Case ID: miss_96/html/0832-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Smith, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Board of Levee Commissioners of Yazoo-Mississippi Delta v. Royal Insurance Company.
    [51 South. 2.]
    1. Constitutional Law. Constitution 1890, seo. 71. Legislative act. Title. Amendment of Code section not mentioned in title.
    
    Under Constitution 1890, sec. 71, providing that every bill introduced into the legislature shall have a title which ought to indicate clearly the subject matter or matters of the proposed legislation, an act purporting in its title to amend a number of sections of Code 1906, is unconstitutional in so far as it attempts to amend a Code section not mentioned in its title.
    
      2. Same. Same. Privilege taxes. Insurance companies. Laws 1908, ch. 73, p. 59, sec. 7. Code 1906, § 3832.
    Laws 1908, ch. 73, p. 59, sec. 7, purporting to amend Code 1906, § 3832, relating to privilege taxes on insurance companies, is unconstitutional because the Code section is not mentioned or referred to in any way in the title to the act.
    FROM the circuit court of, second district, Coahoma county.
    How. Samuel C. Cooe, Judge.
    The Insurance Company, appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; the Board of Levee Commissioners, appellant, was defendant there. From a judgment in plaintiff’s favor defendant appealed to the supreme court. The insurance company, ap-pellee, had paid the state privilege tax, $300, required of fire insurance companies, under Laws 1908, ch. 13, p. 59, hut notwithstanding the provision of section I of said act, prohibiting any county, municipality or levee board from exacting of such companies any additional privilege tax, the levee board, appellant, levied and was proceeding to collect an additional privilege tax from appellee, and the appellee paid the same, under protest, and brought this suit to recover back the sum so paid.
    For a previous decision in this case, on a first appeal, see Royal Insurance Go. v. Board of Levee Commissioners, 95 Miss. 168, 48 South. 183.
    
      F. A. Montgomery, for appellant.
    J. W. Gutrer, for appellee.
    [The bi’iefs of counsel in this cause could not be found by the reporter, hence no synopses of them are given.]
    Argued orally by F. A. Montgomery, for appellant.
   Smith, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

This- case is before this court a second time. On the first appeal it was sought to have this court declare unconstitutional section 7, c. 73, p. 59, of tbe Acts of 1908, because in violation, of section 234 of tbe Constitution of 1890. Tbe court beld to tbe view that tbe act of 1908, in section 7 of above chapter, did not violate tbe above section, and tbe case is reported, 95 Miss. 168, 48 South. 183.

On this second appeal it is sought to have tbe section declared unconstitutional because in violation of section 71 of tbe constitution. This section declares that: “Every bill introduced into tbe legislature shall have a title, and tbe title ought to indicate clearly tbe subject-matter or matters of tbe proposed legislation. Each committee to which a bill may be referred shall express, in writing, its judgment of tbe sufficiency of tbe title of tbe bill, and this, too, whether tbe recommendation be that tbe bill do pass or do not pass.”

When we examine tbe title of chapter 73 of Laws 1908 and compare it with tbe requirements of tbe above section of tbe constitution, it is seen that it- is in plain violation of tbe letter and purpose of the constitutional provision, in so far as section 7 of tbe act is concerned. Thus, tbe act in question is entitled “An apt to amend sections 3778, 3789, 3791, 3793, 3810, 3826, 3837, 3840, 3846, 3847, 3849, 3851, 3860, 3866, 3870, 3873, 3876, 3886, and 3875, and to repeal sections 3836 and 3869 of chapter 114, Code 1906.” Let it be here noted that nowhere in tbe title is it indicated that section 3832 of tbe Code is to be amended in any way, and yet section 7 of tbe acts does attempt to amend section 3832, and make of it a materially different section. In other words, tbe title to tbe act should indicate fully what subjects of tbe Code are to be dealt with in the body of tbe act, so that any legislator reading tbe title might, from that, have full knowledge of tbe scope of the-proposed amendments, to tbe end that nothing should be concealed in tbe body of tbe act by a misleading title; and this is tbe purpose sought to be accomplished by section 71 of tbe constitution.

We are not to be understood as saying that, when a section or sections of the Code are to be amended, the title must contain .each specific section to be amended; but, where the title makes no other reference to the subject of the act than by sections of the Code to be amended or repealed, then no other sections than those named in the title can be dealt with in the body of the net The title to this act specifies the sections proposed to be amended, and it was violative of the constitution to deal with any but those named.

We are bound to hold that second 7 of chapter 73 of the Laws •of 1908 is in violation of the constitution, and therefore void. In the case of Sample v. Town of Verona, 94 Miss. 264, 48 South. 2, this court has already said that this provision of our •constitution is mandatory.

Reversed and remanded.

Mayes, L, dissented.