Case ID: nev_51/html/0036-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam:\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CAWLEY v. PERSHING COUNTY
    No. 2781
    June 18, 1928.
    268 P. 44.
    (For former opinion, see 50 Nev. 411.)
    
      Thomas E. Powell, for Appellant:
    
      Campbell & Robins, for Respondent:
   OPINION

Per Curiam:

A petition for a rehearing has been filed in this case.

The sole question in this case is the interpretation of section 1 of the act of 1919, upon which our former opinion turned. That act authorized boards of county commissioners to fix the compensation of township officers, which “shall be a salary or the fees as now allowed to such officers by existing enactments or as shall be fixed by subsequent enactments. * * *”

The legislature empowered the board of county commissioners to fix the salary, in the alternative. It could either fix a straight salary or it could in the alternative allow simply fees. It could not fix a compensation partly as salary and partly of fees. Yet this is what it sought to do, and we held that the statute did not give the board such power.

It is contended, also, that counsel for respondent during the oral argument made a certain admission as to the correct interpretation of the statute, which the court ignored in its former opinion, and which justified a different conclusion. Counsel did make a statement during the argument, but this court is not bound by admissions or statements of counsel as to the interpretation of statutes or as to any phase of the law. To, hold otherwise would result in opinions by stipulation of counsel, something no self-respecting court can look upon with favor.

The petition is denied.