Summary
holding that the Legislature violated Article 4, Section 96 by reimbursing the state land commissioner for amounts paid out during the previous year to hire additional employees, as he was allowed one deputy by law
Summary of this case from Tunica Cnty. v. Town of TunicaOpinion
No. 27652.
February 4, 1929. Suggestion of Error Overruled.
1. OFFICERS. It must be assumed that officer accepting office, knowing duties and amount of compensation, assented to perform all services for such compensation.
When an officer accepts office with knowledge of its duties and amount of compensation, it must be assumed he assented to perform all services enjoined by law for such compensation.
2. OFFICERS. Where only one assistant is provided by law, officer must himself pay for additional assistants.
Where only one deputy or assistant is provided by law with compensation payable out of treasury, officer must himself pay for any assistants beyond the one so provided by law.
3. STATES. Act to reimburse state land commissioner for amount paid for additional labor beyond the one deputy provided by law held to violate constitutional provision regarding extra compensation ( Laws 1928, chapter 262; Constitution 1890, section 96).
Laws 1928, chapter 262, providing for reimbursement of state land commissioner for amount paid for additional labor in his office beyond the one deputy provided for by law, held to violate Constitution 1890, section 96, providing that Legislature shall never grant extra compensation to any public officer after service rendered or contract made.
APPEAL from circuit court of Hinds county, First district, HON.W.H. POTTER, Judge.
Denny Austin, for appellant.
J.A. Lauderdale, Assistant Attorney-General, for appellee.
During the period of time beginning January 1, 1925, and ending November 1, 1926, there was an unprecedented increase of business in the state land office, so much so that, in order to transact the same without detriment to the public service and without loss to the state, appellant, then and now the state land commissioner, found it necessary to employ additional labor in said office. For this additional help he paid out the sum of one thousand thirty nine dollars and fifty cents, and, at the succeeding session of the legislature, an act was passed to reimburse him, the said act being chapter 262, Laws of 1928. The act recites, in effect, the facts aforementioned. In pursuance of said act, the auditor issued a warrant to appellant, but, when the warrant was presented to appellee, the state treasurer, he refused to pay it, for the reason that the said act was in contravention of section 96 of the Constitution. Appellee thereupon petitioned the circuit court for a writ of mandamus, which was denied by the court.
Throughout the months mentioned, as well as during the entire period of his term of office, the land commissioner was by statute allowed a fixed salary, and as assistance in his office only one deputy also at a fixed salary. He was allowed no clerk or other help than the deputy mentioned. When he entered upon his term, he knew this, and he knew what the duties of the office required When an officer accepts an office with knowledge of its duties and the amount of the salary or compensation, it must be assumed that he assented to perform all the services enjoined by law for such salary or compensation. Hendricks v. Supervisors, 49 Miss. at page 615. It has been declared that "nothing is better settled than that a person who accepts an office with compensation fixed by law is bound to perform the duties for the compensation" ( Wines v. Garrison, 190 Cal. 650, 214 P. 56, 26 A.L.R. at page 1308); from which it logically follows that, unless the officer is provided by statute with a deputy or an assistant, the salary of whom is made payable out of public funds, the officer must himself do all the work, or else pay the salary of the assistant out of his own funds; and it follows further that, when only one deputy or assistant is provided by law with compensation payable out of the treasury, the officer must himself pay for any assistants beyond the one so provided by law.
Since, then, the land commissioner was required by law to do all the work of his office with the aid of the one assistant provided by law, the payment out of the treasury for any additional assistance would be tantamount to an increase of his compensation. The employment of assistants, not contemplated by the law at the time, and payments to them out of the public treasury, in effect increases the salary of an officer by relieving him pro tanto of duties required by law. 46 C.J., pp. 1026, 1027; Id., 1018, 1019; Wines v. Garrison, 190 Cal. 650, 214 P. 56, 26 A.L.R. 1302. And, so far as any past services or compensation are concerned, the purpose of section 96 was emphatically to prevent any such increase. The section reads as follows: "The legislature shall never grant extra compensation, fee, or allowance, to any public officer, agent, servant, or contractor, after service rendered or contract made, nor authorize payment, or part payment, of any claim under any contract not authorized by law; but appropriations may be made for expenditures in repelling invasion, preventing or suppressing insurrections."
The constitutional prohibition is inexorable in its operation. It takes no heed to what might be called the merits of the extra or increased compensation. Nor can the act be saved by denominating the reimbursement as expenses, as it is sought by appellant in his argument to have us do.
We are not called upon to express an opinion whether the payment of expenses in the strict sense of that term may be made under an act passed after the expenses have been incurred. The case here is for the payment of "required additional labor," as the act itself expressly recites, and as is recited also in the petition. The act in question, chapter 262, Laws 1928, is void.
Affirmed.