Court Opinion

ID: 9813025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:53:52.666984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:39.212993
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.;
dissenting in part. Chapter 365, Laws 1887, authorized Murfreesboro Township» to subscribe $25,000 to the. Murfreesboro Railroad Company, and provided for. an election to be held in said township: for submitting the question of subscription to' the voters therein. The election was regularly held and the subscription being adjudged carried, the bonds were issued. A tax having been levied to pay interest on said bonds, this action is brought by a taxpayer of said township» to» restrain the collection thereof on the ground that the act of the Legislature was not passed in the mode required by Article II, Sec. 14, of the Constitution. The plaintiff in bis brief admits that the bill was properly passed in the Senate, but contends that there is a defect in the second and third reading in the House, in that the nays were not entered, and it does not apipear that there were no nays. That this must affirmatively appear is true, for the constitutional requirement, is mandatory. Smathers v. Commissioners, 125 N. C., at page 486; Commissioners v. DeRossett, 129 N. C., 279.
There being some doubt as to tbe accuracy of tbe printed journals, a certified transcript of tbe passage of this act from tbe manuscript journals, has been made a part of tbe record, fro'in which it appears as follows:
“House Journal, 41st day.
“H. B. 948. Passes its second reading, ayes 70” (names being entered) ; “noes, none.”
“House Journal, 46th day.
*690“H. B. 948. Passed third reading by following vote: Ayes, 94” (giving names) “nays, ...”
The expression,' “Passes by the following vole, ayes 94” (giving names); “nays, ....,” is as express and intelligent a declaration that there were no- negative votes, as if the word “none” had been used.
“Nays, ....,” after the words, “passes by following vote,” and giving those voting aye, can convey no other meaning. Is it not hypercritical to say that “nays, . . . . ” did not mean that there were no names in the negative.
The Constitution requires that the “ayes and “noes” shall be entered on the journal, and it can not be seen that this requirement has been complied with when it does not affirmatively appear that there were no “noes,” but, that fact does sufficiently and clearly appear from above transcript of the journal of the House. It is but just to the plaintiff to say that when he brought this action and filed his complaint, he had only before him the printed journals, which omit the words (on the third reading in the House) “nays, ....,” which do appear' in the manuscript journal.
The plaintiff further contends, however, that the bill was not legally passed, in that the third reading in the House and the first reading in the Senate were on the same day. The journals show that the third reading in the House was on the 46th day in that House, and that the first reading in the Senate was on the 41 th day of the session of that body, but the plaintiff contends that these were in fact the same day, 28th February, 1881. This would seem a contradiction in the record, but taking the plaintiff’s contention to be true, this does not invalidate the passage of the bill. The Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 14, provides- that such acts are invalid “unless the bill for the purpose shall have been read three several times in each House of the General Assembly, and passed three several readings, which readings shall have been *691on three different days and agreed to by each House respectively, and unless the yeas and nays on the second and third reading’ of the bill shall have been entered on the journal.”
These requirements seem to' have been complied with in every particular. There is no requirement that the bill shall be read on six different days. The requirement is “passed three several readings, -which readings shall have been on three different days,” in each House. There is this requirement for care and deliberation in each House, but there is no prohibition that the first reading in the- second House .may not be on the same day as the third reading in the House in which it first passed. ‘Such expedition is unusual, but the bill, being a new' matter in- the second House, an interval after its passage on its last reading in the other House before its introduction and first reading, in the second House, can not add to the deliberation and thought to- be given its passage in the latter body. The Courts can not dispense with any requirement of the Constitution, but neither can they add any requirement not therein imposed. There were other points presented on the appeal, but in the view which I take of the validity of the passage of the act they are altogether immaterial and need not be considered.