U.S. Supreme Court STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, FOR USE OF ROBERTSON v. MILLER, 276 U.S. 174 (1928)

[Page 276 U.S. 174, 179]

future the duties to be performed by, or the salaries or other compensation to be paid to, them. Butler v. Pennsylvania, 10 How. 402. But, after services have been rendered by a public officer under a law specifying his compensation, there arises an implied contract under which he is entitled to have the amount so fixed. And the constitutional protection extends to such contracts just as it does to those specifically expressed. The selection of plaintiff to be the revenue agent amounted to a request or direction by the state that he exert the authority and discharge all the duties of that office. In the performance of services so required of him plaintiff made the investigations and brought the suits to discover and collect the delinquent taxes. Under the statutes then in force as construed by the highest court of the state, he thereupon became entitled to the specified percentages of the amounts subsequently collected on account of the taxes sued for. The retroactive application of chapter 170 would take from him a part of the amount that he had theretofore earned. That would impair the obligation of the implied contract under which he became entitled to the commissions. This case is ruled by Fisk v. Jefferson Police Jury, 116 U.S. 131, 6 S. Ct. 329.

Judgment reversed.