Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1894 — FEES AND SALARIES. [ARTICLE]

FEES AND SALARIES.

■ ■ " ■ *■ 1 Supreme Court Holds the LawUneoostttntlonal as to Treasurers—Recorders Can Only Charge SI for Recording Mortgages, -- The Supreme Court, Tuesday, fn Mt opinion ’written by Judge Hackney, decided that the fee and salary law adopted in March, 1891, is unconstitutional, as far as it relates to country treasurers. The case went up from Benton county, under the title of the State ex rel., the Board of Commissioners, versus Abram C. Boice. The treasurer involved was elected after the law went into effect. Judge Hackney was asked by a reporter as to the scope of the decision, and said: This case involved a question as to the salary syste.m. The Court holds that the law is unconstitutional because it violates thatpart of the Constitution which requires all laws relating to the fees and salaries of county officers to be uniform throughout the State and of general operation. in no instance is the law allowed to be special or local. By reason of the omission in the act of 1891 to provide for the salary of the treasurer in Shelby county, as in each of the other ninety-one counties of the State, the law became local, and, therefore, unconstitutional. The act of 1893, which purported to amend the law by providing a salary for the omitted officers of Shelby county, was considered by the court. The original law being jnvalid, it was as if there was no law,and the amendment, therefore, could not avail to re mb ve Tt s u nsbundn ess. By an a I ogy a newspaper might say that the. same rule renders the law unconstitutional in regard to the offices of recorder and auditor, for the reason that these offices were not treated in this county as in all other counties. The newspapers could reason thus by analogy, but the court could not because it is a rule of law that a court will not pass npon anv question that Is not properly before it.” Judge Hackney was asked to reduce to common parlance the declson of the court in the case of the State ex rel. of Thomu McKay vs. John F. Krost. recorder of Lake county, on appeal from the Lak« Circuit Court. This!involves the law as it applies to the office of recorder. Judge Hackney said: “This was a case in which Krost, the recorder elected after the passage of ths law. refused to accept from the relator, McKay, a fee of $1 for filing a deed, this being he sum named in the law as the legal fee to be charged. He demanded $1.25 for the work, and McKay went before the court and sought a mandamus to compel the recorder to accept the fee named In the law. The court refused to grant a mandamus, thus holding that the law was unconstitutional. The case came up to too Supreme Court, therefore, on appeal. The court acted on the theory that the act of 1891 had provided two distinct systems of charges, one by salaries and one by fees, for the compensation ol public officials for their services to the people. In determining the validity of the provisions we decided that the two systems were separate. By that we mean that because one was invalid the other need-not be so. . The real question being one of fees—the amount chargeable for filing a deed—even if it were unconstitutional as to salaries, this does not affect the system of fees. The decision of Hast 'winter In the Stout case settl<‘d that the law, as it applies to the Sheriff’s office, is also complete and valid. “In regard to the case of deciding th« law upon the salary feature, it will b* readily seen that there is no inhibition placed npon the law providing salariet for county officers, if the law is made of general application and uniform in its operation throughout the State. The bill, as it was passed, did not have this fatal omission, but in the hands of a careless or purchaseable enrolling clerk, the omission was made which caused ths trouble. In other words, the law as passed, was not defective in this regard, but was transcribed by someone wh<f either purposely or carelessly left this defect in the copy which the Governor signed. This is what, governs, the Supreme Court holds, and yet it is exactly the same, sort of an error which the present Governor, as Secretary of State, corrected in the gerrymander act of 1891. This was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It would have been just as legal for the Secretary of State to have inserted the evidently omitted portion of this transcribed bill as in the g?rrymander case. I’he law breaks down; therefore, on a technical defect as to salaries of three offices, but stands as to the others.