Marquette v. County of Berks

Citations

• 3 Pa. Super. 36
• 1896 Pa. Super. LEXIS 101

Syllabus

<p>Public officers — Assessors—Compensation of.</p> <p>By the act of March 9, 1865, P. L. 290, assessors in the county of Berks are entitled to receive as compensation $2.50 per day for each and every day actually engaged in the discharge of their duty.</p> <p>By a proper construction of the acts of assembly on the subject the duties of such assessors begin when they receive their precepts to assess and end on the return of the assessment within sixty days thereafter. An assessor can claim no compensation for the performance of any other service nor for anything done by him at other times by way of preparing himself for the performance of his duties nor for the employment, in the performance of the latter, of any number of days in excess of that allowed therefor.</p> <p>Statutes — Construction of — Acts of 1865 and 1887 — Assessors.</p> <p>The act of 1865, P. L. 290, must be construed as a part of the system created by the then existing laws, and must be construed .in the light of the rule requiring statutes to be so interpreted as to restrict their effect to their scope and object and to avoid any change in existing law beyond what is necessary to serve these, and this construction forbids the assumption that compensation was to be given to assessors for anything for which they were not entitled to compensation under the previous statutes. For the same reasons it follows that the act of May 24, 1887, P. L. 195, specifically amending sec. 89 of the act of 1834, cannot be held to have any possible effect on the act of 1865, nor be treated as affecting the limitation established by previous statutes as to returns of assessments.</p> <p>Words and phrases — Days.</p> <p>Where the law provides that an assessment must be completed in sixty days and allows a per diem compensation and fixes no number of hours to be given to the work, it means sixty days of twenty-four hours each. There is no authority to allow the assessor extra pay for the excess over so many hours employe