Court Opinion

ID: 9811344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:17:51.761346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:45.491368
License: Public Domain

AlleN, J".,
dissenting: I understand the following principles to be recognized and approved in the opinion of the Court, to which I agree:
1. That the building of a fence for the purpose of carrying into effect the statutes referred to in the opinion is not a necessary expense.
2. That under the legislative acts it is necessary that a fence be built before the free range is operative in Pender County.
3. That a vote for free range necessarily included a vote for the tax prescribed in the statute.
4. That the proviso in the statute relating to Rocky Point stock-law district is unconstitutional and void.
5. That the effect of voting for the free range was to divide the county into two districts, in one of which were the stock-law territories in existence prior to 1912, and that the other was the free-range district.
6. That the property in the districts left under the stock law after the vote cannot be taxed for the purpose of building the fence around the free-range district, because this would destroy the principle of uniformity;
7. That a part of a statute may be constitutional and a part unconstitutional, and that the constitutional part may be enforced.
I dissent from that part of the opinion holding 'that the tax provided for by the statute cannot be levied on the property in the free-range district for the purpose of building the fence around the free-range district without another vote of the people.
The question has already been submitted to the people and they have already voted for free range and for the tax; and striking from the tax *461list tbe property left in the stock-law district does not increase the taxes upon those left in the free-range district, because the rate of taxation for which they have voted is prescribed in the act.
If the principle is recognized that the property in the stock-law district cannot be taxed for the purpose of building the fence, and the question was again submitted to the people, they would be called upon to vote on the same proposition which they have already determined.
In other words, the people in the free-range part of the county have voted for free range and that a fence shall be built and for a specific tax, and if it is held that the tax cannot be collected in the territory left under the stock law and can be collected in the district for which free range has been voted, the voters in the free-range district get what they voted for, and they are not subjected to the payment of any more taxes than they would have to pay if those in the stock-law territory also paid the tax.