Opinion
No. 30415.
February 13, 1933. Suggestion of Error Overruled March 13, 1933.
1. TAXATION. Town held entitled to recover from county one-half of road tax collected within town, although levy was used in building and maintaining county bridges ( Code 1930, section 6417).
Code 1930, section 6417, provides that one-half of ad valorem taxes collected by county on property within municipality for "road purposes" of county or district shall be paid over to treasury of municipality working streets at expense of municipal treasury, and the phrase "road purposes" therein means public road purposes, and includes construction and maintenance of bridges; the phrase being used to include all those essential things which go to make, and into making and maintenance of, a complete public highway as that term is commonly understood under modern conditions.
2. TAXATION.
Statute requiring county to refund to municipality certain road taxes collected cannot be evaded by administrative devices (Code 1930, section 6417).
APPEAL from circuit court of Attala county. HON. JNO. F. ALLEN, J.
Ralph L. Landrum, of Kosciusko, for appellant.
The trial court clearly erred when it failed to allow the town of Sallis, one-half of the sum collected by Attala county in the town of Sallis for the road and bridge fund.
Sections 6417-18, of the Code of 1930.
Section 6389-90 provide how funds for roads and bridges may be raised and the method used by Attala county is one of those set out in these sections. The four sections last above mentioned are all a part of the chapter on roads and bridges, chapter 159, Code of 1930. There is no conflict between them and they are therefore to be construed harmoniously. It was and is clearly the purpose of the legislature that municipalities should have one-half of all taxes collected in a municipality for road purposes.
A bridge is an integral and very necessary part of a road or a highway.
Section 5021, Code of 1930.
One-half of all ad valorem taxes collected by county on property within the municipality for road purposes must be paid to municipality whether taxes were legally collected or not.
Where statute contains exceptions in express language, there is admonition to courts that exceptions expressed are only ones contemplated, and that further exceptions should not be ingrafted unless necessity is inescapable or propriety thereof be substantially incontrovertible.
Town of Purvis v. Lamar County, 137 So. 323, 161 Miss. 454.
J.D. Guyton, of Kosciusko, for appellee.
The Code of 1930 controls the question presented. This code became effective November 1, 1930. The tax levy was made November 3, 1930.
Secs. 6436, 6438, 6451, 6390, 6392 and 6417, Code of 1930, are the particular sections that govern this case.
These several sections of the code must be construed together and harmony worked out of them all.
It is the contention of the board of supervisors that these several statutes can be harmonized only by saying that "roads and bridges" constitute a "highway;" but a road proper is just the road part, and a bridge proper is just a bridge part. Counsel for appellant refers to section 5021 of the Code for the purpose of endeavoring to show that the word "road" includes right of way, bridge, drain structure, signs, guardrails and other structure used in connection of the road. This section does so state; but it refers solely to the use of that word as "used in this chapter." This is in chapter 122 of the Code, and not chapter 159 which he says controls the question presented in this case.
When we come to construction of section 6417 we find that it calls for a division with the towns of only such tax as is levied for road purposes. It does not call for a division of a tax levied for bridge purposes. The two terms are separate and distinct.
It would seem that the legislature intended this distinction, and that it regarded the maintenance and construction of county bridges as a county burden which should be born by all the property in the county, including that in the towns without division.
Chap. 122, Laws of 1930.
As the intention of the legislature, embodied in the statute, is the law, the fundamental rule of construction, to which all other rules are subordinate, is that the court shall, by all aids available, ascertain and give effect, unless it is in conflict with the constitution, or is inconsistent with the organic law, to the intention and purpose of the legislature as expressed in the statute.
59 C.J., sec. 568, page 948.
While the meaning to be given a word used in a statute will be determined from the character of its use, words in common use are to be given their natural, plain, ordinary, and commonly understood meaning, in the absence of any statutory or well established technical meaning, unless it is plain, from the statute that a different meaning was intended, or unless such construction would defeat the manifest intention of the legislature. The words are to be interpreted with due regard to the subject-matter of the statute, and its purpose, and it may be necessary, in order to give effect to the legislative intent, to extend or restrict the ordinary and usual meaning of the words. The same words may not always have the same effect, and their usual meaning may be disregarded when it is evident they were incorrectly used, or used in another sense.
59 C.J., sec. 577, page 974.
Although the word "bridge" is used in every chapter and in almost every section of the law relating to highways, a distinction has always been made between bridges and other portions of the highway, the word "bridge" not being equivalent to nor included in the term "highway."
Flemmingsburg v. Fleming county, 127 Ky. 120.
Section 170 of the Constitution gives the board of supervisors full jurisdiction over roads, ferries and bridges. It seems that the constitution itself, the organic law, differentiates the two.
Argued orally by R.L. Landrum, for appellant.
On November 3, 1930, the board of supervisors of Attala county made, among others, the following levy of ad valorem taxes on all the property in the county: "Four mills on each dollar of valuation for county road and bridge fund to defray the expenses of building bridges and maintaining the same and building and maintaining roads for the county." The town of Sallis, in said county, works its streets at the expenses of its municipal treasury. The total amount of property within said town, on which for the year 1930 the said ad valorem road tax of four mills was collected by the county, was ninety-eight thousand four hundred five dollars. The town demanded of the county that one-half of said four mills collected on said property within said town should be paid over to the municipal treasury, under section 6417, Code 1930. The county declined to do so, and sought to justify its refusal by an order entered on the minutes of the board of supervisors reciting as follows: "The board is of the opinion that said town has no right to demand one-half of the four mill levy for roads and bridges because such levy was used by the board only in building and maintaining county bridges which are over thirty feet in length, and was not used for road purposes in the sense of these words as used in section 6417, Code 1930." Thereafter suit was instituted by the town through the state tax collector. The circuit court sustained the view taken by the county, and the town has appealed.
The territory within this state is full of streams, both large and small, and all or nearly all public roads, if of any length, cross many of such streams. There was perhaps a time in the long ago when bridges were not an indispensable part of the public roads, because under the mode of travel of those days fords an ferries were sufficient to complete the roads. But to-day, and since the automobile has become the ordinary mode of travel, when public roads or public highways are the subject of consideration, these terms include the bridges which now form an essential part thereof. 9 C.J., p. 422; 29 C.J., p. 368. If, therefore, the statute above cited had provided that the municipality shall receive one-half of the ad valorem taxes levied on property within the municipality for the construction and maintenance of the roads of the county, this would have referred, of course, to the public roads, and thus would include bridges. But the term used by the statute is broader, and is "for road purposes." This, of course, means for public road purposes; and, since the construction and maintenance of bridges is within the comprehensive term used by the statute, it follows that the statute includes taxes levied for bridges. The statute, in using the broad term "road purposes," meant to include all those essential things which go to make, and into the making and maintenance of, a complete public highway as that term is commonly understood under modern conditions. The statute in question, as it stands in our present Code, is not to be whittled down by refinements of construction nor evaded by administrative devices. Town of Purvis v. Lamar County, 161 Miss. 454, 461, 137 So. 323.
Reversed, and judgment here for appellant.