County of Greene v. Daniel County of Pickens/Opinion of the Court

by Morrison Waite

United States Supreme Court

102 U.S. 187

County of Greene  v.  Daniel County of Pickens

The principal questions in these cases are:--

1. Whether the demurrer to the complaint should have been sustained because it was not averred specially that the coupons sued on were presented to the court of county commissioners for allowance before the suit was brought; and,

2. Whether the bonds from which hte coupons were cut were void because they were not of the same denomination as those specified in the proposition of the railroad company for subscription, submitted to and voted on by the county.

As to the first question. By the Code of Alabama, sect. 826[907], it is provided that the court of county commissioners must, in term-time, audit all claims against their respective counties; that every claim as allowed must be registered in a book kept for that purpose, and that the judge of probate, who is made by law the principal judge of the court (Code, sect. 739[825]), shall give the claimant a warrant on the treasury for the amount allowed. This warrant it is made the duty of the county treasurer to pay on presentation, if he has funds in the treasury to meet it. Code, sect. 3395[920]. No claim can be passed upon or allowed by the court unless it is itemized and sworn to by the claimant, or some person in his behalf having knowledge of the facts. Code, sect. 827. All claims must be presented for allowance within twelve months after they accrue and become payable, or they will be barred, unless the claimant is a minor or lunatic. Sect. 832[909]. 'No suit can be brought against a county until the claim or demand has been presented within the time limited by sect. 832[909] to the court of county commissioners and either disallowed or reduced by such court, and refused by the party.' Code, sect. 2903[2537].

A county in Alabama is a body corporate, capable of suing and being sued. Code, sect. 815[897]. In Shinbone v. Randolph County [56 Ala. 183), which was a suit on coupons cut from railroad bonds, while it was held to have been definitely settled that an action at law did not lie against a county on a contract which had not been presented to the commissioners' court, and by that court disallowed in whole or in part, and that such presentment and disallowance must be averred in the complaint, it was nevertheless said: 'It may be the claims on which this action is founded are not required to be presented to the commissioners' court for allowance. The statute under which the bonds were issued . . . may fix definitely their validity and amount. If that be true,-and as the case is not presented, it is not for us to determine whether it is or not,-if the commissioners' court refuses to levy a tax for their payment, mandamus to compel them is the appropriate remedy for appellant.' p. 185. In Commissioners' Court of Limestone County v. Rather (48 id. 433), it was expressly decided that bonds issued in payment of a subscription to a railroad company, signed by a majority of the court of county commissioners in the presence of the probate judge, who certified to that fact, and for the payment of which it was made the duty of the commissioners' court to levy and assess a special tax each year, were not such claims as need be presented for allowance under this section of the code. In the opinion, the court said: 'The act authorizing their issuance renders it wholly unnecessary that they should be allowed by the court of county commissioners, and they are not required to be registered as claims of a different character, nor are they to be paid by warrants on the county treasurer, but altogether in a different way.' p. 446.

The bonds in the present cases were issued under the act to authorize the several counties, towns, and cities of Alabama to subscribe to the stock of railroads, passed Dec. 31, 1868. Pamph. Acts 1868, 514. This act provided (sect. 1) that railroad companies might, in writing, propose to a county that it subscribe for an amount of the capital stock of the company, to be named in the proposal, at a certain price per share, and pay for it in such bonds of the county 'as should be set forth in said proposal.' This proposal or application was (sect. 2) to be submitted to the commissioners' court of the county, and that court was authorized and required to order an election within sixty days, to enable the qualified electors of the county to determine whether the proposition should be accepted or rejected. At least (sect. 4) thirty days before the election the court was required to give notice of the 'terms and amount of the proposed subscription.' The returns of the election were to be made to the judge of probate (sect. 5), whose duty it was to receive, count, estimate, and publish the vote. If a majority (sect. 6) was found to be in favor of the subscription, the proposition was to be deemed to have been accepted, and the court of county commissioners was required to make the subscription voted in behalf of the county for the amount set forth in the proposal, and deliver the railroad company, in payment of the subscription, bonds of the county, having not less than ten nor more than twenty years to run, with interest coupons attached for semi-annual interest, payable at such times and places as might be agreed upon between the company and the judge of probate. By sects. 7 and 8 it was made the duty of the commissioners' court to levy and see to the collection of such tax, not exceeding one per cent per annum on the taxable value of the property in the county, as should be necessary to meet the interest as it fell due; and by sect. 10 the coupons past due were receivable at par in payment of this tax.

The bonds and coupons in these cases were signed by the judge of probate of the county, as the presiding officer of the commissioners' court; and it seems to us that they are, in legal effect, themselves warrants on the treasurer, given by the judge of probate after an allowance by the court of the claim of the railroad company for the payment of the county subscription, in accordance with the terms of the accepted proposal. The claim was, to all intents and purposes, audited by the court when the bonds were issued. The validity and amount of the liability were then definitely fixed, and warrants on the treasury given, payable at a future day. The treasurer could pay them when due on presentation without further action of the court, if he had funds in his hands applicable to that purpose. In his hands they would be good vouchers for money disbursed from that fund. The provision that the coupons should be received in payment of taxes levied to meet them is entirely inconsistent with any idea of an unliquidated claim which required further auditing.

In the State courts, under the rule as stated in Shinbone v. Randolph County (supra), and other cases, a mandamus would lie without reducing the coupons to judgment, to compel the commissioners' court to levy and collect the taxes necessary to pay what was due. The rule is different, however, in the courts of the United States, where such a writ can only be granted in aid of an existing jurisdiction. There a judgment at law on the coupons is necessary to support such a writ. The mandamus is in the nature of an execution to carry the judgment into effect. Bath County v. Amy, 13 Wall. 244; Graham v. Norton, 15 id. 427. A suit, therefore, to get judgment on the bonds or coupons is part of the necessary machinery which the courts of the United States must use in enforcing the claim, and the jurisdiction of those courts is not to be ousted simply because in the courts of the State a remedy may be afforded in another way.

As to the second question. Sect. 11 of the act under which the bonds were issued provides 'that the bonds . . . shall be of such denomination as the court of county commissioners . . . and said railroad company may agree upon, but not to be for less than one hundred dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars.'

In the proposition of the company to Greene County, it was suggested that the bonds to be issued in payment of the subscription should be 'in the sum of one and five hundred thousand dollars each.' In the records of the court ordering the election, the proposition, as recorded, is that the bonds be 'in the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars each.' The final action of the court was to issue bonds of five hundred dollars.

In the Pickens County case the proposition was that the bonds be in the sum of one thousand dollars each; but after the election, with the consent of the company, it was ordered by the court that one half the amount should be in the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the other half one thousand dollars each; and the bonds actually put out were of these denominations.

As to the Greene County case, it is apparent that there was a clerical mistake, either in the proposal or the record, as to the description of the bonds to be issued, and it is easy to see that the intention was to have bonds of a thousand dollars and five hundred dollars each; but in the Pickens County case the proposition was distinctly that they should be for one thousand dollars. This, however, we consider unimportant, for sect. 11 expressly provides for bonds of such denomination as the commissioners' court and the company should agree on. From this it is clear that the parties were not bound in this particular by the sums specified in the proposal. They were limited by the proposition as accepted in respect to the total amount of the issue, but not the denomination. The bonds as issued were of such denominations as the law allowed the court and the company to agree on, and that, in our opinion, is enough.

The only other assignments of error relate to the sufficiency of the second and third pleas. As to these, it is sufficient to say that we are entirely satisfied with the rulings below. Bonds issued under the authority of a popular election cannot be set aside simply because all that may have been said by interested parties, in public speeches during the canvass which preceded the election, does not turn out to be in every respect true.

Judgment in each case affirmed.

Notes