Rabe v. Board of Education

88 Ohio St. (N.S.) 403
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 30, 1913
DocketNo. 14065
StatusPublished

This text of 88 Ohio St. (N.S.) 403 (Rabe v. Board of Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rabe v. Board of Education, 88 Ohio St. (N.S.) 403 (Ohio 1913).

Opinion

Donahue,' J.

Our attention is directed to the fact that since the rendition of the judgment of the circuit court, which is sought to be reversed by this proceeding in error, certain important changes have been made in the constitution and statutory laws of our state, and that these changes directly affect the questions here presented. It would seem unnecessary to say that this court cannot consider these amendments, except, perhaps, in so far as they might aid in the construction of the law as it existed at the time of the adoption of this resolution providing for an issue of bonds.

The authority of this board of education to issue these bonds must be determined solely with reference to the law as it then existed and without reference to what the law had been in the past or [407]*407might be in the future. The board of education was neither required nor permitted to anticipate any change in the law.

The resolution adopted by the board of education of the Canton city school district, providing for the issue of bonds in the sum of $110,000, purports to issue the same under the authority conferred upon it by Section 7629, General Code. This section provides that the board of education may issue bonds in anticipation of income from taxes, levied or to be levied, from time to time, as occasion requires, in an amount not greater than would equal an aggregate of a tax at the rate of two mills for the year next preceding such issue. Section 7630, General Code, further limits the issue of bonds to an amount that can be provided for and paid with the tax levies authorized by Sections 7591 and 7592, General Code. Section 7591 authorizes a levy for all school purposes not to exceed twelve mills on the. dollar of the tax valuation. Section 7592 authorizes an additional levy of five mills for any number of consecutive years not exceeding five, in addition to this twelve-mill levy, when such additional levy is approved by a majority of the votes of the electors of the school district.

These sections were the law of Ohio when the g'eneral assembly passed Sections 5649-2 to 5649-6, General Code. These sections limit the rate of taxes that may be levied within any taxing district for all purposes to ten mills on the dollar of the tax valuation of the taxable property of any county, township, city, village, school district or other taxing district for that year, and such levies in addition thereto for sinking fund and [408]*408interest purposes as may be necessary to provide for any indebtedness heretofore incurred or any indebtedness that may hereafter be incurred by a vote of the people. These sections, as they read at the time of the adoption of this resolution to issue bonds, also contain the further limitation that the total amount of taxes levied in the year 1911 or any year thereafter, for all purposes, shall not exceed in the aggregate, the total amount of taxes levied in the year 1910, plus six per cent, thereof for the year 1912, nine per cent, for the year 1913 and twelve per cent, thereof for any years thereafter, or, such less amount as may be produced by the levy of a maximum rate of ten mills on each dollar of the tax valuation of the taxable property in any county, township, city, village, school district or taxing" district, for that year, whether such taxes be levied- for the same or other purposes, except levies made for interest and sinking fund purposes. •

The legislature when it passed these sections of the General Code limiting the rate of taxes that might be levied in any one taxing district, did not specifically repeal Sections 7591 and 7592, General Code, but the effect of this later legislation upon these former statutes cannot be doubted. It is conceded in the brief of one of counsel for the board of education that this limitation is in direct conflict with the limitations provided in these former sections, and- that they are, therefore, repealed by implication. No other conclusion is possible. Sections 5649-2 et seq., at the time this resolution to issue bonds was adopted, in plain and unambiguous language peremptorily limited [409]*409the rate of taxes that could be levied upon the tax valuation in any one taxing district for all state, county, city, village and school purposes combined, to ten mills on the dollar, excepting therefrom levies for sinking fund and interest purposes necessary to provide for any indebtedness theretofore .incurred or any indebtedness that might thereafter be incurred by a vote of the people, and excepting also from this limitation levies for emergencies mentioned in Sections '4450, 4451, 5629 and 7419, General Code, and further provided that an increased rate might be levied in such an amount that the aggregate levy would not exceed fifteen mills on the dollar in any taxing district, exclusive of the exceptions herein-before set forth, provided the proposition to levy such increased rate Avas submitted to the electors of the taxing district and a majority vote cast in favor thereof.

It is the duty of a court to harmonize and reconcile laws where possible. It is also the settled law of this state that an act of the legislature that fails to repeal in terms existing statutes on the same subject-matter must be held to repeal the same by implication if the later law is in direct conflict therewith. Goff et al., v. Gates et al., 87 Ohio St., 142.

The provisions of Sections 5649-2 et seq., in reference to the rate that may be levied in any taxing district, are so clearly in conflict with the provisions of Sections 7591 and 7592, General Code, that these sections are necessarily repealed by implication. That being true, Section 7630, General Code, must fall Avith them, for that section [410]*410provides only for the application of the limitation in these repealed sections to the issue of bonds under Section 7629, General Code. It is suggested in the brief of counsel for defendant in error that Section 7630, General Code, is not necessarily repealed, but that, on the contrary, the provisions of this later legislation, limiting the rate of taxes that may be levied in any taxing district, should be read into this section, instead of the specific sections named, to-wit, Sections 7591 and 7592, General Code. In answer to this it- is only necessary to suggest that a law cannot be amended in this way. If Sections 7591 and 7592, General Code, are no longer the law of Ohio, it necessarily follows that Section 7630, General Code, furnishes no rule for determining the rate of taxes levied or to be levied which may be anticipated by an issue of bonds under the provisions of Section 7629, General Code.

Our attention is called to the fact that the general assembly of Ohio passed an act amending' Sections 5649-3u, 5649-3&, 5649-3c, 5649-3d, 5649-3<? and Sections 5649-5a, S649-5&, General Code, relating to the maximum tax rate which may be levied in any one taxing district, on the same day it passed an act amending Sections 7620 and 7625, General Code; that the former act was approved June 2, 1911, and the latter act was approved June 7, 1911; that in the act amending Section 7625, Sections 7629 and 7630 are referred to, and that, therefore, if there is to be a repeal by implication, this act amending Sections 7620 and 7625, being the later act, Sections 5649-2 et seq., General Code, are the sections that are repealed by implication.

[411]*411Section 5649-2 was passed May 10, 1910, and its provisions being in conflict with Sections 7591 and 7592, these statutes were necessarily repealed by implication.

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Bluebook (online)
88 Ohio St. (N.S.) 403, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rabe-v-board-of-education-ohio-1913.