Board of Commissioners v. Pruden

100 S.E. 695, 178 N.C. 394, 1919 N.C. LEXIS 467

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: October 29, 1919
• Status: Published

Opinion

Walker, J.,

after stating tbe facts, as above: Tbe particular contention of tbe defendant is tbat tbe acts of 1919 are in violation of tbe Constitution, Art. II, sec. 29, wbicb prohibits tbe enactment of “any local, private, or special act . . . authorizing tbe laying out, ojjening, altering, or discontinuing of highways,” but we are of tbe opinion tbat this is a misconception of tbe object and purpose of those laws. It was not intended to require tbe local authorities to lay out, open, alter, or discontinue any road or highway, but they were passed by tbe Legislature for the purpose of enabling the local authorities designated in them to issue bonds, and out of tbe proceeds to pay tbe expense of constructing roads in tbe various townships of tbe county, in order, by special directions, to complete tbe scheme of road building wbicb was authorized by Public-Local Laws 1915, ch. 345, and this will be apparent to any one who will read tbe four acts together. Tbe exact location of tbe roads was left to tbe good judgment and discretion of tbe local authorities named in tbe acts, but in order to equalize tbe benefits to accrue to each and every part of tbe county, tbe Legislature considered it wise and expedient tbat tbe money raised by a sale of tbe bonds should be distributed upon some fixed basis, or according to a fixed rule, so tbat this equal apportionment might be tbe better enforced. It was not passing laws to lay out or construct roads, but to pay for these things by issuing and selling bonds, just as was done in Brown v. Comrs., 173 N. C., 598. There is no prohibition in our Constitution, not even since tbe amendments of 1916-17 were ratified, wbicb prevents tbe Legislature from passing an act to pay for the construction of roads in tbe manner prescribed in these statutes. Tbe Court, in People v. Banks, 67 N. Y., 568, interpreting a provision of tbe Constitution of tbat State, wbicb is similar to Art. II, sec. 29, of our Constitution, with reference to a statute containing language not substantially unlike tbat in tbe statutes under consideration, said: “Tbe act under review does not in any of its provisions provide for tbe altering, opening, or working of a highway in the sense in which those terms were used in tbe statutes of tbe State regulating highways and public roads, or tbe constitutional provisions now invoked. Grading, paving, sewering, ■ and ornamenting were even provided for in this act, since it could not be done by general law.” It was beld to be within tbe discretion of tbe Legislature. See, also, Mills v. Comrs., 175 N. C., 215; S. v. Lytton, 9 Pac. Rep., 855.

Tbe general road system of Wilkes County was established by the act of 1915, passed before the constitutional amendments of 1916-17 were ratified and took effect, and the statutes in question only provided the means whereby the roads could be constructed and maintained in the most rational and equitable way for the general benefit of the county, and to this end the. Legislature authorized the issue of bonds to raise a fund of $275,000, and required that it should be so apportioned to the different sections of the county as to give each one its fair share of the benefit to accrue. The framers of the Constitution certainly did not intend to withhold their sanction from so beneficial a scheme for road improvement. As said in Brown v. Comrs., supra: “Such provisions are construed not to destroy or weaken the power of the General Assembly in its necessary control over the subordinate divisions of the State Government, but to prevent cumbering the statute books with a mass of purely private and local legislation.” The Brown case has been approved in Mills v. Comrs., supra; Parvin v. Comrs., 177 N. C., 508, and at the present term, in Martin County v. Wachovia Bank & Trust Co., and Burry County v. same defendant. What is held in the Mills case i¿ peculiarly applicable to the facts now before us, and upon which we are asked to decide as to the validity of these bonds. It was said there: “It is well understood that our General Assembly, at session after session, was called on by direct legislation to authorize a particular highway or street, or to establish a bridge or ferry at some-specified place. . . . The Legislature, in these cases, was in fact called upon to usurp, or rather to exercise, functions which were more usually and properly performed by the local authorities, and it was in reference to local and special and private measures of this character that these amendments were adopted; and, as stated in Brown’s case, supra, it was never-intended to prohibit legislation authorizing the raising of proper funds by the sale of bonds, or by taxation, for measures required for the public good, though such funds should be for improvements in some fixed place or in restricted territory determined upon by local authorities in pursuance of general laws on the subject.” And the language of the Court in Brown’s case, supra, is equally and directly pertinent. Speaking of a statute somewhat similar to those upon which we are passing, and of the plain object of the law, the Court said: “An analysis of the act shows that its primary purpose is to authorize the sale of bonds for road purposes in North Cove Township, and to require the levying of a tax to pay the interest and principal of the bonds. ... It only provides the means for constructing and repairing them. . . . Speaking of such legislation as affected by a constitutional provision, . . . the Pennsylvania Court, In re Sugar Notch Borough, 192 Pa. St., 349; 43 Atl., 985, says: ‘The restrictions of the Constitution upon legislation apply to direct legislation, not to tbe incidental operation of statutes, constitutional in themselves, upon other subjects than with those with which they directly deal.’ So, in this case, the bond issue being the direct legislation, the fact that it provides that the proceeds of the bonds are to be used for- road purposes will not bring it within the prohibition of the constitutional amendment.” Numerous cases are cited in Martin County v. Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. to the same effect.

If the Legislature may provide a fund necessary to lay out and construct roads, we are unable to perceive why it may not also prescribe the rule by which that fund shall be disbursed and distributed in order to effect the best results, when it confines itself, as it has done in this instance, to the control and management of the fund, and does not essay to have done any of the acts prohibited by Art. II, sec. 29, of the Constitution, but leaves these things to be performed by the local authorities in the due exercise of their proper functions. What we have said applies as well to the bonds for $25,000, issued to construct or complete the Eoone Trail Highway.

There was one other question presented originally in the case, as to whether the ten per cent clause of the “Revaluation Act of 1919” would apply to the bonds for $275,000 issued under the acts of 1919, -and upon the validity of which we are passing. We understand from the appellant’s brief that this question has been withdrawn from our consideration, and we, therefore, do not further refer to it.

We have stated fully the provisions of the statute of 1915, not only because it was enacted before the adoption of the amendments of 1916-17, which took effect on 10 January, 1917 (Reade v. City of Durham, 173 N. C., 668), but also because- it has been recognized by the act of 1917, amending it, and by the act of 1919, as having always been in force since it was passed, save and except as it was amended by the act of 1917, reducing the amount of'the bond issue. The acts of 1919 were intended merely to enforce the will of the Legislature as expressed in the prior statute of 1915, by supplying the means and facilities for doing so.

The result is that the bonds in question are valid obligations of Wilkes County, and there was no error in the judgment of the court to this effect upon the case agreed.

Affirmed.