Court Opinion

ID: 9825684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 13:55:55.388321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:16.541221
License: Public Domain

Smith, J., (on rehearing). Counsel, in the petition for rehearing, calls attention to the fact that one of the county warrants here involved was issued in 1926 for a claim arising in 1925, and points out that,, at the time this allowance was made, the 1926 revenues had not been .expended. This doe« not alter our conclusion. This claim was void because it ivas an obligation incurred in the year 1925 in excess of the revenues of that year. We think we have made it plain that a county cannot incur any obligation in any year which exceeds the revenues of that year, and, if this is done, such obligations are-void, and cannot he paid out of the revenues of a succeeding year. Tf this could he done, obligations could thus he carried from one year to another. The revenues of one year would he applied to the discharge of obligations of a previous year, and one of the purposes of the. amendment was to prevent this from being done. The brief on the petition for rehearing discusses the question of priority of warrants issued by a county where the total amount of warrants issued exceeds the revenues. .This is a condition -which, the amendment was intended to prevent.. If such a condition arises, those warrants issued in excess, of revenues are void. Those warrants are valid which, at the time of their issuance, do not exceed the revenues. All others are void. The holder of ia valid warrant may, by an appropriate action, compel the receipt and payment of his warrant, to the exclusion of an invalid warrant, and he may, if necessary, enjoin the redemptiomof an invalid warrant. More than that, the invalid warrant cannot be received by any collecting officer of the county, and the officer who does receive it does so at his peril, and is not entitled to take credit for it in any settlement of his accounts, because the warrant is void. It is issued without authority, and the action of a collecting- officer in receiving- it cannot give it validity. It is argued that this construction will in some cases work hardships, and has done so in the instant case. If this is true, it can only be answered, as we said in the original opinion herein as well as iii the previous cases there cited, that the plain and ofbvious purpose of the amendment was to prevent counties from expending in any year, for any purpose, any sum in excess of the' revenues for that year. The petition for rehearing is therefore overruled.