Montana Attorney General Opinion 16-212

Opinion No. 212. Counties-Abstract Plant, Lease of- . Lease of Chattels--County Commis- sioners--County Court House--Clerk and Recorder-Rental of Office Space in County Building and Offices. HELD: 1. Where a county owns valuable chattels (an abstract plant) which became useless to the county, and cannot immediately be sold, it is within the power of the board of county commissioners to manage and control such property in such manner as is to the best interests of the county. Such property may be leased. 2. Though it may not be good policy to rent space in the office of the county clerk and recorder, Chapter 100, Laws of 1931, seems to leave such questions of policy to the sound dis- cretion of the board of county com- missioners. December 16, 1935. Mr. Dalton T. Pierson Assistant County Attorney Missoula, Montana In your letter of December 11th you state the following questions: "Question has arisen here as to whether Missoula County may law- fully lease to a private individual, an abstract plant which it owns and has operated for a period of years in connection with the Clerk and Re- corder's office. "A further question is whether, in the event it is lawful for the county to lease said plant, the County Com- missioners may rent space, not otherwise in use, in the office of the Clerk and Recorder, to the party leasing the plant." You say substantially that the ab- stract plant is now of no further use to the county and you refer to the case of State v. Abstractors' Board of Examiners, 99 Mont. 564 and to Chapter 105, Laws of 1931. You say also that the abstract plant has a value of something like $8,000, that 222 PPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL there is apparently no immediate sale for it and that the county is in dan- ger of losing its investment unless it can derive some income from it. You refer also to subdivision 28 of Chapter 100, Laws of 1931. If that subdivision was intended by the legis- lature to apply to ordinary chattels, the wording is unfortunate, because the words "lease and demise," in our opinion, are correctly used only in reference to interests in real estate (2 Bouvier's Law Dictionary (Rawle's Third Revision) 1888; Anderson's Dic- tionary of Law; Abbott's Law Dic- tionary; Strand's Judicial Dictionary; 35 C. J. 1139 et seq.; Section 15 R. C. M. 1921). However, where a county owns val- uable chattels which become useless to the county, and cannot immediately be sold, it is our opinion that it is within the power of the Board of County Commissioners to manage and control such property in such manner as is to the best interests of the coun- ty (Subdivisions 22 and 25, Chapter 100, Laws of 1931). Accordingly, in answer to your first question, we be- lieve that under the circumstances stated in your letter the board may let the abstract plant in question upon such terms and under such con- ditions as in its opinion (subject to the reasonableness of its exercise of discretion) are for the best interests of the county. In answer to your second question, we agree with you that it may not be good policy to rent space in the office of the clerk and recorder; how- ever, subdivision 28 of Chapter 100, Laws of 1931, seems to leave such questions of policy to the sound dis- cretion of the Board of County Com- missioners and as a matter of law we see no reason why such space could not be rented if the board, in the sound exercise of its discretion, so decided. For analogy, suppose that the county, in its court house or other building used for county offices, had an entire vacant room for which it had no use whatever; would not the commissioners, by authority of sub- division 28, above mentioned, be able to rent that room? And if so, would the circumstance of the presence or absence of a partition between that room and the next room, the latter occupied by a county office, change the law? We repeat that we do not here attempt to decide the question of policy.