North Dakota AG Opinions, 1944

OPINION 44-111 June 13, 1944 (OPINION) TAXATION RE: State owned property Your letter of June 7 addressed to the Attorney General, relative to the above-entitled matter, has been received and same has had our consideration. Section 176 of the Constitution, as amended, provides specifically that "The property of the United States and of the state, county, and municipal corporations and property used exclusively for schools, religious, cemetery, charitable, or other public purposes shall be exempt from taxation." Chapters 191 and 193 of the Session Laws of 1933 provide specifically that

OPINION 44-55 May 17, 1944 (OPINION) GAME AND FISH RE: Trapping This is in reply to your letter of May twelfth addressed to the Attorney General and which letter has been referred to the undersigned for attention and reply. Your ask whether or not a trapper employed and paid by the county may collect a bounty on foxes and coyotes. Your question is answered by Section 2 of Senate Bill No. 1 passed by the recent Special Session of the Legislature. It provides that: "hunters and trappers employed under the provisions of this Act shall be residents of the state of North Dakota but shall

OPINION 44-90 May 4, 1944 (OPINION) SCHOOL BOARDS RE: Contracts Your letter of May 4rd addressed to the Attorney General has been received and contents of same have been noted. The question you present is whether or not a member of the board of education of a special school district, who is engaged in the hardware and lumber business, may sell to the school district such supplies as are in daily use in light of sections 1246 and 1349 of the Compiled Laws for 1913. These sections read as follows: "Section 1246. Compensation of Members. Must not be Interested in Contracts.) Each

OPINION 44-41 April 26, 1944(OPINION) COUNTIES RE: Judgments Against Not Lien on County Lands Mr. R.B. McDonald is in the office and he advises that an abstract of title involving county land shows a judgment in favor of the state and against Sioux County on account of institutional care. This is to advise that a judgment in favor of the state and against the county is not and cannot constitute a lien against land or other property owned by the county. Chapter 133 of the 1941 Session Laws which makes provision for procuring judgments against counties for institutional care provides spe

OPINION 44-29 April 25, 1944 (OPINION) BANKS RE: Joint Deposits Right of Survivorship This is in reply to your letter relative to the right and liability of banks with reference to payments to survivors of deposits in joint accounts with right of survivorship. Joint tenancies are recognized by statute in the State of North Dakota. Section 5262 of the Compiled Laws of North Dakota for 1913 provides that: "A joint interest is one owned by several persons in equal shares by a title created by a single will or transfer, when expressly declared in the will or transfer to be a joint tenan

OPINION 44-100 April 25, 1944 (OPINION) SCHOOL DISTRICTS RE: Tuition Annexation Your letter of April 15 addressed to the Attorney General has been received and contents of same have been noted. With reference to tuition of pupils in the grades, I beg to advise that there is no statute on same, and the school board has the right to fix the amount of the tuition to be paid by pupils from other districts. With reference to annexation of school districts, I beg to advise that the procedure in such matters is governed by statute. If you plan on annexing another or a portion of another sc

OPINION 44-42 April 22, 1944(OPINION) COUNTY COMMISSIONERS RE: May Not Appoint Themselves Tax Collectors Your letter of April nineteenth addressed to the attorney general has been referred to the undersigned for attention and reply. You state that it has come to your attention in one county of the state that the board of county commissioners have appointed one of their own number as tax collector for a city located in the county with compensation fixed at $150.00 per month less compensation otherwise payable as a member of the county commissioners. According to the record of the board

OPINION 44-63 April 19, 1944 (OPINION) LICENSES RE: Liquor This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of April 10, 1944, regarding the issuance of wholesale liquor licenses by cities. You state that the city of Grand Forks issues a wholesale license for five hundred dollars for the sale only of strong beer and ale, and a general wholesale liquor license for one thousand dollars which permits the sale of all kinds of liquor and strong beer. In reply I wish to state that there is nothing in the North Dakota state laws which gives municipalities the right to issue the two licenses ref

OPINION 44-87 April 18, 1944 (OPINION) SALE OF COUNTY LANDS RE: Tax Deed Proceedings Your letter of April 15th addressed to the Attorney General has been received and contents of same have been noted. You state that in view of chapter 121 Session Laws 1943 fixing the rights of purchasers of county tax deed lands in the crops, it becomes important to determine when farm lands are sold; that is, whether the sale is made at the time the purchaser and county auditor reach an agreement and the money is paid, or on the expiration of the 30-day period granted to the original owner or his succ

OPINION 44-45 April 18, 1944(OPINION) CREDIT AND LOAN COMPANIES RE: Outside State I have your letter of April 17, in which you request to be advised what state office has jurisdiction of out-of-state loan companies doing business in North Dakota. If these out-of- the-state loan companies do their business by mail and negotiate for loans by mail, so that the contract is actually entered into outside of the state, then there is no agency in the State of North Dakota that would have jurisdiction over such a contract. It would be a contract of the state, in which the contract was completed,

OPINION 44-79 April 8, 1944 (OPINION) PAROLES RE: Authority to Grant This is in reply to your recent letter submitting the following questions. I shall consider your questions in the order in which they appear: 1. Does the Superintendent of the School have authority to: (a) Discharge inmates? Refuse to discharge when request is made? (b) Parole inmates, and what authority or supervision does he have over parolees? (c) What authority to revoke parole? Under the provisions of section 2553 of the Compiled Laws as amended by chapter 142 of the Session Laws of 1937, it is th

OPINION 44-16 April 3, 1944 (OPINION) APPROPRIATION RE: Board of Higher Education I have your letter of March 27, in which you inquire whether the State Board of Higher Education has authority to increase the salary of a college president in excess of the amount appropriated by the 1943 Legislative Assembly. The appropriations for all of the schools of higher education in the state contain specific items for president's salary. That appropriation is in a definite and specific amount. Those appropriations, however, were passed in view of the existing provisions of section 283c2 of the 19

OPINION 44-102 April 3, 1944 (OPINION) SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS RE: Bond issues Your letter of March 30, addressed to the Attorney General, was duly received, and as Mr. Strutz was to be out of town, he turned the letter over to me for reply. I understand from your letter that your bond issue of $16,000.00, made in 1941, was made for the purpose of funding outstanding certificates of indebtedness. The law under which these funding bonds were issued, I presume, was chapter 105 of the Laws of 1935, later amended as to the time within which bonds could be issued. This law required,

OPINION 44-23 March 31, 1944 (OPINION) APPROPRIATION RE: Highways I have your letter of March 11, making several inquiries with reference to the provisions of chapter 64 of the 1943 Session Laws. You inquire whether the three percent additional appropriation, provided for in section 2 of that chapter, is intended to cover only funds expended currently within the biennial period. You are advised that it is our opinion that the three percent additional appropriation for operating expense out of the Construction Fund covers only funds expended during the biennial period. The three

OPINION 44-88 March 30, 1944 (OPINION) SALES TAX RE: Property Subject to I have your letter of March 8, in which you inquire whether gross receipt, taken in from bowling and billiards, are subject to the two percent sales tax. Section 2 of chapter 264 of the 1943 Session Laws, which is the Sales Tax Act, provides among other things: "And a like rate of tax upon the gross receipts from all sales of tickets or admissions to places of amusement and athletic events. . . ." The section above- referred to provides for a two percent tax upon such gross receipts. A careful reading of the pr

OPINION 44-66 March 29, 1944 (OPINION) LIQUOR RE: Prohibiting Sale to Minors Answering your inquiry, with reference to the validity of an ordinance passed by a city, which would prohibit the sale of intoxicating beverages to all persons under the age of twenty-one years, you are advised that in my opinion such enforcement is a reasonable regulation of the retail sale of intoxicating beverages and valid. This office has held on many occasions that, while the various municipalities may not lower the age fixed by state law, which prohibits the sale of both beer and hard liquor to minors,

OPINION 44-51 March 27, 1944 (OPINION) ELECTIONS RE: Soldiers Votes Your letter of March 27th addressed to the Attorney General has been received and contents of same have been noted. You state that the Legislature is contemplating legislation which permits absent voters ballots to be voted overseas and mailed back to the election officials in this state. Assuming that this is done, and further assuming that such ballots would be opened for censorship purposes, could the election officials count such ballots or would it be a violation or secrecy of the ballot to permit their use? The

OPINION 44-77 March 20, 1944 (OPINION) OFFICES RE: Incompatibility I have your letter of March 8, advising that your mayor left the city to join the Navy last October, and did not resign as mayor, and you would like to know whether you can elect a mayor to take his place at the coming spring election. We have received similar requests from several other persons, raising almost identical questions. Section 51 of chapter 221 of the 1941 Session Laws provides that any officer of a municipality, who is inducted into federal service, shall when ordered by proper authority to active non-ci

OPINION 44-53 March 11, 1944(OPINION) ELECTIONS RE: Time I have your inquiry of March 10, in which you request our opinion as to whether the time for holding elections under various statutes is to be Mountain war time or Central war time. You point out that some of the cities in the eastern part of the state are operating under the old time and have not adopted the time which the Legislative Assembly fixed by statute at its last session. In my opinion, the legal time in North Dakota is the time fixed by the Legislative Assembly. Where time for holding an election is fixed by law, the tim

OPINION 44-64 March 10, 1944 (OPINION) LIQUOR DEALERS RE: Liquor Dealers I have your letter of March seventh, in which you inquire whether a liquor dealer, who holds an off and on sale license, can legally refuse to sell a customer liquor by the bottle. The holder of a liquor license cannot be compelled to sell liquor to anyone. The courts have held time and time again that there is no inherent right in a citizen to sell intoxicating liquor. If there is no inherent right to sell, then we do not believe there is any inherent right to buy liquor. The sale of intoxicating liquors is a

OPINION 44-33 March 10, 1944(OPINION) BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION RE: Executive Secretary - duties Your letter of March ninth addressed to the Attorney General has been received and contents of same have been noted. Your inquiry relates to Public Law 113, 78 Congress, approved July 6, 1943, and which is an amendment to House Resolution 4438, approved June 2, 1920, and is "An Act to provide for the promotion of Vocational Rehabilitation of persons disabled in industry or otherwise and their return to civil employment." The Federal Office of Vocational Rehabilitation has promulgated certain

OPINION 44-75 March 7, 1944 (OPINION) MUNICIPAL OFFICERS RE: Cannot issue Liquor Licenses to Themselves Answering your inquiry as to whether a member of the city council can legally be granted a liquor license by the state, let me say that there is no provision in the liquor or beer acts, which prohibits a members of the city council from being the holder of a liquor or beer license. Neither is there any provision which prohibits a liquor or beer dealer from serving on the city council. Furthermore, a license has been held to be merely a permit of privilege to do certain things and is n

OPINION 44-23 January 29, 1944 (OPINION) APPROPRIATIONS RE: Game and Fish We have your letter of January eighteenth in which you inquire whether or not you can spend more than three-fourths of the $25,000.00 item appropriated to match federal funds, for projects undertaken by your department in connection with the federal aid to wildlife act, or whether or not you must retain twenty-five percent of this appropriation until the last quarter of the biennium, under Chapter 22, Session Laws of 1941. The $25,000.00 appropriation is contained as one of the items in Chapter 22 of the Session

OPINION 44-109 February 21, 1944 (OPINION) TAXATION RE: Farm Property situated in cities and villages You submit the following question upon which you desire an opinion from this office. There is a certain tract of land in the northeast part of Grafton and within the city limits, not platted but adjoining platted land, comprising 9.40 acres. In one corner of the tract are located a dwelling and some other buildings used as farm structures. For forty years or more, the tract has been owned by one family and operated as a vegetable truck farm, and has been the means of supporting a l

OPINION 44-85 February 9, 1944 (OPINION) RESIDENCE RE: Desertion Your letter of February fifth addressed to the Attorney General has been referred to the undersigned for attention and reply. You state that a husband and wife and their children were living in the state of Minnesota. They decided to go their own way. I presume that they decided to separate. The wife came to Grand Forks with the children with the knowledge and consent of the husband. She has been living in Grand Forks about two years. The husband went to Nebraska and is employed in a position with good pay. He has n

OPINION 44-110 February 8, 1944 (OPINION) TAXATION RE: Nonprofit Co-ops Your letter of February fourth addressed to the Attorney General has been received, in which you ask for our construction of chapter 266 of the Session Laws of 1943, classifying personal property of rural electric cooperatives for the purpose of taxation. Section 1 of said Act provides that: "The property of nonprofit cooperative corporations engaged in the distribution, transmission and/or generation of electrical energy for consumption in rural areas is hereby expressly

OPINION 44-34 February 4, 1944(OPINION) CAPITOL BUILDING RE: Office Room You state that due to the requests which come to the Board of Administration from time to time for space in the Capitol Building, the members of the Board have for some time had under consideration the making of a survey to ascertain whether some departments have space which could be used by other departments which are short of space. You are, therefore, asking an opinion from this office as to what authority, if any, the Board of Administration has to allocate space in the Capitol Building, among the various Stat

OPINION 44-72 January 22, 1944(OPINION) MEMBERS OF LEGISLATURE RE: Eligibility to other offices I have your letter of January 21, relative to the eligibility of members of the last session of the Legislative Assembly to state or county office, and also inquiring as to their eligibility to be elected as members of the Legislative Assembly at the coming election. The attorney general and his assistants are limited in their authority to give legal opinions to rendering such opinions to state officials, to state's attorneys and to members of the Legislative Assembly. However, since the que

OPINION 44-68 January 11, 1944 (OPINION) LOTTERIES RE: Lotteries I have your letter of January 4, in regard to "Bank Night" and have read the same carefully. Bank night, as it is usually conducted, consists of the drawing of numbers on a day certain, and the holder of the lucky number is awarded a prize. All persons, who purchase tickets to the theater at the regular price, not greater than is charged on other nights when bank night is not conducted, are eligible to sign their names in a register, which is usually kept in the lobby of the theater. Such register is also placed in th