Murphy v. Salem

87 P. 532, 49 Or. 54, 1906 Ore. LEXIS 137
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 21, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 87 P. 532 (Murphy v. Salem) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murphy v. Salem, 87 P. 532, 49 Or. 54, 1906 Ore. LEXIS 137 (Or. 1906).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Moore

delivered the opinion.

This is a suit by J. E. Murphy against Charles Lembcke, John W. líoland and W. J. Culver, as assessor, clerk and sheriff, respectively, of Marion Countjf, and also against the City of Salem, to enjoin the assessment of plaintiff’s real property and the levy thereon or the collection therefrom of any municipal tax, and involves the constitutionality of an act of the legislative assembly (Sp. Laws 1903, p. 337), attempting to amend the charter of that city so as to include within its boundaries plaintiff’s premises, containing about 23 acres of farm land and having thereon a dwelling house, barn, outbuildings and a tile factory. The cause was tried on an agreed statement of facts, resulting in a decree dismissing the suit, and plaintiff appeals.

It' is maintained by his counsel that the title of the act re[56]*56fcrred to contravenes Section 20 of Article IY of the organic law of the state, in that it is insufficient to support the provisions of the attempted enactment. The act complained of is entitled as follows:

“An act to amend Sections two (2), five (5), six (6), eight f8),ten (10), fifteen (15), twenty-three (23), twenty-five (25) and seventy-four (74), of an act entitled 'An act to incorporate the City of Salem, and to repeal an act entitled An act to incorporate the City of Salem, approved October 15, 1862, and an act entitled An act to incorporate the City of Salem, approved February 15, 1893, and to repeal all acts and parts of acts in conflict therewith/ approved February 17, 1899; and to amend subdivisions nine (9) and fourteen (14) of Section six (6) and Sections five (5), fifteen (15), twenty-five (25) and seventy-four (74) of said act as amended by Sections one (1), two (2), three (3), four (4), five (5) and ten (10) of an act entitled 'An act to amend Section five (5), subdivisions nine (9) and fourteen (14) of Section six (6), and Sections fifteen (15), twenty-five (25), twenty-seven (27), thirty-one .(31), forty-seven (47), sixty-one (61) and seventy-four (74) of the aforesaid act/ approved February 15, 1901.”

The clause of the fundamental law so claimed to have been infringed is published as follows:

“Every act shall embrace but one subject, and matters properly connected therewith, which subjects shall be expressed in the title. But if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be expressed in the title”: Const. Or. Art. IY, § 20 (B. & C. Comp. p. 41).

The act under consideration, so far as deemed material, is as follows:

“Section 1. That Section two (2) of the said act incorporating the said City of Salem, Oregon, be amended so as to read as follows:

'See. 2. The limits of the said city shall be as follows/— setting out the boundaries of the city as given in the act of February 17, 1899: Laws 1899, p. 921.

Provided, that on and after the first day of October, 1903, the limits of said city shall be as follows”- — -particularly describ[57]*57ing the boundaries so as to include, with other premises, plaintiff’s land.

1. It is stated in the brief of plaintiff’s counsel that the framers of the constitution, in the clause thereof hereinbefore quoted, having selected the word “subjects,” which must be expressed in the title of an act, the plural form thus adopted necessitated a declaration in the title in question that the act incorporating the City of Salem was not only to be amended, but that the boundaries of the municipality were also to be enlarged. A very ingenious argument, founded on the use of the word “subjects” was rendered ineffectual at the trial by an examination of the enrolled copy of the constitution which discloses that the singular form only of that word is there used, and that a mistake has been made in publishing this clause of the organic law. It will be remembered that the author of the act now under consideration in framing the bill set out in Section 2 ■thereof the entire section of the same number as it then existed (Laws 1899, p. 921), and also displayed the section as it was to be amended. The degree of care manifested in thus presenting the original section and the proposed amendment in the bill evinces an abundance of caution that is not usually exercised in preparing measures for enactment.

2. In Montgomery v. State, 107 Ala. 372 (18 South. 157), in construing clauses of a constitution which provided that “each law shall contain but one subject which shall be clearly expressed in the title,” and also required an amended law to be “re-enacted and published at length,” it was held .that setting out in an act as altered, without reciting the old law as it stood before the amendment, was a sufficient compliance with the requirements of the fundamental law. The manner of stating the amendment of the boundaries, set out in the act of February 7, 1903, is not material to a decision herein, and is mentioned only because of a criticism thereof in plaintiff’s briefs. Unusual care seems to have been exercised in this respect, and as the organic law declares that “no act shall ever be revised or amended by mere reference to its title, but the act revised or section amended [58]*58shall be set forth and published at full length” (Const. Or, Art. IY, §2.2), the amendment strictly complies with this requirement.

3. The title of an amendatory act is sufficient if it refers to the particular section it is intended to alter and is not violative of Article 1Y, Section 20, of the fundamental law of the state, unless the provisions of the amendment are such as could not have been included in the original act as matters properly connected therewith: David v. Portland Water Committee, 14 Or. 98 (12 Pac. 174) ; State v. Phenline, 16 Or. 107 (17 Pac. 572) ; Ex parte Howe, 26 Or. 181 (37 Pac. 536); State v. Robinson, 32 Or. 43 (48 Pac. 357). Any amendment that introduces new subject-matter into an act is not germane thereto, and could not have been included in the original statute: 14 Am. & Eng. Enc. .Law (2 ed.), 1004, note 4; 20 Cyc. 1187, note 97. Thus, under a constitution which provided that “each law shall contain but one subject which shall be clearly expressed in the'title,” an act regulating the trial of misdemeanors cannot, by a mere reference to the title, be amended so as to provide for the trial of felonies: Harper v. State, 109 Ala. 28 (19 South. 857). So, too, an act regulating the taking and catching of fish in inland lakes, cannot be amended, unless the title is disclosed, so as to include other waters than such lakes: Fish v. Stockcdale, 111 Mich. 46 (69 N. W. 92).

4. Before resorting to this rule, to determine whether or not the amendment complained of in Section 2 of the act of February 17, 1903, introduces new subject-matter into the original act, it becomes necessary to consider the title of the amendatory statute. The title of the act attempted to be amended is as follows:

“An act to incorporate the City of Salem, and to repeal an act entitled 'An act to incorporate the City of Salem/ approved October, 1862, and an act entitled 'An act to incorporate the City of Salem/ approved.February 15, 1893, and to repeal all acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith”: Laws 1899, p. 921.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
87 P. 532, 49 Or. 54, 1906 Ore. LEXIS 137, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murphy-v-salem-or-1906.