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Miller v. Gore

113 So. 203, 146 Miss. 557
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Miller v. Gore. Read the opinion of the Court — 146 Miss. 327 →
Mississippi Supreme Court·Decided February 21, 1927·No. No. 25747.·Published

Opinion

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All the defendants filed a demurrer to the bill of complaint, which was overruled as to the defendants W. E. Gore and Mrs. Bessie G. Gore and sustained as to the members of the board of supervisors. From this order sustaining the demurrer, an appeal was prosecuted to this court, but this appeal was afterwards dismissed. After the demurrer was overruled as to the defendants W. E. Gore and wife, they paid into the county treasury the amount of the said indebtedness, with accrued interest, and thereupon filed an answer to the bill of complaint admitting the correctness of the indebtedness sued for, but averring that the same was not due at the time the suit was filed, for the reason that after the maturity of said note, the board of supervisors, for a valuable consideration, duly made and entered an order extending the due date of the said indebtedness to the 8th day of April, 1925. The answer denied all charges of collusion in the negotiations for the loan, and all illegality in the consummated loan, and charged that the indebtedness sued for had been paid in full before the same was due.

The principal and interest of the indebtedness having been paid into the county treasury, through the board of supervisors, the suit proceeded to a final hearing upon the claim of the complainant, the revenue agent, for the commissions of “twenty per cent, of all amounts collected and paid over by him” allowed him by law, and also a reasonable attorney’s fee for collection as provided in the note given to evidence the loan. The court below denied any recovery and dismissed the bill, and from this decree the complainant prosecuted this appeal.

In passing upon the correctness of the action of the-court below in denying a recovery of the commissions *561 allowed by law to the revenue agent, it will be necessary to first determine whether or not the revenue agent had the right to institute and maintain this suit at the time it was instituted. If this question is answered in the affirmaive, then the right of the revenue agent to recover this commission from the appellees is established by former decisions of this court.

This loan was effected in September, 1919, out of the courthouse and jail bond sinking funds; and at that time the authority of the board of supervisors to issue such bonds and to create a fund for the retirement of the same and to loan such sinking fund was found in chapter 234, Laws of 1912 (section 3704, Hemingway’s Code), which, among other things, provided that:

“Whenever said sinking fund shall accumulate to an appreciable amount before the time for the redemption of said bonds, the board of supervisors may loan such accumulation at a rate of interest not less than six per cent, and on such terms and for such time not longer than the date fixed for the maturity of said bonds as they see fit, such loans to be secured upon improved real estate at one-half of its assessed value, and upon abstract of such real estate as-provided for the loan of funds arising from the sale or lease of sixteenth section, lands. ”

While there was some proof tending to show that the value of the security given for the loan here involved was appraised at thirty thousand dollars by a committee of the board of supervisors, the proof was positive and undisputed that-the assessed value of the real estate covered by the deed of trust together with forty acres of additional land, was only six thousand two hundred twenty-four dollars. The amount of the loan and allowance out of this bond sinking fund was ten thousand five hundred dollars, or nearly double the assessed value of the security given for the loan. This was in plain contravention of the express provision and limitation of the statute authorizing the loan of these funds, which only permitted a loan of not exceeding one-half of the assessed value of the se-

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Miller v. Gore, 113 So. 203, 146 Miss. 557 (Mich. 1927).

113 So. 203 (Miller v. Gore) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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