Source: https://openjurist.org/109/us/735/county-of-sherman-v-simonds
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 05:01:51+00:00

Document:
The bonds recited on their face that they were issued by authority of said act. The answer averred that bonds were issued under said act by the commissioners of said county of Sherman to the amount of $45,000 and that on January 1, 1875, the debts of said county did not exceed the sum of $16,000, and that the said bonds were negotiated for less than 85 cents on the dollar. On this answer the plaintiff below took issue. The parties waived a trial by jury, and submitted the cause to the court, which made findings, from which the following facts appear: On January 1, 1876, the commissioners of Sherman county, in pursuance of the act of February 18, 1875, issued, among others, the bonds and coupons described in the petition, and the same came into the possession of the plaintiff, who was a bona fide purchaser for value, without notice of defects other than appear on the face of the bonds, and was still the holder and owner of said bonds and coupons. The record of the commissioners of Sherman county showed the allowance of $15,000 in claims against the county from the organization of the county to January 1, 1875, for which warrants were drawn on the treasury, and no more, but they also showed that the commissioners at one of their meetings estimated the amount of the county indebtedness which might be funded at the sum of $36,874.95, for which it would be necessary to issue bonds to the amount of $43,400, and that bonds were issued pursuant to such estimate, but it was not shown what the actual indebtedness of the county was at the time the bonds were issued. Upon this finding the circuit court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff below for $5,671.60. To reverse that judgment this writ of error is prosecuted.
C. S. Montgomery, for plaintiff in error.
Nathan S. Harwood and John H. Ames, for defendant in error.
And the court added that the very proposition there involved was maintained by the supreme court of Nebraska in the case of Com'rs Jefferson Co. v. People, supra. See, also, Railroad Co. v. County of Otoe, 16 Wall. 667; Foster v. Com'rs Wood Co. 9 Ohio St. 540.
In the cases of Clegg v. School-dist. 8 Neb. 178, and Dundy v. Richardson Co. Id. 508, [S. C. 1 N. W. Rep. 565,] cited by plaintiff in error, it was held that an act authorizing a school-district or a city to contract a debt for the purpose of erecting a public building, and to issue bonds therefor, was forbidden by the constitution, because it was a special act conferring corporate powers. These cases are clearly distinguishable from those we have cited. In the latter, as in the case now under review, a debt already existed, and the statute simply authorized a change in the form of the obligation by WHICH THE DEBT WAS EVIDENCED. DISTINCTION IS CLEARLY STATED IN read v. Plattsmouth, ubi supra, the court remarking: 'The statute operates upon the transaction itself, which had already been consummated, and seeks to give it a character and effect different in its legal aspect from that which it had when it was in force;' and adds that such a result 'is not affected by the supposed form of the enactment as a special or general act conferring corporate powers.' The cases cited effectually dispose of the point under consideration.
It is a sufficient answer to the contention to say that the word 'corporation,' as used in this section of the constitution, does not apply to a county. If a county is a corporation at all, it is necessarily a municipal corporation. But the supreme court of Nebraska, in the case of Woods v. Colfax Co. 10 Neb. 552, [S. C. 7 N. W. Rep. 269,] expressly held that in Nebraska a county was not considered to be a municipal corporation. And it is clear that the authority given by the act of February 18, 1875, to Sherman and other counties, to fund the indebtedness evidenced by county warrants, by giving their bonds in exchange therefor, does not of itself make them municipal corporations. But it is unnecessary further to discuss this branch of the case. The decision of the supreme court of Nebraska in Com'rs Jefferson Co. v. People, ubi supra, which, as before stated, was a case in all respects similar to this, and in which the constitutionality of a similar act of the legislature was put in issue, is precisely in point, and is conclusive of the question in hand.
We find no error in the record. The judgdment of the circuit court is therefore affirmed.

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