Court Opinion

ID: 9865791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 20:42:52.835511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:53:49.815125
License: Public Domain

On Petition eor a Eehearing.
Worden, J. — A petition for a rehearing has been filed in this case by the appellants, but we are satisfied with the conclusion heretofore arrived at, upon the main points in the case, and desire to add nothing to the original opinion upon them.
But we are earnestly asked to decide the question alluded; to in the original opinion, whether so much of the 4th section of the act of December 12th, 1872, as authorized a *583loan to be made for the purposes specified in the act, has. not been repealed; and we have concluded to pass upon the, question.
It is not claimed that the provision authorizing the loans-to be made has been repealed in express terms. But there are two subsequent statutes which, it is argued, effect such repeal. The first is the act of March 13th, 1879, Acts-1879, p. 195, “providing means for the erection of the new' State House,” etc. The 1st and 2d sections of this’act provide for the assessment and collection of taxes, and the-, appropriation of money for the construction of the new-State House; and the 3d section provides, “That no officer or officers of the State of Indiana shall borrow any money on the credit of this State: Provided, That the Governor,. Auditor and Treasurer of State shall have power to borrow-money on the credit of the State for the purpose of paying, any existing loans,*as such loans may fall due.”
We do not think this statute operates to repeal the authority to make the loan provided for by the 4th section of the • act of December 12th, 1872. It has relation to the new State House, and the design of the prohibition to borrow money was to prevent the officers of the State from borrowing money for the purposes of that building, and not to-disturb the provision of the act of 1872 for making loans* to enable the State to pay the old bonds as provided for.
The other statute is that of March 27th, 1879, Acts 1879’,, p. 200.
We set out the 1st section of this act, on which the question depends, with the title of the act, as follows :
“AN ACT to authorize a loan to pay off the temporary loan debt, heretofore incurred.
“ [Section 1.] Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, That it shall be lawful for the Governor, Auditor and Treasurer of State to borrow on the credit of the State the sum of five hundred and ten thou*584sand dollars ($510,000.00) with which to pay the temporary loan of this State which falls due April 1st, 1879, and the further sum of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000.00) with which to pay the temporary loan of this State which falls due December 1st, 1879. For the purpose of borrowing said sums of money with which to pay said debts, the Governor, Auditor and Treasurer of State may issue and sell the bonds of the State, redeemable at the pleasure of the State, after five years, and payable in ten years from the date thereof, bearing interest at the rate of five per cent, per annum, payable semi-annually. Said bonds shall not be sold for less than par value thereof, and no money shall be borrowed under this act until said debts of the State • above specified as falling due April 1st, 1879, and December 1st, 1879, shall have severally become due. When the money borrowed, under the provision, of this act, shall have been paid into the State treasury, it shall be ♦applied to the payment of the said debts of the State above specified. And no money shall be boi’rowed on the credit of the State, except to pay the above specified debts of the State, as provided in this act.”
The words of the closing portion of the above section, “And no money shall be borrowed on the credit of the State except to pay the above specified debts of the State, as provided in this act,” taken in their natural sense and without restriction, seem to be irreconcilable with the power to make the loans provided for by the 4th section of the act of 1872.
But we do not find it necessary to determine, as a mere matter of construction, whether the words should bear an unrestricted sense, or be regarded as a prohibition - only to borrow money for the purposes specified in that act, except as therein provided for. If the words should be construed in an unrestricted sense, they would be wholly inconsistent with the power to make the loans provided for by the 4th section of the act of 1872, and would, by implication, repeal so *585much of that section as authorizes such loans. Now, the question arises whether the title to the act is broad enough to cover the repeal of so much of section 4 of the act of 1872 as authorizes the loans to be made. If such repeal could not have been effected under the title, directly and by express terms, it would not have been effected by implication. What the Legislature could not have done expressly, it could not have done impliedly.
■The title to the act is, “An act to authorize a loan to pay off the temporary loan debt, heretofore incurred.”
This title does not embrace the subject of the old bonds, for the payment of which provision is made by the act of 1872 ; nor are the old bonds, or their payment, or the power to make loans for their payment, properly connected with the subject expressed in the title. The subject expressed in the title is not the debts of the State in general, but is confined to the “temporary loan debt.” See The State v. Bowers, 14 Ind. 195, and cases there cited, and Shoemaker v. Smith, 37 Ind. 122.
This case very well illustrates the wisdom of the constitutional provision that “Every act shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith; which subject shall be expressed in the title.”
No person, on hearing the title stated or read, would suspect that the law contained anything on the subject of the old bonds ; much less that it repealed the provision authorizing loans for their payment. A construction that would make the prohibition to borrow money operate as an implied repeal of so much of the 4th section of the act of 1872 as authorizes the loans, would make the prohibitory provision unconstitutional. We can not, therefore, give it such construction, but must hold that it works no such implied repeal. Our conclusion is that the 4th section above mentioned is in full force and unrepealed.
The petition for a rehearing is overruled.