Pottawatomie County v. Alexander

1918 OK 221, 172 P. 436, 68 Okla. 126, 1918 Okla. LEXIS 314
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedApril 16, 1918
Docket7991
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 1918 OK 221 (Pottawatomie County v. Alexander) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pottawatomie County v. Alexander, 1918 OK 221, 172 P. 436, 68 Okla. 126, 1918 Okla. LEXIS 314 (Okla. 1918).

Opinion

SHARP, C. J.

The one question necessary to-a determination of the proceedings in error brought here for review by the board of county commissioners of Pottawatomie county is the constitutionality of an act of the Legislature approved May 17, 1913, entitled “An act amending section 3 of chapter 152 of the Session Laws of Oklahoma, 1911, and declaring an emergency” (Sess. Laws 1913, pp. 463, 4641. If the act is constitutional, the judgment of the trial court in allowing the claim of the county assessor based on thei assessed valuation of public service corporations in Pottawatomie county must be reversed. If. on the other hand, the act violates section 57, art. 5, of the Constitution, requiring that no law shall be1 revived, amended, 'or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only, but so much thereof as is revived, amended, extended, or conferred shall be enacted and published at length, the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.

But two sections of chapter 152 of the Laws of 1911 require; consideration. These are section 3, fixing the duties and prescribing the power of the county assessor, and section 36, fixing the compensation of the county assessor and his deputies. As already seen, the amendatory act of 1913 purports only to amend section 3. The ámended section differs from section 3 of the original act in three particulars:

(1) It omits therefrom the following immaterial words: “In the performance of his duties as provided in this act.”

*127 i'2) It acids the following:

"And to compel the attendance of necessary witnesses and the production and inspection of necessary books and papers by the issuance of subpoenaes therefor to properly perform his duties hereunder.”

(3) It adds a new clause, in form a proviso, as follows:

“Provided the compensation herein enumerated shall not include values placed upon public service corporations, or other property assessed by the State Board of Equalization.”

Neither the first nor second amendments are pertinent to the question here presented. The latter, or proviso, limiting the compensation of the county assessor, is relied upon by the board of county commissioners to defeat the‘assessor’s claim for compensation. Under the law as It existed prior to the passage and approval of the amended statute, county assessors were entitled to compensation based upon the eptire property valuation of the county, including values placed upon public service corporations or other property assessed by the Stale Board of Equalization. This was determined in Thomas v. Commissioners of Hughes County, 43 Okla. 616, 143 Pac. 665. As seen at a glance, the proviso in the amended act is properly an amendment, not to section 3 of the original act, but to section 16. In its effort to amend the statute, the Legislature selected a restrictive title, in that it purported only to amend section 3 of the old act. In such circumstances, could the Legislature constitutionally introduce into the amendment, a subject formerly considered only under another section? The answetr to the inquiry suggested determines the case.

Had the amended act been entitled generally as an act to amend chapter 152, any amendment germane and pertinent might have been made; but, being specifically limited to the section designated, the interpolation by proviso of a new subject dealt with in 'another section of the old act was not permissible. Any further changes than those designated in the title were precluded by the specific enumeration of those named.

As stated in Gooley’s Const. Lim. (5th Ed.) 179:

“As the Legislature might make the title to an act as restrictive as they please, it is obvious that they may sometimes so frame it as to preclude many matters being included in the act which might with entire propriety have been embraced in one, enactment with the matters indicated by the title, but which must now be excluded because, the title has been made unnecessarily restrictive. The courts cannot enlarge the, scope of the title; they are vested with no dispensing power. The Constitution has made the title the conclusive index to the legislative intent as to what shall have operation. It is no answer to say that the title might have been made more comprehensive, if in fact the Legislature has not seen fit to make it so.”

The constitutional requirement prescribing the manner in which statutes may be revived or amended is found in the constitutions of many of the states. Its purpose is perhaps nowhere better stated than by Justice Cooley in People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481, where the learned jurist, speaking to a similar provision of the Michigan Constitution, said:

“The miscief designed to he, remedied was the enactment of amendatory statutes in terms so blind that legislators themselves were sometimes deceived in regard to their effect, and the public, from the difficulty in making the necessary examination and comparison, failed to become apprised of the changes made, in the laws. An amendatory act which purported only to insert certain words, or to substitute one phrase for another in an act or section which was only referred to but not republished, was well calculated to mislead the careless as to its effect, and was perhaps, sometimes drawn in that form for that express purpose. Endless confusion was thus introduced into the law, and the Constitution wisely prohibited such legislation. But an act complete in itself is not within the mischief designated to be remedied by this provision, and cannot be held to be prohibited by it without violating its plain intent.”

See, also, Mok v. Detroit Bldg. & Sav. Ass’n, 30 Mich. 511; Bush v. Indianapolis, 120 Ind. 476, 22 N. E. 422.

It is held generally that, where the title of the amendatory act specifies the section or sections to be amended, the amendment must be germane to the subject-matter of the sections specified, and that amendments of other sections, not specified, will be void. Lewis’ Sutherland, Stat. Const. § 139.

State v. American Sugar Ref. Co., 106 La. 553, 31 South, 181, is a ease involving a state of facts very similar to the one under consideration. There,, the act of the Louisiana Legislature under consideration purported to amend and re-enact sections 10. 12, and 14 of an act of 1898. At the close of section 10, as reenacted, were the words:

“Provided further, that for carrying on the business of refining sugar and molasses or either of them, the annual state license shall be one^eighth of one per cent, upon the gross annual receipts of such business.” Act No. 103 of 1900.

*128 The title to the amended act did not name section 11 of the act of 1S98. The amendment of section 10 transported out of section 11 of the original act into section 10 of that act the subject-matter there considered. The proviso to section 10 was declared unconstitutional. The opinion is an able one.

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Bluebook (online)
1918 OK 221, 172 P. 436, 68 Okla. 126, 1918 Okla. LEXIS 314, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pottawatomie-county-v-alexander-okla-1918.