State Ex Rel. Frohmiller v. Moore

70 P.2d 327, 50 Ariz. 187, 1937 Ariz. LEXIS 171
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 12, 1937
DocketCivil No. 3896.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 70 P.2d 327 (State Ex Rel. Frohmiller v. Moore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Frohmiller v. Moore, 70 P.2d 327, 50 Ariz. 187, 1937 Ariz. LEXIS 171 (Ark. 1937).

Opinion

ROSS, J.

The State Auditor and the State Treasurer not being able to agree on the law for the disposition of the sum of $53,083.46 now in the state treasury, the former has petitioned this court asking that the treasurer be required to place said sum in the state’s general fund and the latter has answered *189 that such sum belongs to the State Board of Social Security and Welfare. The latter agency has petitioned the court for leave to intervene and the petition being granted has filed a pleading in which it adopts the theory of the State Treasurer.

The history of the fund in question is as follows: In 1933 the first broad and somewhat inclusive social service legislation was enacted by our legislature. See chapter 35, Laws of 1933. This law created a State Board of Public Welfare and clothed it with the power and duty to look after and supply the needs of those of our citizens unable to take care of themselves and, among other things, to initiate or approve work projects for relief and

“To act as the official agency for the state in any social welfare activity initiated by the federal government and to administer any state funds that may at any time be appropriated or made available for the relief of destitute or necessitous persons.” Subdivision 13, § 3.

During 1935 the said state board had a large number of employees — in supervisory, executive, and clerical positions, in the building and other trades, mechanics, and many other skilled and unskilled workers —all employed in aid of the needy and unemployed persons or on public works projects carried on under the authority of said chapter 35. All of these employees were insured in the State Compensation Fund, the premiums being paid by the State Board of Public Welfare. For the purpose of fixing insurance rates and collecting premiums, the Industrial Commission placed the State Board of Public Welfare with its employees in what it designated as ‘ ‘ Class 0022, Civics, ’ ’ which class contained other state departments and private concerns which pay insurance on their employees. Such classification is in accordance with *190 the provisions of section 1413, Bevised Code of 1928, which makes it the duty of the Industrial Commission to give credit to or declare cash dividends to each member in a classification when the assets therein exceed the liabilities. The premiums for the year 1935 were $135,300.51 which it turned out was far in excess of the liabilities in “Class 0022, Civics,” and the Industrial Commission accordingly declared cash dividends to the insurers in such class, the State Board of Public Welfare’s dividend being $53,083.46. This sum the Industrial Commission, on March 30, 1937, paid to the State Board of Public Welfare by check, which was deposited with the State Treasurer, who, in turn, placed it to the credit of the State Public Welfare Fund.

Chapter 35, Laws of 1933, was repealed by chapter 69, Laws of 1937, the latter setting up an entirely new plan of social security and public welfare and placing its administration in the hands of the State Board of Social Security and Welfare, successor to the former board and intervener herein. See Mahoney et al. v. Maricopa County, 49 Ariz. 479, 68 Pac. (2d) 694.

In 1935 the State Board of Public Welfare had no funds with which to insure its employees. The legislature, by section 2, article 4, chapter 78, Laws of that year, appropriated to such board for “unemployment and welfare relief” 96 per cent, of the-taxes collected under said chapter (known as the luxury tax law) and directed the State Tax Commission, the collector of such tax, to place the same in a fund to be known as the “State Public Welfare Fund,” and that was the only state source from which the State Board of Public Welfare obtained its funds. These funds could not legally be used for anything except objects falling within the terms “unemployment and welfare relief,” as used in chapter 78, supra. Certainly not to pay premiums on insurance of employees of the *191 state board. Whatever money the state board used for insurance was therefore diverted from the use intended by the legislature to another and different use, and the fund for “unemployment and relief” was depleted to the extent of the $135,300.51. The law then and now was and is that insurable state employees should be insured in the State Compensation Fund. Sections 1418, 1419, and 1425, Revised Code of 1928. Section 1425, supra, makes it the duty of the State Auditor to furnish the Industrial Commission quarterly pay-rolls of the state’s insurable employees and to draw his warrant for premiums due in favor of the State Treasurer on the appropriation made therefor in the general appropriation bill for the State Compensation Fund. The appropriation for 1935 for that purpose was only $20,000. Subdivision 35, chapter 107 (general appropriation bill).

The Industrial Commission thus was put on notice as to who should draw warrants for premiums on insurance for employees of the state and the fund against which such warrants should be drawn. The Industrial Commission knew when it accepted premiums from the State Board of Public Welfare that warrants for such premiums should be drawn by the State Auditor and paid by the State Treasurer out of appropriations specifically made for that purpose by the legislature.

It is apparent that the State Board of Public Welfare had no right under the law to pay the premiums as it did, and also that the Industrial Commission had no right to accept from the state board such premiums. If after the transaction, and before the Industrial Commission had expended or encumbered the premiums in awards to the employees insured or their dependents, the Industrial Commission had returned the premiums to the State Board of Public Welfare, its right thus to re-establish the status quo ante would not be seriously questioned. Or if at any later time *192 the Industrial Commission should have returned the premiums unexpended and unencumbered to the State Board of Public Welfare, because it had no right to receive them, it might have done so. In other words, it would have been giving back to the State Board of Public Welfare something that belonged to it and which it had no right to surrender in the payment of premiums.

The Industrial Commission has voluntarily returned to the State Board of Public Welfare that portion of the premiums not paid out in awards or not encumbered, and although it is called a cash dividend we think it should and may properly be treated as repayment or replenishment in part of the appropriation made to the state board for unemployment and relief.

If this be the correct law, and we see no legal reason why it is not, the sum in controversy is in law an unexpended balance to the credit of the State Board of Public Welfare. The fact that it was misapplied temporarily and thereafter returned in part to the agency authorized and directed to use it, should not convert the returned amount to a purpose never intended. So we conclude that the $53,083.46 in question is properly placed to the credit of the State Board of Public Welfare, unless chapter 69, Laws of 1937, has made a different disposition of it. Section 13 of said chapter 69 reads:

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Related

State Ex Rel. Conway v. Industrial Commission
99 P.2d 88 (Arizona Supreme Court, 1940)

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Bluebook (online)
70 P.2d 327, 50 Ariz. 187, 1937 Ariz. LEXIS 171, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-frohmiller-v-moore-ariz-1937.