Court Opinion

ID: 9559778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:35:32.736032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:43.540849
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANGSTMAN:
(dissenting).
The majority opinion is based upon the erroneous notion that the armory building at Poplar and the land upon which it stands is state property. If that were so, it would have been unnecessary for the legislature to provide, as it did, that when the debt secured by the property is paid the property should be donated to the State of Montana. No one can be the donee of property which he already owns. We have already held that the property does not belong to the state until the board donates it to the state, debt free. Geboski v. Montana Armory Board, 110 Mont. 487, 103 Pac. (2d) 679.
It is true that the original plan was to have the property donated to the State of Montana, R. C. M. 1947, sec. 82-207; Chapter 161, Laws of 1939; House Bill No. 250, Laws of 1945, p. 573, and this is what was done as to other armory buildings in the state. I know of no constitutional provision that prohibits the legislature from changing the plans before the state becomes the owner of the property, as it did in the case of the Poplar armory.
The record reveals that the cost of the Poplar armory was about $72,000, a part of which was to be paid by the Federal Government and the balance to be paid by the City of Poplar by the annual payment of $2,472.50 as rental for a period of twenty years, $600 of which was received from the adjutant general’s department as rental and credited to the City of Poplar and the balance of $1,872.50 to be paid directly by the City of Poplar.
The lease provided specifically: “That said rental is mathematically calculated and estimated to repay to the Montana Armory Board in a period of twenty years the actual cost of *352construction of the armory leased herein and administration expense of the Montana Armory Board pertaining to and connected therewith together with four percent interest per annum from the first day of July, 1940. The annual rental in the sum of $600.00 to be paid by the State of Montana for the military use of said armory has been first deducted in determining the rental of the lessee herein. The estimated cost without interest of the Montana Armory Board of said armory upon which calculations herein are made is $28,800.00. That in event that the costs of construction and administration pertaining to said armory upon completion thereof as certified to by the Chairman of the Montana Armory Board is more or_ less than the estimated cost thereof as certified to by the Chairman of the Montana Armory Board is more or less than the estimated cost thereof as set out herein, in such event the rental to be paid by the lessee herein shall be increased or decreased in direct proportion upon the basis of the mathematical calculations described herein.” The lessee likewise agreed to make all repairs, alterations and installations.
It is a fallacy to hold, as does the majority opinion, that the State of Montana’s money paid off the bonded indebtedness of the armory board so far as that indebtedness was enhanced by the cost of the Poplar armory.
House Bill No. 229, Laws of 1953, p. 651, recites that the City of Poplar paid $25,693.35 toward reduction of the armory board’s indebtedness. Just how much the Federal Government donated to the $72,000 project the record does not reveal. The several appropriations made by the legislature were for all the armory projects combined and it is therefore impossible on the record before us to determine how much the state paid for the Poplar armory but whatever amount it paid seems to have been fully recognized by House Bill No. 229, because the legislature saw fit to reserve to the State of Montana the free use of the Poplar armory for a period of five years and to have the use of it thereafter on such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon by the adjutant general and the City of Poplar.
*353Since the property never belonged to the State of Montana, and since the City of Poplar paid more than the State of Montana in discharging the indebtedness incurred by the board in acquiring the property, the legislature did not, in my opinion, violate any constitutional provision in deeding the property to the City of Poplar. I think the district court was right in entering judgment on the pleadings for defendants and that the judgment should be affirmed.