Opinion
No. 30353.
January 16, 1933.
DRAINS. County receiving percentage of revenues derived from unleased sixteenth section land situated wholly within another county held not required to pay same percentage of drainage tax levied on section ( Code 1930, section 6767).
Under Code 1930, section 6767, the board of supervisors of the county in which an unleased sixteenth section is situated must pay the drainage taxes accruing on the sixteenth section land.
APPEAL from Circuit Court of Humphreys County.
Percy, Strauss Kellner, of Greenville, for appellant.
We say frankly on behalf of the Murphy Bayou Drainage District that it is immaterial to this district which county is liable for the drainage assessment. Humphreys county having received its proportion of the sixteenth section funds on hand when it was organized and being entitled to receive its proportionate part of the revenues hereafter derived from such section, it struck us that in equity and conscience Humphreys county was the one liable for this unpaid balance of the drainage assessment. It is being sued in the proportion of the ownership and in the proportion agreed for the distribution of future earnings by the section.
It is true that under section 6767 of the Code of 1930, being the section under which this suit is brought, a technical construction of that section would indicate that Washington county, being the county "in which such lands are situated," is the county to pay this entire assessment; and in the Riverside Drainage District case this court held that the board of supervisors of Washington county must pay the drainage tax because it was that county "in which the land is situated."
Washington County v. Riverside Drainage District, 159 Miss. 102.
Under section 6774, the future earnings of a sixteenth section situated in an intercounty township must be paid to the respective counties in proportion to the number of educable children. Under this section Washington county has jurisdiction over the section but must pay over the future income to Humphreys county in the proportion agreed upon. Humphreys county is the recipient of the benefit and should be made to pay.
V.B. Montgomery, of Belzoni, for appellee.
All drainage taxes or assessments accruing on any sixteenth section lands while the same are not leased shall be paid by the board of supervisors of the county in which such lands are situated.
Section 6767, Mississippi Code of 1930.
The statute, under which the new liability of school land leases and sixteenth section funds is created, expressly and plainly provides that the payment of the drainage benefits must be made by the county in which the given sixteenth section is located.
It clearly appears that it is the duty of the board of supervisors of Washington county, Mississippi, to pay the claim here sued upon, "out of any sixteenth section funds belonging to the township in which such lands are located, which may be on hand at the time when such drainage taxes or assessments become due, or which may be thereafter at any time collected or acquired."
Unless the liability here can be fixed by and predicated upon the section 6767, then there is and can be no liability upon Humphreys county.
Jefferson Davis County v. Lumber Co., 94 Miss. 530, 49 So. 611; Washington County v. Riverside Drainage District, 131 So. 644, 159 Miss. 102; Board of Supervisors of Green Co. v. Snellgrove, 60 So. 1023, 103 Miss. 898.
Appellant is a drainage district domiciled in the county of Washington. Within the boundaries of the district is included section 16, township 15, range 5. The section 16 is wholly within Washington county, but the township is partly in Washington and partly in appellee county. There has been in existence for some time an agreement between the two counties to divide the revenues derived from the said sixteenth section in the proportion of seventy-one and ninety-one hundredths per cent. to Washington county and the remainder to Humphreys county.
For the years 1924 to 1930, inclusive, the sixteenth section had remained unleased, and during that time there accumulated a drainage and maintenance betterment tax against said section, together with interest, in an aggregate sum of five thousand fifty-five dollars and sixty-six cents. According to the agreed ratio of the division of income from the sixteenth section, appellee would, if liable to a suit for the drainage district charges, be answerable to the drainage district, of the amount mentioned, for a portion equal to the sum of one thousand four hundred twenty dollars and fourteen cents. A claim was accordingly presented to appellee county by the drainage district for said sum, which claim was disallowed. Suit was then instituted, appellee county demurred to the declaration, the demurrer was sustained and the action was dismissed.
Under section 6767, Code 1930, brought forward from chapter 267, Laws 1924, the board of supervisors of the county in which an unleased sixteenth section is situated shall pay the drainage taxes and assessments accruing on the sixteenth section land. The provisions of this statute were upheld in Washington County v. Drainage District, 159 Miss. 102, 131 So. 644. It is the contention of appellant that, although the statute plainly provides that "all such drainage taxes and assessments accruing on any such lands while the same are not leased shall be paid by the board of supervisors of the county in which such lands are situated," the courts, nevertheless, should ameliorate or modify this statute by judicial fiat so as to make it read that the drainage taxes and assessments shall be paid by the two counties of the township in accordance with their agreed division of the revenue from the sixteenth section. The wording of the statute is plain and the occasion here presented is not one which authorizes or allows any judicial construction contrary to or different from the language of the law as written by the Legislature. The equities of the case must be worked out in some other manner than that the court shall refuse to follow here the plain language of the statute.
Affirmed.