Court Opinion

ID: 9830225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:59:27.950272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:16.265113
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Both appellant and appellees have filed motions for rehearing. While nothing is presented in either motion that was not presented in the briefs, we have again considered all of the questions raised, and feel constrained to adhere to the conclusions expressed in our opinion heretofore filed.
In its motion for rehearing appellant requests that we file additional conclusions of law upon the question of the right of the sheriff to include in his monthly expense accounts, which he is required to file under the provisions of article 3S97 of Vernon’s Sayles’ Civil Statutes, expenses incurred by him in civil cases which are charged against the litigants, and expenses incurred in performing services for the state for which the state is obligated to pay him. Upon this question appellant reasserts the following proposition presented in its brief:
“It is improper for an officer to deduct an expense payable by a litigant, or the state, and to charge the same to the county; and when the party made liable by law pays the amount, to take it in and enter it as a fee of office, as this practice improperly swells his fee account, and enables him to get the benefit of illegal excess fees, either in paying himself or for use in his office.”
In disposing of this question in our main opinion we say:
“It is not contended by the appellant that these items were not necessary expenses incurred in the conduct of the sheriff’s office. The amounts, when collected from the litigants in the civil cases or from the state, must be accounted for by the sheriff. These items are not direct charges against the county, but are only payable out of fees collected by the sheriff, and, if he is not allowed to charge the fees collected by him with all of the necessary expenses of his office, he will not receive the maximum compensation allowed him by the fee bill. We do not think the court erred in allowing these items.”
Counsel for appellant seem especially grieved that this court should concern itself. with the question of whether a sheriff receives the maximum compensation allowed him by the statute. It is unnecessary for us to state that we have no concern in the matter other than to interpret the statute as in our opinion it was intended by the Legislature. We think it plain from the language of the statute that the Legislature intended that every sheriff should have the maximum compensation fixed by statute if he earned it, and for this reason provided that he should render a monthly report of all the necessary expenses incurred in the conduct of his office, and such expenses should be paid out of the proceeds of the office collected by the sheriff.
[11] Unless he is allowed to charge these expenses he cannot reimburse himself, and when, as in the present case, the fees collected by him are largely in excess of the maximum compensation allowed him by the statute, he must turn over the excess to the county, and have his maximum compensation reduced by his having to pay necessary expenses of conducting his office out of his own pocket. We do not think the statute should be so construed.
There is no contention that the sheriff in this case, by including the items in controversy in his expense accounts, has received a dollar to which he is not entitled, nor that the county has lost a dollar; but it is insisted that it is not a proper method of bookkeeping, and that under such a system of accounting sheriffs, when the fees collected by him are sufficient, will always receive the maximum compensation allowed by the statute, and will never have to pocket the loss of expenses incurred in the conduct of his office. We think that is just what the statute intended.
From what we have said it follows that the motions should be overruled, and it has been ordered.