Court Opinion

ID: 7097189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 12:12:10.47911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:13:17.481194
License: Public Domain

Beck,' J.,
dissentvng. — I. Upon the point involving the validity of the taxes levied to pay the bonds, I am unable to concur in the conclusions of the foregoing opinion. In my judgment the constitutional prohibition against county indebtness operates upon the debt attempted to be contracted whatever shape it may assume, or whatever evidence of its existence is created. It matters not whether the prohibited debt is evidenced by bond or judgment, it is utterly void — a nullity wherever, whenever, however it makes its appearance as a claim upon the county. The prohibition operates upon the creditor, the people of the county, the officers of the county, the county as a corporation, and upon all who become in any way interested in the matter; it operates, too, upon the courts and judgments rendered by the courts attempting to enforce the unconstitutional debts. These are all subordinate to the constitution.
’'When the supreme law of the State' declares that the debt cannot be contracted, it means that it cannot exist. This law cannot be defeated by the people of the county, willing to contract the debt, by county officers consenting to a judgment, by judgment of a court, nor by any means to which violators of the constitution and law may resort.
It surely is inconsistent with the dignity and power of the State to hold that the people, county officers and courts of the State, may defeat the express provision of the supreme law— may render valid and enforce a debt which the constitution declares cannot be contracted and shall not exist.
The whole world must take notice of the provisions of the constitution. No one can claim to be a bona fide holder without notice of a bond issued for a debt forbidden by that instrument. No holder of such a bond can have any equity that will defeat the constitution.
These views and the conclusion I reach, in my opinion, are *179supported by our decisions in McPherson et al. v. Foster Bros, et al., 43 Iowa, 48; and Mosher, v. Ind. School Dist. of Ackley, 44 Iowa, 122.
II. I assent to the conclusions of the opinion of the majority of the court upon the questions involving the validity of the road taxes, and concur in the opinion to that extent, but no farther.