As Amended
SEC. 31-13-5. Determination of validity of bond issues.
When any county, municipality, school district, road district, drainage district, levee district, sea wall district, or
any other district or subdivision authorized to issue bonds shall take steps to issue bonds for any purpose whatever,
the officer or officers of such county, municipality, or district charged by law with the custody of the records of
same shall, if the board issuing same so determine by order entered on its minutes, transmit to said bond attorney a
certified copy of all legal papers pertaining to the issuance of said bonds, including transcripts of records and
ordinances, proof of publication, and tabulation of vote, if any, and any other facts pertaining to said issuance.
Said bond attorney shall thereupon as expeditiously as possible examine said legal papers, pass upon the sufficiency
thereof, and render an opinion in writing, addressed to the board proposing to issue said bonds, as to the validity
of same; and if any further action on the part of said board is necessary or any further data is desired, he shall
indicate what is necessary to be done in the premises in order to make said bonds legal, valid, and binding. When
in his opinion all necessary legal steps have been taken to make the said bond issue legal, valid, and binding, he
shall render a written opinion to that effect and shall transmit all legal papers, together with his opinion, to the
clerk of the chancery court of the county in which the district or municipality proposing to issue said bonds is
situated, or if said district embraces more than one county or parts of more than one county, then to the chancery
clerk of any one of said counties. The chancery clerk shall file the same, enter the same on the docket of the
chancery court, and shall promptly notify the chancellor of the district in writing that said papers are on file and
the cause has been docketed. The chancellor shall then notify the chancery clerk to set the matter for hearing at
some future date, not less than ten days thereafter, and the clerk shall give not less than five days' notice by
making at least one publication in some paper published in the county where the case is docketed, addressed to the
taxpayers of the county, municipality, or district proposing to issue said bonds, advising that the matter will be
heard on the day named. If on the day set for hearing there is no written objection filed by any taxpayer to the
issuance of said bonds, a decree approving the validity of same shall be entered by the chancellor; and if the
chancellor be not present the clerk shall forward him the decree prepared by the state's bond attorney for his
signature, and shall enter the said decree upon his minutes in vacation.
If no written objection is filed to the validation of the bonds, certificates of indebtedness, or other written
obligations which are being validated, by any taxpayer to the issuance of same, then the validation decree shall be
final and forever conclusive from its date, and no appeal whatever shall lie therefrom.
If at the hearing any taxpayer of the county, municipality, or district issuing said bonds appears and files, or has
filed written objection to the issuance of said bonds, then the chancellor, or the chancery clerk if the chancellor be
not present, shall set the case over for another day convenient to the chancellor, not less than ten days thereafter,
and shall notify the bond attorney to appear and attend the hearing. On the hearing the chancellor may hear
additional competent, relevant and material evidence under the rules applicable to such evidence in the chancery
court, so as to inquire into the validity of the bonds or other obligations proposed to be issued, and enter a decree
in accordance with his finding.
Where written objections have been filed to the validation but not otherwise, if either party shall be dissatisfied with
the decree of the chancellor, an appeal shall be granted as in other cases, provided such appeal be prosecuted and
bond filed within twenty days after the chancellor enters his decree. However, no appeal shall lie in any case unless
written objection has been filed to the validation of the bonds or other obligations by the time set for the validation
hearing. The chancery clerk shall certify the record to the supreme court as in other cases, and the supreme court
shall hear the case as a preference case.
SOURCES: Codes, Hemingway's 1921 Supp. Sec. 3812b; 1930, Sec. 313; 1942, Sec. 4314; Laws, 1917, ch. 28; 1922, ch. 252; 1928, ch. 32.