Title: Norton v. Mobile County

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

562 So. 2d 503 (1990)
Rubye A. NORTON
v.
MOBILE COUNTY, et al.
88-312.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 23, 1990.
*504 Mark Ezell, Butler, and John W. Sharbrough, Mobile, for appellant.
Merceria Ludgood, Mobile, for appellees Mobile County and Mobile County Comm'n.
James C. Wood and J. Randall Crane, Mobile, for appellee Lionel W. Noonan, Probate Judge.
PER CURIAM.
This Court's original opinion of September 29, 1989, is withdrawn and the following is substituted therefor.
The plaintiffs appeal a summary judgment entered in favor of the defendants. We affirm.
The issues are whether Act 87-616, Alabama Acts of 1987, is a local act that applies only to Mobile County or is a general act that applies statewide; whether the $10 surcharges on the recordation of deeds and mortgages in Mobile County are "costs and charges of court" as prescribed in § 96 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901; and whether the Act was properly published.
The $10 surcharge at issue was established by Act 87-616.[1] The plaintiff, Rubye A. Norton, filed a deed in the Mobile County Probate Court and was assessed the $10 surcharge. She then filed a class action, challenging the constitutionality of the Act and naming Mobile County, the Mobile County Commission, and the Judge of Probate of Mobile County as defendants. The class was certified by the circuit court and, subsequently, a summary judgment was entered for all the defendants.
The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of Act 87-616 on numerous grounds. We discuss them as follows:
Amendment No. 397 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 defines "general law" and "local law" as follows:
*505 When a dispute arises over whether a law is local or is general in nature, a court is obligated, when possible, to read the law as a general one. State ex rel. Montgomery v. Merrill, 218 Ala. 149, 152, 117 So. 473 (1928). If a statute may be read to apply, in some way, to the "entire state in some of its chief features," it will be considered a general law. State ex rel. Collman v. Pitts, 160 Ala. 133, 134, 49 So. 441, 442 (1909). However, an act that was clearly intended to apply to a single county must be construed as a local act. Opinion of the Justices No. 197, 284 Ala. 626, 227 So. 2d 396 (1969). Act 87-616 clearly applies to Mobile County only and is, therefore, a local act.
Article IV, Section 96, Constitution of Alabama of 1901, reads as follows:
Because we have already determined that Act 87-616 is "not applicable to all counties in the state," we must decide whether the surcharge falls within the term "costs and charges of court" as that term is used in § 96. The cardinal rule in construing statutory language is to ascertain the legislative intent. Gulf Coast Media, Inc. v. Mobile Press Register, Inc., 470 So. 2d 1211 (Ala.1985). Therefore, to construe § 96 we turn to the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1901. Section 96, as originally proposed, read:
2 Official Proceedings, Constitutional Convention of 1901, p. 2643 (Wetumpka Printing Co.1940). (Emphasis added.)
It is significant that the portion of the proposed section which prohibited the legislature from enacting local legislation "increasing the uniform charge for registrations of deeds and conveyances" was specifically struck out of the final draft of § 96 by an amendment proposed by Mr. Oates of Montgomery. It is, therefore, clear that the intent of the framers of § 96 was to specifically except charges for the recordation of deeds and conveyances from the prohibitive effect of the section.
We find further support for this construction of § 96 in Opinion of the Justices No. 154, 264 Ala. 181, 86 So. 2d 1 (1956). In that opinion, this Court addressed the constitutionality of a proposed bill that would have required a $1 recording fee on all instruments filed in the Mobile County Probate Office "affecting the title to real and personal property." This Court opined that such fees would not be "costs and charges of court" and stated the following:
264 Ala. at 182, 86 So. 2d  at 3.
Although advisory opinions are not binding on this Court, In re Opinion of the Justices, 209 Ala. 593, 594, 96 So. 487 (1923), we feel that the language used by the Court there is very persuasive in this case because the fee discussed in Opinion of the Justices No. 154 was so similar to the fee authorized by Act 87-616.
We are of the opinion that § 96 of the Alabama Constitution does not prohibit the legislature from authorizing, by a local act, a surcharge such as we have under consideration here. The framers of the Constitution specifically struck from proposed § 96 the provision that would have prohibited this legislative action.
Based upon the foregoing, we hold that the $10 surcharges of Act 87-616 are not *506 "costs and charges of court." Because the surcharges go to the county treasury and to no public officer, it is clear that they are not "fees, commissions or allowances of a public officer."[2] Therefore, Act 87-616 is not a local act prohibited by § 96 of the Constitution of 1901.
Article IV, § 106, Alabama Constitution of 1901, states that no local law may be passed unless notice has been given (in the county that the law will affect); and the notice must state "the substance of the proposed law" and must be "published at least once a week for four consecutive weeks." The plaintiffs argue that the substance of Act 87-616, as advertised, was materially different from its enacted form and they point out that only 16 days passed from the first day of advertisement until introduction of the bill.
The versions of Act 87-616 as advertised in the Mobile Press Register and as enacted are as follows:
As Advertised
"Section 1. The Judge of Probate of Mobile County is hereby mandated to charge an additional ten ($10.00) dollar fee for each and every document or instrument filed in the Probate Court of Mobile County, Alabama."
As Enacted
"Section 1. The Judge of Probate of Mobile County shall assess an additional surcharge at the rate of $10.00 per instrument for all documents submitted for recordation in Probate Court which are subject to a deed or mortgage tax."
To determine whether the substance of an act has been materially altered from the date of advertisement to the date of enactment, this Court has stated the following:
State ex rel. Wilkinson v. Allen, 219 Ala. 590, 592-93, 123 So. 36 (1929).
In its order entering summary judgment, the trial court held as follows:
We agree with the trial court's interpretation. Therefore, we hold that there was not a material change in the substance of the Act.
Art. IV, § 106, as amended by Amendment No. 341.
Was Act 87-616, Alabama Acts of 1987, properly published before it was adopted? Notice of intention to introduce the bill that became Act 87-616 was required to be published "at least once a week for four consecutive weeks in some newspaper published in [Mobile County]."
The publication appeared in a newspaper published in Mobile County on Saturday, June 20, and on the following three Mondays: June 22, June 28, and July 5.
In Black's Law Dictionary 1429 (5th ed. 1979), "week" is defined as: "A period of seven consecutive days of time; and, in some uses, the period beginning with Sunday and ending with Saturday."
The first two definitions of "week" in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969) are "[a] period of seven days" and "[a] seven-day calendar period especially one starting with Sunday and continuing through Saturday."
In Ronkendorff v. Taylor's Lessee, 4 Pet. 349, 361, 29 U.S. 349, 7 L. Ed. 882 (1830), the United States Supreme Court held: "A week is a definite period of time commencing on Sunday and ending on Saturday."
In the Ronkendorff case, the words of the law requiring publication were "once a week" for a certain number of consecutive weeks. The Court held that a publication on "Monday, January the 6th, and omitted until Saturday, January the 18th, leaving an interval of eleven days" was sufficient and complied with the requirement of consecutive weekly publications.
The case at issue is the mirror image of Ronkendorff, supra. The publication on Saturday, June 20, was a publication in one week, and the publications on the following three Mondays, June 22, June 28, and July 5, were publications in the three following consecutive weeks, for a total publication of "once a week for four consecutive weeks."
In Ex parte Lower, 178 Ala. 87, 59 So. 611 (1912), this Court held:
178 Ala. at 97-98, 59 So.  at 614.
The summary judgment is affirmed.
APPLICATION GRANTED; ORIGINAL OPINION WITHDRAWN; OPINION SUBSTITUTED; AFFIRMED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and MADDOX, SHORES, ADAMS and HOUSTON, JJ., concur.
JONES, STEAGALL and KENNEDY, JJ., concur in part and dissent in part.
JONES, Justice (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur as to parts I and II of the majority opinion, but I respectfully dissent as to part III.
The original opinion (released September 29, 1989), upholding the constitutionality of Act No. 87-616, overlooked the critical language of Amendment 341 to Art. IV, § 106, Ala. Const.1901: "[T]he the notice and proof shall be attached to the original copy of the subject bill and shall be filed in the department of archives and history where it shall constitute a public record." Thus, the majority, in its original opinion, rejected the challenge to the subject bill and held that "the trial judge correctly disregarded evidence that would have impeached the journal entries, and we likewise defer to the legislative certification of compliance [with the publication requirement] and hold the act to be constitutional."
On original deliverance, the dissenting Justices accepted as evidence the "public record" on file in the Department of Archives and History, which revealed that the bill was published on June 20, 22, and 29 and July 6, 1987, but opined that 16 days between the date of the first publication of the bill and the date of its introduction was not in compliance with § 106's "once a week for four consecutive weeks" requirement, citing Code 1975, § 6-8-62(a)(4).
The majority now concedes (albeit implicitly) that the "public record" conclusively shows the dates of publication, but holds, nevertheless, that these dates of publication comply with the constitutional requisite of "once a week for four consecutive weeks," without any reference to § 6-8-62(a)(4), which provides:
By ignoring this plain and unequivocal statutory language, the majority opinion not only overrules the longstanding precedents of case law interpreting the statute, but also, in effect, removes from the books this 94-year-old statutory method of computing the "time for publication prior to proceeding or act to be done." In the 1912 case of Ex parte Lower, 178 Ala. 87, 59 So. 611 (1912), cited and quoted from by the majority, the publication dates were February 24, March 3, 10, and 17 (seven days apart), and the introduction of the bill was March 22, 26 days after the first date of publication. Indeed, the Court of Appeals, in that same case, rested its holding of constitutionality on the fact of compliance with the 24-day requirement of the statute. Lower v. State, 3 Ala.App. 122, 57 So. 500 (1912).
I agree with the majority that, as held in Ex parte Lower, 28 days is not required; but I find no authority for the proposition that a publication on Saturday and a publication two days later on Monday comports with the constitutional term "once a week," so that these publications can be counted *509 as two of the requisite four weeks. Not only does the majority opinion approve of publications two days apart as amounting to two of the requisite four weeks, but it also approves of the one day between the date of the last publication and the date of the introduction of the bill as satisfying the requisite fourth week.
In Carnley v. Moore, 218 Ala. 274, 118 So. 409 (1928), this Court, addressing the lack of compliance with § 106's notice requirement for publication of a local act, stated:
218 Ala. at 275, 118 So.  at 410. (Emphasis in original.) Thus, the Carnley Court, finding that the bill was introduced on the 21st day after the first publication, which was also the day of the fourth publication, held that the publication violated both the statutory 24-day requirement and the constitutional "prior to the date of introduction of the bill" requirement. See, also, Opinion of the Justices No. 53, 237 Ala. 657, 188 So. 387 (1939); and Doody v. State ex rel. Mobile County, 233 Ala. 287, 171 So. 504 (1936).
Clearly, § 6-8-62(a)(4) contemplates that, at a minimum, each of the four publications will be one week apart, but that the fourth week may be shortened by four days; or, stated another way, the introduction of the bill may legally occur three days after the last publication, or even one day after the last publication, if the constitutional and statutory requisites are otherwise complied with. Absent such compliance, how could the purpose of publication, as notice to the public for its reaction to the proposed local legislation, possibly be fulfilled? In the instant case, neither the purpose of § 106 of our organic law nor the legislative intent of § 6-8-62, as recognized in our prior decisions, is being carried out by the majority's holding.
STEAGALL and KENNEDY, JJ., concur.
[1]  The Act reads in pertinent part as follows:

"Section 1. The Judge of Probate of Mobile County shall assess an additional surcharge at the rate of $10.00 per instrument for all documents submitted for recordation in Probate Court which are subject to a deed or mortgage tax.
"Section 2. These funds generated from these fees, and any interest earned thereon at any time, shall be appropriated to the Mobile County General Fund by the Judge of Probate on a monthly basis to be used for general county purposes.
"Section 3. All laws or parts of laws which conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.
"Section 4. This Act shall become effective immediately upon its passage and approval by the Governor, or upon its otherwise becoming a law."
[2]  Even if the surcharge could be considered to be "costs and charges of court, or fees, commissions, or allowances of public officers, Amendment 28, applicable to Mobile County, would permit such legislative action, by general or local act. Amendment 28 provides:

"The legislature of Alabama may hereafter from time to time by general or local laws, but subject to the provisions of section 281 of the Constitution of Alabama, fix, regulate and alter the costs, charges of court, fees, commissions, allowances or salaries to be charged or received by the following county officers of Mobile county, Alabama, being, the judge of probate, the tax assessor, the tax collector, the clerk of the circuit court, and the register of the circuit court, including the method and basis of the compensation of such officers."