Territory ex rel. County of Maui v. Hart

23 Haw. 558, 1916 Haw. LEXIS 43
Hawaii Supreme Court·Decided December 15, 1916·No. No. 971·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

ROBERTSON, C.J.

The Territory, for the use and benefit of the county of [559] Maui, filed in the court below two motions of the same purport praying that it be permitted to prove breach of condition of two bonds given by the respondent Hart for the faithful performance of his duties as clerk of the circuit court of the second judicial circuit, and that judgment for the amount of the resulting damage be entered against said Hart and his sureties, the other respondents. The procedure is that authorized by R. L. 1915, Sec. 149. In one motion it was alleged that Hart was appointed clerk of said court on August 1, 1911, by Hon. S. B. Kingsbury, then judge of said court, and in compliance with the requirements of the law and of said judge gave a bond in the form prescribed by statute for official bonds (R. L. 1915, Sec. 139) with the respondents Decoto, Cockett, Baldwin and Robinson as sureties; that during the continuance in office of said Hart and the term of said bond said Hart failed to pay over and account for certain moneys which came into his possession by reason of his office; and that though demand had been made upon the respondents for the amount of their liability under the bond they had failed to make payment. In the other motion it was alleged that Hart was appointed to said office on September 1, 1914, by Hon. W. S. Edings, judge of said court, and that the sureties on the bond given at that time were the respondents Robinson and Garcia. In the one case the respondent Robinson and in the other case the respondents Robinson and Garcia interposed a plea to the jurisdiction. The grounds of each plea were, in substance, that the proceeding was based on a bond the making of which was not required by law; that there is no provision of law permitting or requiring the giving of official bonds by clerks of the circuit courts; and that the proceeding is an attempt to sue upon a contract for more than twenty dollars without preserving to the respondents the right of trial by jury as required by the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution. The pleas, which [560] were heard together, were sustained by the circuit judge, and the Territory brings the matter here upon writ of error.

The proceedings evidently were commenced upon the theory that the bonds in question were authorized by section 150 of the Revised Laws which reads as follows:

“In every case where bonds for the faithful performance of duty are not required by law of officers or employees in any department or bureau of the Territory, the head of the department or of the bureau, as the case may be, may require every such officer or employee to give a bond for the faithful performance of his duties.”

That provision was originally enacted on October 4,1894, at a time when there was in force a special provision requiring the giving of bonds by the clerks of the supreme and circuit courts (S. L. 1892, Ch. 57, Sec. 60). And the first point sought to be madé by counsel for the defendants in error is that the enactment of 1894, as shown by its wording, was not intended to apply to clerks of court since they were dealt with in the special provision referred to, and as such clerks were not within the purview of section 150 when it was first enacted they must be held to be not within its purview now notwithstanding that the provision of 1892 (R. L. 1905, Sec. 1682) was expressly repealed by Act 84 of the Session Laws of 1911. The contention is that since then there has been no statute authorizing the requiring of bonds of the clerks of the circuit courts. In view of the allegation that the bonds in suit were required by the circuit judge we will hot inquire whether they could have been required, or might be regarded as having been required, by the governor under section 145 or by the chief justice under section 143 of the Revised Laws. The special provision of the act of 1892, while it remained in force after the enactment of the general provision of 1894, in effect constituted an exception to the geiieral provision. And the rule is that “Where a provision which excepts a class or specified locali[561] ties from the operation of the act is repealed, the law operates generally over the excepted class or localities.” 1 Lewis’ Sutherland, Stat. Con. (2nd ed.) Sec. 295. Pushor v. Morris, 53 Minn. 325; Grand Isle v. Milton, 68 Vt. 234; Smith v. Hoyt, 14 Wis. 273; In re Schooner Henrietta, 10 Haw. 241, 244. This is not the reviving of a repealed statute in contravention of section 20 of the Revised Laws. In re Schooner Henrietta, supra; Pepin Tp. v. Sage, 129 Fed. 657; Dykstra v. Holden, 151 Mich. 289. It undoubtedly was the view of the legislature when, in 1911, it repealed the enactment of 1892, that the elaborate and detailed act of 1905 as amended in 1907 and 1909, now sections 138 to 149 of the Revised Laws, and the act of 1894, which remained in force, so fully and completely covered the entire subject of official bonds, that the special provision of the 1892 act was no longer necessary. The object of this legislation to require the giving of bonds by certain principal officers and to authorize their being required from any or all subordinate officers is so obvious that there is no room for a supposition that the clerks of the circuit courts whose duties, after as well as prior to the repeal of the provision of 1892, included the receipt of moneys, could not be required to give bonds for the faithful performance of their duties. We hold that the circuit judge is the head of a “department or bureau,” and that the clerk of his court is an “officer or employee” therein within the meaning of section 150 of the Revised Laws, and that the bonds in question could properly have been required to be given by the clerk as, it is alleged, they were required and given.

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Territory ex rel. County of Maui v. Hart, 23 Haw. 558, 1916 Haw. LEXIS 43 (haw 1916).

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