by which the court can safely determine how to amend it, but not otherwise. It will never grope in the darkness of uncertainty. McClain v. Davis, 37 W. Va. 330; Bent v. Patton, 1 Rand. 25; Powell v. Com., 11 Grat. 822; Richardson v. Jones, 12 Grat. 53. Lost papers may be supplied, if their contents are proven, but not otherwise. Courts will not allow a party to replace a lost paper with something not shown to contain the substance of the lost instrument. The evidence must show
The rule, forbiding a construction that will lead to an absurd result or defeat the clear intention of the legislature, has been revoked; but we are unable to bring the case within it. When language found in a statute will bear two constructions, one of which is consistent with, and the other contrary to, the general or manifest legislative intention, gathered from other statutes, the context or facts and circumstances, relating to the subject matter, within the judicial knowledge of the court, the former will prevail; and mere clerical mistakes will be corrected, if necessary, to effect its adoption. But in such case, there must be terms susceptible of two or more interpretations; or, at least, the terms of the statute must cover the subject matter of both constructions. A good illustration of an accidental omission of a word which
The rule applicable here, for reasons given, and apparent from the terms of the rule itself, was stated in Slingluff v. Weaver, 66 O. St. 621, as follows: “The object of judicial investigation in the construction of a statute is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the law-making body which enacted it. And where its provisions are ambiguous, and its meaning doubtful, the history of the legislation on the, subject, and the consequences of a literal interpretation of the language may be considered; punctuation may be changed or disregarded; words transposed, or those necessary to a clear
The limitation, respecting road levies, put upon county courts by the Act of 1905, and removed by the Act of 1907, did not, while in force, partially repeal the provision of chapter 43, authorizing the raising of such sum for road purposes as the court may deem necessary, so that only an express revival by a subsequent act could give it its original vigor and scope. The act of 1905 wrought a mere qualification, or limitation of, or exception from, the statute, and its subsequent removal left the original act in .full force. McConiha v. Guthrie, 21 W. Va. 134, pt. 4 of syllabus. It did not effect a repeal within the meaning of section 10 of chapter 13 of the Code, providing that “When a law which has repealed another, is itself repealed, the former law shall not be revived without express words for the purpose.”
For the reasons herein stated, the writ prayed for will be refused.
ON RE-ARGUMENT.
Having carefully reconsidered this case, on a re-hearing, we are unable to reach a conclusion different from that which is embodied in the opinion originally filed. Our construction of the clause under considerationdoes not make it unconstitutional in any sense. We do not make road levies and road funds, district levies and funds in all senses. They are collectible and disbursable by districts only and uncollected road taxes are liens on property within the district for which they were levied and no other. Although levied by the county court, and, therefore, a tax levied by “county authorities,” and so within the constitutional limitation, as held in Brannon v. County Court, district road levies, taxes and funds are, in every practical sense, distinct from the or
The amendment of 1905 did not defíne county estimate as including district expenditures for road purposes. The phrase “Including district road taxes” and the clause “The word ‘taxes’ shall be construed to include district road taxes, as well as other taxes for county purposes,” are found in the limitation clause only. Tested by their immediate context and the spirit and meaning of the whole section, read in connection with the provisions of chapter 43, relating to road levies, it means that for the purposes of the limitation thereby imposed, district road taxes should be included. These clauses having been omitted in the amendment and re-enact
Writ Denied.
Dissenting Opinion
{dissenting):
I can not concur in the decision of the Court. Prior legislation and the legal principles applicable are all opposed to the construction given the statute. The insertion in the act of 1905 of the words “including district road taxes,” and “The word taxes shall be construed to include district road taxes as well as all other taxes for county purposes, ” did but declare the law as existing prior to the declaration, which only made plainer its meaning, and no more necessary for any other purpose than the insertion of the words “including the probable expenditure for county purposes” after the words “all county debts and liabilities payable during the year” in the forepart of the same section. “A declaratory statute is one which is passed in order to put an end to doubt as to what is the common law or the meaning of another statute, and which declares what it is and ever has been.” 23 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, Orig. Ed., 143; 1 Bl. Com. 86. The maximum limitation of the Constitution on county taxation was based on the method of valuation prevailing at the time of its adoption, and, though adequate then, has become wholly inadequate on the basis of values prescribed by recent legislation; hence the necessity for legislative action.
In view of what has been done in enactment and execution of new laws 'of taxation, it is unthinkable that, by the omission in the act of 1907 of the declaratory words in the act of 1905, amending section 29 of chapter 39 of the Code, the legislature intended county authorities should go unrestrained with respect to taxation for roads and bridges except by the maximum of the Constitution, or that a casus omissus has resulted; rather that the legislature, in view of Brannon v. County Court, Neale v. County Court and Dillion v. County Court, has failed to anticipate the action of this Court on the present occasion in attempting to distinguish between a ‘ ‘county debt or liability,” or a levy for “county purposes,”
The argument based on the fact that, while section 23 of chapter 39 imposes the duty, it is left to chapter 43 to prescribe the manner, of keeping in good repair and condition the countjr roads, bridges, etc., is equally unavailing to avoid the statute of limitation. Chapter 46 does the same thing with respect to the poor, section 28 of that chapter requiring the county court to provide therefor in the county levy, which in effect is what section 22 of chapter 43 requires with respect to roads, bridges, etc. I can see nothing in the provisions of section 12 of the same chapter to take the levy for district road purposes out of the class - “county debts and liabilities payable during the year,” nor out of the levy “for county purposes,” to which the limitation applies. Chapter 52 of the Code of Virginia of 1860 (the law of this state until the Code of 1868) likewise made provision in a separate chapter for keeping in good repair and condition the public roads. The Code of 1868 adopted as a whole, under the Constitution of 1863, which provided for separate township or district organization, and carried into sections 39 and 47 of chapter 39, substantially the provisions of chapter 53, Code of Virginia, imposing the duty and providing for the levy; and sections 39 and 47, chapter 39, Code of 1868, relating to the same subject, are, so far as the present question is concerned, substantially sections 23 and 29 of chapter 39 of the present Code as amended. The Code of 1868 for the first time introduced the feature of apportioning the levy for roads, etc., among the townships or districts, in connection with the separate township organizations; but by the Constitution of 1872, and the legislation thereunder, such separate township or district organization was abolished, and the county courts restored to their former jurisdiction in respect to roads and bridges, and most of the matters covered by chapter 49,
It seems to me that all provisions of the Code relating to the duty of the county courts respecting roads and bridges, and the manner of executing the same, must be read and considered together as a complete’whole, and as relating to the same subject, and as m pari materia. I can not agree that there is legislative intent here to treat road levies and county levies as distinct subjects, nor that the declaratory words of the act of 1905 were necessary to link them together. The declaration of that act, that “the word taxes shall be construed to included ‘district road taxes’ as well as all other taxes for county purposes,”, shows at once that the legislature already regarded district road taxes as “taxes for county purposes;” and, although these words are omitted in the act. of 1907, the section otherwise being as before, I do not see how we can escape the conclusion that district road taxes are to be covered in the annual estimate provided for in section 29,- and limited thereby.
. But, if there was any doubt about this, the duty is upon us to give such construction to the statute, being one of great public interest, as will accomplish the object plainly intended and as will bring it in harmony with the spirit and purposes of the new scheme of taxation of which it is a part.