County Commissioners v. King

Citations

• 13 Fla. 451

Syllabus

<p>1. Where a duty is imperatively required by law to be performed by ministerial officers, as the levying of a specific tax, no demand is necessary to lay the foundation of an application for a writ of mandamus to enforce it.</p> <p>2. The 22d section of the act known as the Internal Improvement Act authorized Boards of County Commissioners to subscribe for stock in railroad companies, and to issue bonds, bearing interest, for the purpose of paying the subscription, and requires the commissioners to levy an annual tax to meet the interest as it becomes due. The county of Columbia, in 1855, subscribed for such stock, and issued its bonds. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court of the State, in a case before it involving the validity of the law, pronounced it constitutional, and the county continued the issuing of its bonds until the whole amount authorized was issued: Held, That upon /application for a writ of mandamus against the commissioners to compel the levy of a tax to pay the interest, by a bona fide holder of coupons representing the interest due upon these bonds, they having been issued under the sanction of the highest judicial author!ly^bf the Slate, and the acquiescence of the people of the county, it is too hito to question the constitutionality of the law and tlie validity of tlie bonds in the hands of a bona fide holder, and that a judgment of the court now, declaring the law unconstitutional, would not affect the bonds heretofore so issued, but would operate only upon the future.</p> <p>3. The compounding of interest is not usmious under the laws of this State, which limited the rate of interest.</p> <p>4. Coupons representing the interest of county bonds were issued by the County Commissioners, signed “ S. L. Niblack,” without an official designation, but it appearing that they were in fact regularly issued: Held, that tlie county was liable upon them.</p> <p>5. Mandamus is the proper, because the only efficient remedy to enforce the collection of taxes