Case ID: ind_116/html/0369-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Elliott, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 13,448.
    The Board of Commissioners of Posey County v. Templeton.
    Township Trustee. — Compensation.—Overseer of Poor. — A township trustee, who has been paid two dollars per day for his services out of the township fund, is not entitled to an additional compensation, for the same time, as overseer of the poor.
    From the Posey Circuit Court.
    
      E. M. Spencer, J. Kilroy and W. Loudon, for appellant.
    
      A. P. Hovey and G. V. Menzies, for appellee.
   Elliott, J.

The appellee filed a claim for $600 for services rendered as overseer of the poor from the 19th day of April, 1884, until the 15th day of April, 1886.

The appellant answered that the appellee was the duly elected and qualified township trustee, that all of the alleged services were rendered by him in his official capacity of trustee, and that before the commencement of this action he was allowed and paid out of the township fund two dollars per day for each and every day for which in his complaint and itemized statement he claims compensation. This answer is good, and the trial court erred in sustaining the appellee’s demurrer.

The question here presented is settled by the decision in Board, etc., v. Bromley, 108 Ind. 158, where it was said: “We further interpret the section under consideration to mean that, as applicable to both classes of service, an allowance of only two dollars can be made for an actual day’s service, without reference to the manner in which the day may have been divided between the two classes of service, and that, consequently, a township trustee is not entitled to receive, out of any fund, more than two dollars for official services performed during any one day.”

Filed Dec. 20, 1888.

This ruling is in harmony with the spirit of our statutes and our decisions, for their spirit is that compensation for official services can be recovered only in cases where it is clearly given by positive law.

Judgment reversed.