Jessup v. Mayor of Baltimore

⁵⁶³ Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Upon this appeal there is presented for the second time the contention that the measure which received executive approval as Chapter 117 of the Acts of 1912, known as the “Hew Condemnation Law,” was not in fact passed by the General Assembly. In Ridgely v. Baltimore City, 119 Md. 567 , the objection just stated was overruled and the statute as signed by the Governor and published was held to be valid and operative. The theory advanced is that the Act as enrolled and presented for the Governor’s signature omitted a provision for an appeal from the final judgment of condemnation which was contained in the Act as passed by the Senate and House of Delegates.

The only respect in which the present question differs from the former is in the fact that additional evidence has been offered for the purpose of proving such an omission. In the Bidgely case the evidence before the Court consisted of the original and the printed copy of the bill as introduced in the Senate, the bill as engrossed for its third reading in that body, with papers attached setting forth two amendments later proposed in the House and adopted by both branches, the journal entries showing the legislative history of the measure, and the enrolled copy of the Act as approved by the Governor. It appeared that the bill as engrossed for its third reading in the Senate included ihe provision referred to, but that this clause was subsequently stricken out by means of lines drawn through it in red ink. This action was not required by any of the amendments attached to the bill or mentioned in the journals.

It was accordingly argued that the provision in question must have formed a part of the bill as passed. In disposing of the contention this Court, adopting the opinion prepared by Judge Burke, in -the Court below, said: “The presumption is that this provision was properly stricken out, and that it (the Act) passed the Legislature in the form shown by the enrolled and engrossed bills. This is a strong presumption, and can only be rebutted by clear and satisfactory evidence competent in law for that purpose.” It was held that the ⁵⁶⁴ silence of the journals as to the elimination of the disputed clause was not sufficient to impeach the hill as formerly authenticated. The proposal in the present case is to prove by parol testimony that the provision was stricken from the bill by one of the engrossing clerks after its final passage.

The opinion in the Ridgely case stated that upon the question as to how, when and by whom the language relating to an appeal from the final judgment was eliminated from the bill no definite or satisfactory evidence had been adduced. It is the theory of the present offer that the proposed testimony would supply the deficiency of proof thus indicated. But the rule is well settled in this State that “no statute having the proper forms of authentication can be impeached or questioned upon mere parol evidence.” Berry v. Drum Point Railroad Co., 41 Md. 463 ; Annapolis v. Harwood, 32 Md. 419 ; Ridgely v. Baltimore City, supra. In referring to the absence of evidence as to the actual striking out of the provision under consideration the former opinion made no intimation whatever that such an omission could legally be supplied by parol testimony.

On the contrary it distinctly declared, as already quoted, that the presumption as to the passage of the bill in the form in which it was enrolled could be rebutted only by “evidence competent in law for that purpose,” and the decision gave practical application to the rule we have stated by excluding parol testimony proffered to show that the Legislature had eliminated by amendment another provision of the bill which nevertheless remained in the Act as enrolled. When the formalities which are required by law and established practice for the very purpose of preserving the identity of an Act of the General Assembly appear of record, as in this case, to have been duly observed, the proof of verity thus afforded gives to the enactment such a high degree of authenticity as to properly place it beyond the reach of contradiction which rests