Case ID: ohio-cc-ns_6/html/0271-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNAUTHORIZED CONFESSION OF JUDGMENT BY MUNICIPALITY.
    [Circuit Court of Franklin County.]
    John M. Walcutt v. The City of Columbus.
    
    Decided, February 20, 1905.
    
      Municipal Corporations — Approval of Mayor — Necessary to Resolution Authorising Confession of Judgment — Contracts and Vested Rights Under — Section 1545-91.
    1. A resolution of council, recommending that a compromise be arranged for the settlement for a definite sum of a claim against the city, and authorizing the director of law to confess judgment for that sum if 'the offer of compromise is accepted, falls under the provisions of Section 1545-91, and requires the approval of the mayor.
    2. Where the claim antedates this section, and the city asserts that there is nothing due, and the compromise agreement recites that one consideration therefor on the part of the city was to escape further costs, the plaintiff has no such vested right under his contract as forbids the application of a subsequent act.
    Wallers, J.; Dustin, J., and Sullivan, J., concur.
    Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, Ohio.
    
      
       Affirming Walcutt v. Columbus, 1 N. P.—N. S., 225, which see fer the facts of the case,
    
   The resolutions passed by the city council, April 13, 1903, and April 27, 1903, were of. such character that they fall within the provisions of Section 1545-91, of the Revised Statutes, where it is provided that a resolution “involving the expenditure of money” or “creating a right” “shall before it takes effect be presented duly certified by the clerk to the mayor of the city for approval. ’ ’

E. P. Evans, G. H. Stewart, F. A. Davis and Cyrus Hiding, for plaintiff in error.

James M. Butler, for defendant in error.

These resolutions were not approved by the mayor, and, therefore, never took effect.

The director of law was not bound by any direction to him contained in those resolutions, nor was the court below. It became and was the duty of the director of law, when the motion for judgment, together with the resolutions, were presented to the court, to notify it of the invalidity of such acts upon which the request for judgment was predicated.

Where the contract, out of which the claim arose, was entered into prior to the passage of the act requiring the mayor’s approval', and a dispute arises as to the amount due, the defendant asserting that nothing is due, and- where as part consideration for the -agreement -of compromise it was inserted therein, “that as the ease had already cost the city of Columbus several thousand dollars in costs and attorney’s fees, and if not settled is- likely to cost many thousands of dollars more, ’ ’ the plaintiff has no such vested right under his contract, which forbids the application of the act subsequently passed requiring the mayor’s approval.