State ex rel. Wilder v. Board of Liquidation

Citations

• 51 La. Ann. 1849
• 26 So. 679
• 1899 La. LEXIS 642

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>3. It by no means follows that a Board which owes its existence to statute authority and lias its powers and duties defined thereby, should he uuder a continuing liability to hare its future conduct and duties controlled by the same authority. This question lias to he determined in each case by the nature and character of the duties cast upon the Board, the rights of third parties which may have resulted from an acceptance of the trust and the duty and liability of the Board itself and its members as resulting from tlie same fact. The Board of Liquidation of the City Debt and the Drainage Commissioners of the City of New Orleans are legally justified in testing‘tlie Constitutionality of Articles 313, 31G and 317 of the Constitution oí 1S9S as impairing the obligation of contracts.</p> <p>The surplus of the one per cent, tax in New Orleans set aside for permanent public improvements by Act 130 of 1800, and the Constitutional amendment of 1S92, is the surplus which may remain after applying the tax collected to the satisfaction of the debts and claims therein specially enumerated as those which were to be provided for through the tax.</p> <p>3- Tlie unpaid salaries for the years 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883 and 188-1 of teachers in the public schools in New Orleans under contracts with the City School Board of that city, were not debts of that city, and were not intended to fall under the provisions of the funding law of 1S90, and the Constitutional amendment of 1802. They only became obligations of the city by the latter's assumption of them under the Constitutional amendment.</p> <p>The Constitutional Convention liad the power to have those claims paid through the one per cent, tax, hut only subordinately to the rights upon the tax in favor of creditors holding contract rights at tlie date of the adoption of the Constitution.</p> <p>These rights could not constitutionally he impaired.</p>