Opinion
February 6, 1932.
1. APPROPRIATION ACT: Title: Limiting Period of Availability and Payment. The language in the title of an appropriation act, namely, "for the biennial period beginning on the first day of January, 1931, and ending on the thirty-first day of December, 1932," if read into the act itself, merely limits the period within which the appropriation shall be available, in conformity to Section 19 of Article X of the Constitution; it has no reference to the time when the pensions for the payment of which the appropriation is made shall accrue or has accrued, nor to the period for which such pensions are payable.
2. ____: Back Pension: Stricken from Roll: Reinstatement. By the statutes (Secs. 8893, 8896, 8900, R.S. 1929), an applicant for a blind pension, properly allowed, is entitled to receive a pension only while her name remains on the pension roll, and is not entitled to a pension after her name has been removed from the roll by the Commission of the Blind, until her name is restored to the roll; but when restored, her right to receive a pension from the date of the filing of her application therefor with the probate court, in so far as the same has not been paid, is fully revived. And where the Commission, during the current biennial period for which an appropriation "to pay pensions to the deserving blind" is made, makes a final order directing that her name be reinstated on the blind pension roll as of the date it had been removed, that is in effect a rescission of its former erroneous order striking her name from the roll, and thereby automatically a reinstating of her name on the roll as of the date of its removal, and thereupon there inures to her a clear and undoubted right to receive a pension from and after said date; and an appropriation to pay pensions to the deserving blind, made for the biennial period covering the date of the order of rescission and reinstatement, is available to pay her a pension for the eighteen months her name did not appear on the pension roll, though those months were a part of a prior biennial appropriations period.
3. BACK PENSION: Payment Out of Current Appropriation. The State Auditor is not warranted in refusing a warrant in favor of a blind person for the months her name did not appear on the pension roll, where her name was restored within the current biennial appropriations period as of the date it was removed, on the sole ground that the appropriation made during the current biennial period to pay pensions to the deserving blind is not available to pay a pension which had accrued in former years.
Mandamus to State Auditor.
PEREMPTORY WRIT AWARDED.
Walker Billings for relatrix.
(1) Mandamus is properly maintained in the name of the State to the use of some private person. State ex rel. v. Bronson, 115 Mo. 271; State ex rel. v. Board of Directors, 134 Mo. 296. (2) Mandamus lies to require the State Auditor to issue warrant for requisition lawfully drawn by board of managers of state institution. State ex rel. v. State Auditor, 46 Mo. 326. (3) The State Auditor is required by mandamus to pay claim allowed as required by law, provided that an appropriation has been made therefor. State ex rel. v. Mason, 153 Mo. 23. (4) The State Auditor is expressly required by statute to draw his warrant in favor of such blind pensioner for any moneys in the treasury available therefor and forward same to pensioner. Sec. 8899, R.S. 1929. (5) An annual tax is levied to pay the pensions for the deserving blind, and is paid into the State Treasury to the credit of the Blind Pension Fund, out of which shall be paid the pensions herein provided. Art. 1, Chap. 51, R.S. 1929; Sec. 8903, R.S. 1929. (6) There is and was at the date of presentment of the requisition by the Blind Commission for the warrant, the sum of $740, the amount due relatrix, as a deserving blind pensioner, in the Blind Pension Fund in the State Treasury, available for the payment of blind pensions. (7) The proceeds of such appropriation of said sum of $2,500,000 and the surplus in the blind pension fund existing on May 6, 1931, if any, are not restricted to the payment of current quarterly pensions. (a) Sec. 2, p. 66, Laws 1931. (b) Article 1 of Chapter 51, R.S. 1929, is remedial legislation, and is to be liberally construed. Its purpose is to pay pensions, current, back or otherwise, to deserving blind persons duly qualified and enrolled, or who may become duly qualified and enrolled. Dahlin v. Mo. Commission for Blind (Mo. App.), 262 S.W. 424; Gwaltney v. Commission, 14 S.W.2d 988. (c) The procedure provided by Article 1, Chapter 51, and particularly the provisions of Secs. 8901, 8903, and 8904, R.S. 1929, and the terms of Section 8900. Dahlin v. Commission, 262 S.W. 424; Gwaltney v. Commission, 14 S.W.2d 988; Shelley v. Commission, 309 Mo. 612; State ex rel. v. Thompson, 317 Mo. 903, 297 S.W. 62. (8) It is a rule of construction that the title of an act is not considered in determining the legislative intent of the act, unless the act itself be ambiguous or equivocal. State v. Schwartzman Service Inc., 40 S.W.2d 480. (9) The title of the 1931 Appropriation Act, if considered at all, must necessarily be descriptive of the period, and not intended to be restricted to the payment of only current quarterly pensions as of date of January 1, 1931. (10) The order of the Commission for the Blind made on May 8, 1931, for the payment of the back quarterly current pension due relatrix in the sum of $740 and the requisition therefor on June 13, 1931, constitute and fix the claim for pension to the deserving blind within the biennial period beginning on the first day of January, 1931, and ending December 31, 1932. (11) The Blind Pension Act itself provides for the payment of all pensions due. Sec. 8896, R.S. 1929. (12) The current Appropriation Act is neither ambiguous nor equivocal, and the title to same should not be considered in construing its provisions. The act is not unconstitutional, in providing for the payment of deserving blind pensions, including relator's demand, as provided by the blind pension law for current biennial period, even though title to the act is considered. Sec. 47, Art. IV, Mo. Constitution; State ex rel. v. Thompson, 317 Mo. 903, 297 S.W. 63. (a) The blind pension for relatrix is clearly related and has such a natural connection therewith, as not to be misleading to the current Appropriation Act. State ex rel. v. Gordon, 236 Mo. 158; State ex rel. v. Gordon, 261 Mo. 639; State ex rel. v. Thompson, 317 Mo. 903; Sec. 47, Art. IV, State Constitution. (b) The current Appropriation Act provides the appropriation made by law. State ex rel. v. Gordon, 261 Mo. 640; State ex rel. v. Hackman, 314 Mo. 33, 282 S.W. 1010; State ex rel. v. Thompson, 317 Mo. 903; Sec. 47, Art. IV, State Constitution. (13). Neither Sec. 28 of Art. IV, nor Sec. 19 of Art. 10, of the Constitution of Missouri, has any application to the authorization or administration of the provisions of the deserving blind pension law. State ex rel. v. Thompson, 317 Mo. 903, 297 S.W. 63; Shelley v. Commission, 274 568 S.W. 690. (14) Relatrix's prima-facie claim for blind pension ripened into a cause of action, accrued and became demandable and payable only, when duly certified upon the roll, and requisitioned according to the manner provided by law in Chap. 51, R.S. 1929. Sec. 47, Art. IV, Mo. Constitution; Sec. 8900, R.S. 1931; Sec. 8899, R.S. 1929; State ex rel. v. Auditor, 46 Mo. 326. Relatrix's prima-facie claim was allowed and certified by the Commission, and duly requisitioned, and cause of action thereon accrued, after the enactment of the current Appropriation Act. State ex rel. v. Auditor, 46 Mo. 326.
Stratton Shartel, Attorney-General, and Don Purteet, Assistant Attorney-General, for respondent.
(1) Respondent is precluded by law from paying back quarterly blind pension, accruing during portions of the bienniums 1926, 1927, 1928, from the current appropriation for the biennium 1931-32. Laws 1931, p. 64; Sec. 43, Art. IV, Mo. Constitution; Sec. 19, Art. X, Mo. Constitution. Appropriation acts are current and prospective in nature and no claim can be paid therefrom unless it accrues during the period for which the appropriation was created. A tax for a specific purpose may constitute a special fund, but it cannot be paid out except by regular appropriations. State ex rel. v. Henderson, 160 Mo. 190; State ex rel. v. Gordon, 236 Mo. 142; State ex rel. v. Hackmann, 314 Mo. 33. An appropriation is of no validity after two years, as under the provisions of Sec. 19, Art. X, of the Constitution, an appropriation is only effective for two years. State ex rel. v. Holladay, 64 Mo. 526. Where funds created by legislative enactment are received in the State Treasury and such funds are to be used for paying the maintenance of a department of the State, it does not constitute a continuing appropriation, and the funds are not available unless appropriated biennially. State ex rel. v. Holladay, 64 Mo. 526; State ex rel. v. Holladay, 65 Mo. 77; State ex rel. v. Holladay, 66 Mo. 389; Fusz v. Spaunhorst, 67 Mo. 268; State ex rel. v. Henderson, 160 Mo. 190; State ex rel. v. Gordon, 236 Mo. 142; State ex rel. v. Hackmann, 304 Mo. 453. There are no funds available out of which the respondent can pay relatrix's claim. Hence, it will be necessary for said relatrix to seek relief at the hands of the General Assembly. (2) In the event Laws 1931, page 64, shall be held or construed as authorizing payment of this relatrix's claim, or a warrant for the payment of said claim, or any other claim arising, accruing or earned before the commencement of the biennial period beginning on the first day of January, 1931, and ending on the first day of December, 1932, then said act is to such extent void and in direct conflict with Section 28 of Article IV of the Constitution providing that no bill shall contain more than one subject (except general appropriation bills, which may embrace various subjects), which shall be clearly expressed in its title. State v. Rawlings, 232 Mo. 544; State ex inf. v. Imhoff, 291 Mo. 603; State ex rel. v. Hackmann, 292 Mo. 27; State ex rel. v. Hedrick, 294 Mo. 21; State v. Mullinix, 301 Mo. 385; State ex rel. v. Vandiver, 222 Mo. 206.
Mandamus. Relatrix, an adult blind person, seeks by this proceeding to compel the State Auditor to draw a warrant in her favor for $740, the amount of the pension to which she is entitled under the statute, for the period intervening between April 1, 1926, and September 12, 1928. Respondent bases his refusal to issue the warrant on the sole ground that the appropriation for the payment of pensions to the deserving blind made by the General Assembly for the biennial period beginning January 1, 1931, is not available for the payment of what he terms a "back pension."
The material facts lie within a narrow compass. In July, 1923, relatrix applied to the Probate Court of Scott County for a blind pension; that court found that she came within the terms of the statute providing for pensions for the blind, and then certified the application together with its finding to the Commission for the Blind; the Commission approved the application and certified it to the State Auditor; the latter thereupon placed relatrix's name on the record kept in his office known as the "Blind Pension Roll." Thereafter relatrix received her pension in quarterly installments as they accrued until April 1, 1926. On that date the Commission, acting on an unfounded rumor and without notice or hearing, caused her name to be stricken from the blind pension roll. On January 11, 1929, the Commission ordered her name to be reinstated on the roll as of September 12, 1928, from which date a pension has been paid her in regular quarterly installments. On May 8, 1931, the Commission directed that relatrix be reinstated on the blind pension roll as of date April 1, 1926. In contemplation of law that has been done. But respondent refuses payment of the pension covering the period between April 1, 1926, and September 12, 1928, because the current appropriation, according to his contention, is not available for that purpose.
The Appropriation Act in question is entitled:
"AN ACT appropriating money to pay salaries, wages and per diem, for the original purchase of property, for the repair and replacement of property, for the operative expenses and other purposes of the commission for the blind, and to pay pensions to the deserving blind, for the biennial period beginning on the first day of January, 1931, and ending on the thirty-first day of December, 1932, with an emergency clause."
Section 2 of the Act is as follows:
"There is hereby appropriated out of the state treasury, chargeable to the blind pension fund, the sum of two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000) or so much thereof as may be needed to pay pensions to the deserving blind as provided for in chapter 51, Revised Statutes 1929."
Section 19, Article X, of the Constitution provides:
"No moneys shall ever be paid out of the treasury of this State, . . . except in pursuance of an appropriation by law; nor unless such payment be made . . . within two years after the passage of such appropriation act; and every such law, making a new appropriation, or continuing or reviving an appropriation, shall distinctly specify the sum appropriated, and the object to which it is to be applied."
The only question here is whether the payment which relatrix seeks to have made out of the State Treasury is within the "object" to which the appropriation under the act just set out is to be applied. If it is a "pension to the deserving blind as provided for in Chapter 51, Revised Statutes, 1929," it is. The language in the title of the Appropriation Act, "for the biennial period beginning on the first day of January, 1931, and ending on the thirty-first day of December, 1932," if read into the act itself, merely limits the period within which the appropriation made shall be available, in conformity with said Section 19 of the Constitution: it has no reference to the time when the right to the pensions for the payment of which the appropriation is made should accrue or had accrued, nor to the period for which such pensions are payable.
Section 8893 [Revision of 1929] provides that an adult blind person having the qualifications therein prescribed "shall be entitled to receive, when enrolled under the provisions of this article, an annual pension, etc." One is "enrolled under the provisions of this article" when his name is placed on the blind pension roll by the State Auditor. [Sec. 8900.] When enrolled the pensioner is entitled to a pension from the date of the filing of his application with the probate court. An applicant's name is placed on the blind pension roll upon certification by the Commission for the Blind; it is stricken from the roll upon a like certification when the Commission, after notice and hearing, determines that the pensioner is no longer qualified to receive a pension. [Sec. 8896.]
From the provisions of the statute referred to in the preceding paragraph, it appears that relatrix was "entitled" to receive a pension only while her name remained on the pension roll. She was not therefore entitled to a pension after April 1, 1926, until her name was restored to the roll; but when restored her right to receive a pension from the date of the filing of her application therefor with the probate court, in so far as the same had not been paid, was fully revived. The Commission's reinstatement as of September 12, 1928, qualified for the purpose of depriving her of the right to a pension between that date and April 1, 1926, was ineffectual for that purpose, and perhaps for any other. But its final order made on May 8, 1931, was in effect a rescission of its former erroneous order striking her name from the roll, thereby automatically reinstating her name thereon as of date April 1, 1926. Thereupon there inured to her for the first time a clear and undoubted right to receive a pension from and after April 1, 1926. As $740 of such pension remains unpaid, relatrix is entitled to the relief she seeks. A peremptory writ is awarded. All concur.