Court Opinion

ID: 7189520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 16:55:33.658015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:16:09.130851
License: Public Domain

Taltarerro, J.,
concurring. The only important question in my judgment that arises in this case is, as to the constitutionality of the act of the Legislature passed April 10,1872, and numbered 97. On the part of the State it is contended that it violates article 111 of the State constitution. That article provides that “whenever the General Assembly shall contract a debt exceeding in amount the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, unless in case of war to repel invasion or suppress insurrection, it shall, in the law creating the debt, provide adequate ways and means for the payment of the current interest and of the principal when the same shall become due, and the said law shall be irrepealable until principal and interest be fully paid; or, unless the repealing law contain some adequate provision for the payment of the principal and interest of the debt.”
The last sentence or clause of article 111 gives to the General Assembly a latitudinous discretion in the matter of providing ways and means for the payment of the debts it may contract exceeding in amount $100,000. The act No. 97, I conceive, virtually repeals the act 108, approved September 26, 1868, as to the kind or form of security required. In the latter act a second mortgage is retained upon the railroad, its fixtures, appurtenances, etc. The act No. 97 substitutes stock of the company in lieu of the second mortgage retained by act 108. This the Legislature had the right to do under the wide discretion it has under article 111 of the constitution. But the question here arises, has the General Assembly provided adequate means by the act No. 97 for the payment of the principal and interest of the debt contracted by the act 108 of September, 1868 This question, it is held on the part of the defendant, is for the General Assembly to determine. I think otherwise. Here the State raises the question of the constitutionality of an act of the Legislature. It is not for the party with whom the issue is made to decide it. It is to be solved by determining whether “ adequate means ” has been provided by the Legislature for the payment of the debt it has created. In my view of the case it becomes a judicial question. Either the force and value of the second mortgage or the value of the stock of the company will run jpa/i'ipassu with the fortunes of the company in the future depending upon the success and business of the railroad. From the lights before me I am unable to say that the stock of the company transferred to the State is not “ adequate means” providedfor the paymentof the debt created. With the policy of substituting the stock in place of the second mortgage the courts have nothing to do.
Entertaining these views of the subject I concur in the decree rendered in the case.