Tolson v. Police Jury

Citations

• 119 La. 215
• 43 So. 1011
• 1907 La. LEXIS 460

Syllabus

<p>1. Police Jury — Railroad Aid — Election-Petition.</p> <p>The police jury is authorized to order an election for voting a tax in aid of a railway enterprise only when thereto petitioned by one-third of the property tax payers entitled to vote at the election. When, therefore, the fact of the petition having been signed by the requisite number of voters is put at issue in a suit contesting the election, the burden of proof lies on the police jury, and is not discharged by proof of a committee having verified the signatures and found a sufficient number. The-signatures themselves must be produced, or their absence supplied, in case of loss, by equivalent evidence.</p> <p>2. Same.</p> <p>What must be mentioned in the petition to the police jury for the holding of an election, to vote a tax in aid of a railway enterprise, under Act No. 202, p. 483, of 1898, is the amount of money to be realized from the tax, and not the rate of the tax. Bennett v. Police Jury, 38-South. 891, 113 La. 69, reaffirmed.</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>Whether a corporation, which in the purposes of its organization is not restricted to a railway enterprise, may lawfully be the beneficiary of a tax under article 270 of the Constitution — qusere. But certainly not without proper restrictions, whereby the aid would be-confined to- the railway enterprise.</p> <p>4. Same — Submission oe Propositions.</p> <p>In voting a tax under article 270 of the-Constitution, the proposition of the particular tax must be submitted singly and on its .own merits to the voters, and not so coupled with. some other proposition that the voters cannot vote upon either proposition singly, but must-vote for, or else against, both.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>