Painter v. Mattfeldt

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The General Assembly of Maryland, at its session of 1912, passed an Act for the construction of an improved system of public roads and bridges in Baltimore county. This Act is Chapter 345 of the Acts of 1912. It provided, among other things for a bond issue of one million five hundred thousand dollars to be a lien upon the assessable property of the county.

The County Commissioners were empowered and directed by the Act to borrow on the credit of the county that sum of money, and as evidence of such loan to issue coupon bonds to the amount of the loan, which bonds should be signed by the President of the Board of County» Commissioners of Baltimore County and by the treasurer of said county, and sealed with the corporate seal of the County Commissioners, and to be known as “Baltimore County Road Bonds” and to be numbered and issued in denominations of one thousand dollars each, and to be forever exempt from all county and municipal taxes of and in Baltimore county. The Act contained minute directions as to the issuance of the bonds. It provided that Bonds Nos. 1 to 300, inclusive, should be issued and dated July 1, 1912; bonds Nos. 301 to 600, inclusive, July 1, 1913; bonds Nos. 601 to 900, inclusive, July 1, 1914; bonds Nos. 901 to 1200, inclusive, July 1, 1915; and bonds Nos. 1201 to 1500, inclusive, July 1, 1916. Each issue was to be for three hundred thousand dollars, and the bonds were to bear interest at 4% per cent, per annum.

The bonds were to be so issued that one hundred thereof,— representing one hundred thousand dollars of the bonded debt, — should become due and payable in each year. When the bonds were properly prepared and executed, the County Commissioners were directed to advertise the same for sale, and invite sealed proposals for their purchase. The ⁴⁶⁹ money arising from the sale of the bonds was directed to he kept as a separate fund by the Treasurer of Baltimore County, and to he deposited in such hank or hanking institution as should be designated in writing by “The Good Roads Commission of Baltimore County,” a body created by the Act, and all taxes levied and collected for the payment of interest and principal of the bonds were likewise to he kept in a separate fund by the treasurer. The County Commissioners were directed to levy annually upon the assessable property of Baltimore county a tax sufficient to pay the interest on the bonds, and were further directed to levy a tax sufficient to pay the principal of said bonds as they should respectively mature and fall due.

For the purpose of meeting the preliminary expenses of the Good" Roads Commission, the County Commissioners were directed, immediately upon the passage of the Act, to borrow the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, which sum was to be turned over to the County Treasurer, and placed by him to the credit of the Good Roads Commission. It was provided that the sum so borrowed should be paid out of the proceeds of the first sale of bonds. Baltimore county is divided into fifteen election districts, and by section 3 of the Act it was provided that the Good Roads Commission, which was charged with the duty of the road construction, etc., provided for in the Act “shall expend out of the funds raised by the sale of the bonds, hereinafter provided for in this Act, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00) for erecting, constructing and improving roads and bridges in each election district of Baltimore county Charles L. Mattfeldt and William F. Coghlan, two members of the Board of County Commissioners of Baltimore County, against the protest and without the consent of Henry P. Mann, the only other member of the board, acting in pursuance of the directions of said Act, advertised in two weekly newspapers published in Baltimore county inviting proposals for the first issue of bonds directed to be issued by ⁴⁷⁰ the Act to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars, and declared their intention to issue and sell the said bonds as soon as they could find a purchaser therefor, and they were further incurring expenses, to be paid out of the public funds of Baltimore county, in and about the preparation and advertising of said bonds. On the fifth day of September, 1912, the appellants, who are taxpayers and residents of Baltimore county, filed their bill of complaint, which is strictly a taxpayers’ bill, against Charles L. Mattfeldt, Henry P. Mann and William E. Coghlan, the County Commissioners of Baltimore County, in which they assail the constitutionality of the Act of 1912, and prayed that a preliminary and perpetual injunction be issued restraining the defendants from doing any act or thing under the provisions of the said Act, and from selling, issuing, advertising for sale or in any manner offering for sale under the provisions of said Act any bond or bonds; and from pledging or attempting to pledge any of the assessable property of Baltimore county for the payment of the said bonds or any interest thereon; and from expending any money or funds of the taxpayers’ of Baltimore county in the preparation, advertising, or sale of said bonds.

The defendants demurred to the whole bill and to each paragraph thereof, and assigned as the ground for demurrer, that the plaintiffs had not stated in their bill of complaint such a case as entitled them to any relief in equity. The Court, by its order of September 11th, 1912, sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill, with costs to the defendants, and from this order the plaintiffs have prosecuted this appeal. A moment’s reflection will demonstrate how deeply concerned are the taxpayers of Baltimore county in the execution of the provisions of this Act. It inaugurates a gigantic system of road and bridge construction in that county.

It provides that a vast sum of money shall be raised by public taxation for the completion of that system. The extent of this work and the method by which it is to be accomplished ⁴⁷¹ is most unusual. Nothing of the kind has ever heretofore been attempted by any county in this State. The law in its general features, especially in those provisions which grant powers to the Good Roads Commission to appoint employees, assistants, workmen, buy machinery and to make contracts appears to have been modeled upon the Act which created the State Roads Commission.

If this Act were carried into effect the taxpayers of the county would certainly be obliged to pay one million nine hundred and five, thousand dollars;— one million five hundred thousand principal and four hundred and five thousand dollars interest on the bonds. If it be assumed that the taxable basis of the county were as much as one hundred and sixteen millions of dollars, it would mean an increase for practically the whole life of the bond issue, viz, fifteen years, of eleven cents annually in the tax rate. How much more in excess of this great sum the property owners would be obliged to pay, if this scheme of legislation is valid, no one can say. But that the work would entail great additional burdens and subject the county to obligations and expense in excess of the bond indebtedness is certain!

This will appear when the provisions of the Act are examined. If, therefore, the Act be invalid there can be no question as to the power and duty of a Court of Equity, at the suit of a taxpayer, to grant the relief prayed for in the bill, because the acts therein complained of would be ultra vires and greatly injurious to the plaintiffs as taxpayers. The power of a Court of Equity, under such circumstances, to interfere at the suit of a taxpayer, and arrest the unauthorized acts of a municipal corporation has been settled in a long line of decisions of this Court. It was definitely settled in Baltimore v. Gill, 31 Md. 375 , and the principles there announced have never been departed from in this State.

The bill assails the validity of the Act upon ten distinct grounds. In the view we have taken of the Act only one of these grounds need be considered. Whether or not the Act is unconstitutional depends of course upon its provisions, which we shall presently examine. ⁴⁷² Before doing so, however, we shall state some general principles which the Court must observe and be guided by in passing upon the constitutionality of an Act of the General Assembly. First. — Every presumption favors the validity of the statute ; it cannot be stricken down as void unless it plainly contravenes some provision of the Constitution; a reasonable doubt as to its constitutionality is sufficient to sustain it, and the party assailing the Act must point out the special provision of the Constitution to which it is obnoxious. “Plenary power in the Legislature for all purposes of civil government is the rule.

A prohibition to exercise a particular power is an exception.” People v. Draper, 15 N. Y. 543 ; Lewis’ App. 67 Pa. St. 153. The general rule upon this subject is, that, except where the State or Eederal Constitution has imposed limits upon the legislative power, it must be considered as practically unlimited; but this broad power appears to be subject in this State to some qualifications. Regents, etc., v. Williams, 9 G. & J. 408 ; Baltimore v. State, 15 Md. 469 . 469.

Second. — The Constitution apportions the powers of government; but does not make any one of the three departments subordinate to the other, when exercising the trust committed to it. The Court may declare legislative enactments unconstitutional and void in some cases; but not because the judicial power is superior in degree or dignity to the legislative. Being required to declare what the law is in the cases which come before them, they must enforce the Constitution as the paramount law, whenever a legislative enactment comes in conflict with it. Cooley on Con.

Lim., 3 ed., 175; or, as said by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 49 : “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the opposition of each. ⁴⁷³ So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution ;• if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution; or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary Act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary Act, must govern the case to which they both apply. Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in Court as the paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining the Court must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law. This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written Constitutions. It would declare that an Act, which according to the principles and theory of our government is entirely void, is yet in practice completely obligatory.

It would declare, that, if the Legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, not withstanding the expressed prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the Legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breadth which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may he passed at pleasure.” Third. — The Court will not declare an Act unconstitutional, because it is unwise or inexpedient, nor will it strike it down, because it will operate harshly upon persons affected by it. These are matters committed to the judgment of the law making power.

They are purely political, and are not reviewable by the Court. Fourth. — Section 29, Article 3 of the Constitution is mandatory; but the general disposition of the Court has been to give the section a liberal construction, so as not to interfere with or impede legislative action. The purposes of this provision of the Constitution are “to prevent the Legislature ⁴⁷⁴ from the enactment of laws surreptitiously; to prevent ‘Log rolling’ legislation; to give the people general notice of the character of the proposed legislation; so they may not he misled; to give all interested an opportunity to appear before committees of the Legislature and to he heard upon the advisability of the proposed legislation; to advise members of the character of the proposed legislation, and to give each an opportunity to intelligently watch the course of the proposed bill; to guard against fraud in