Case ID: so_169/html/0642-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. ELLIS, P. J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MAY LAND CO. v. CITY OF FORT LAUDERDALE et al.
    Supreme Court of Florida.
    Aug. 3, 1936.
    J. H. Lathero, of Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
    George W. English, Jr., of Fort Lauder-dale, for appellees.
   PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from a decree dismissing a bill of complaint seeking to enjoin the issue of $23,000 of waterworks revenue certificates by the city of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for the purpose of making improvements to the waterworks system of the city without an approving vote of the freeholder electors of the city as required by section 6, article 9 of the Constitution of Florida, as amended in 1930.

An injunction is sought notwithstanding the allegation that the certificates have been validated by judicial decree. See Williams v. Town of Dunnellon (Fla.) 169 So. 631, decided at this term; Weinberger v. Board of Public Instruction, 93 Fla. 470, 112 So. 253; Boykin v. Town of River Junction (Fla.) 169 So. 492, filed this term.

In addition to allegations that the proposed “Waterworks Revenue Certificates” violate amended section 6, article 9, Constitution, the bill of complaint, referring to a prior validating decree, contains the following:

“That the said City of Fort Lauderdale on the-day of February, 1936, filed in the Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit of the State of Florida in and for Broward County, a petition for the validation of the waterworks revenue certificate' hereinbefore referred to, that said cause is chancery case 7337, reference to which is hereby expressly made as often as the same may be necessary; that in and by said proceedings the said city of Fort Lauder-dale attempted to validate said waterworks certificate, and plaintiff alleges that the court in entering its decree did so without authority, in that proper notice had not been given to the tax payers of the city of Fort Lauderdale as required by law, that the notice to tax payers was published in the Fort Lauderdale Daily News, a newspaper of general circulation in Brow-ard County, Florida, on the following dates: February 21, 28, March 5, and 12, all in 1936.
“Plaintiff alleges that the publication of the notice to the tax payers of-said city is not in compliance with law, and consequently the decree entered in said cause is void and of no effect.”

It is not made to appear by such quoted allegations that the circuit court entered its validating decree “without authority, in that proper notice had not been given to the taxpayers of the city of Fort Lauderdale, as required by law”; and it,is not shown that the said validating decree “is void and of no effect.”

As the waterworks revenue certificates proposed to be issued in this case are for the purpose of improving- an ex-, isting waterworks system that is irrfmedi-ately essential to th.e health and economic, security of the city, and as the certificates are to be paid solely from their receipts from the operation of the waterworks system, the decree dismissing the bill seeking an injunction against the issue of the waterworks revenue certificates should, as to their validity under amended section 6, article 9, Constitution, be affirmed on the authority of State ex rel. v. City of Miami, 113 Fla. 280, 152 So. 6, and other like cases. See, also, Williams v. Town of Dunnellon (Fla.) 169 So. 631, decided at this term.

Affirmed.

WHITFIELD, C. J., and TERRELL, BROWN, BUFORD, and DAVIS, JJ., concur.

ELLIS, P. J.,

concurs upon the principle announced in his specially concurring opinion in the case of State ex rel. City of Vero Beach v. MacConnell (Fla.) 169 So. 628, this day filed.