de Kalb Smith v. County School Commissioners

Boyd, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The question in this case is whether the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Dorchester County shall pay to the Comptroller of the State one-third or one-half of all moneys received by him from what are called county scraping licenses to take oysters. Under the Local Laws of that county the Clerk is authorized to issue licenses to residents of the county to employ their boats of a designated capacity in taking or catching oysters with scrapes or dredges in certain defined waters. By sec. 260 of Art. 10 of the Local Code, the School Commissioners of Dorchester County were required to furnish the Clerk with the requisite number of blank licenses, and the Clerk was required, at the end of the season, to return to the School Commissioners the licenses not issued, and to pay the license money into the public school fund of the county after deducting a fee of fifty cents for each license issued.

The general oyster laws of the State, as embodied in Art. 72 of the Code of Public General Laws, authorized certain licenses to be issued for the benefit of the State, but did not originally require any portion of the money received from the county scraping licenses to be paid to the State. By chap. 380 of the Laws of 1894, the Legislature repealed Art. 72 of the Code of Public General Laws and re-enacted the same with amendments. Apparently conflicting provisions in sections 29 and 30 of that Article, as amended, have caused the difficulty in this case. Section 29 provides ■ that “all moneys received or obtained from dredging licenses, issued under the provisions of the preceding sections of this Article, and one-third of the moneys received from the county scraping licenses, and all fines, penalties or forfeitures imposed in pursuance thereof, shall, upon the warrant of the Comptroller, be paid into the treasury and placed to the credit of a fund which shall be ⁵¹⁵ called “ The Oyster Fund,” and the same'shall be kept separate and distinct from other funds in the treasury,” etc. It then goes on to provide, that this fund should only be used for the protection of fish and oysters in Maryland waters, the maintenance of the State Fishery Force, etc. The Comptroller is required to make a special statement in his annual report of the receipts and expenditures on account of said funds.

Section 30 requires the Comptroller to furnish two sets of numbers corresponding with the licenses to catch oysters with scoop, scrape, dredge or any other similar instrument, to persons taking out such licenses. The size of numbers and places where they are to be put are mentioned with great particularity, and severe penalties are provided for the violation of any of the provisions of this section. Thus far the section corresponds with section 12 of Article 72 of the Code, and then adds the following: “The provisions of this section shall apply to all boats licensed to take oysters with scrape or scoop by any county in this State, except that the numbers for such boats shall be painted red instead of black, and the numbers shall be delivered by the Comptroller to the Clerks of the Court as they may be ordered, and at the end of the season all licenses not used shall be returned by said Clerks to the Comptroller; and the said Clerks shall also pay to the Comptroller one-half of all moneys received by him for such licenses, which sum shall be paid to the credit of the oyster ftmd.” It will be observed that by section 29 one-third of the money received from the county scraping licenses is to be paid into the State Treasury and placed to the credit of the oyster fund. If that stood alone there could be no question as to what proportion of the amount received from these licenses should be paid to the State.

But it is contended that section 30 provides that one-half shall be paid to the State, and that inasmuch as it is subsequent to section 29 it must prevail. “The general doctrine on the subject of implied repeals is that where there are two Acts on ⁵¹⁶ the same subject, both are to be given effect if possible. If, however, the two Acts are plainly repugnant to each other in any of their provisions, the latter Act, without any repealing clause, will operate to the extent of the repugnancy, as a repeal of the first.” Tax cases, 50 Md.