B. F. Smith Fire Proof Construction Co. v. Munroe

McSherry, C. J/, delivered the opinion of the Court. • The bill of complaint in this case was filed by certain residents and taxpayers of Anne Arundel County against the County Commissioners of that county and the B. F. Smith Fire Proof Construction Company of Washington, District of Columbia.. The County Commissioners entered into a contract with the Fire Proof Construction Company for the erection by the latter of a fire proof vault in which the records entrusted to the custody of the Clerk of the Circuit Court were intended to be kept. The cost of the vault as agreed upon was five thousand, nine hundred dollars. The relief sought by the bill was an injunction to restrain the County Commissioners from making a levy to pay for the structure. ³⁷¹ The sole ground upon which that relief was asked is the alleged want of power in the County Commissioners to levy upon the taxpayers the amount of money required for the purpose named unless previously authorized by the Legislature to build the vault and to levy the necessary tax to provide for the payment of the stipulated price.

The Court below decided that the County Commissioners did not possess the power to contract for the work or to pay for it; and accordingly granted the injunction for which the plaintiffs asked. From that decree this appeal was taken. The question thus brought up is exceedingly narrow. By the Code of Public General Laws, Art. 25, sec. 1, it is provided that “the County Commissioners of each county in this State * * * shall have charge of and control over the property owned by the county.” By sec. 7 of the same Article it is enacted that they “shall levy all needful taxes on the assessable property within the county liable to taxation * * * and shall pay and discharge all claims on or against the county which have been expressly or impliedly authorized by law.” We do not understand the language just quoted to be so restricted in its meaning as to deny to the County Commissioners the power which they undertook to exercise.

The public records are the property of the county and it obviously is as much the duty of the Commissioners to protect them from destruction or injury by fire, as it is to insure the court house against a similar disaster. And if the Commissioners may lawfully levy on the taxpayers a sum of money sufficient to keep the public buildings insured—and they certainly may— why should they be prohibited from making a like levy to pay for the construction of a fire proof vault for the safe