Case ID: wright_1/html/0780-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WRIGHT, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

DOANE v. TREASURER OF PICKAWAY, AND TOWN OF CIRCLEVILLE.
    Donations to public works — injunction—demurrer—want of equity.
    Where one subscribes for a public work, to be conducted by trustees, and lies by until they comple te the work, it is no defence against paying the money, that the trustees changed their plan of expenditure and the work is of no benefit.
    Chancery. The complainant subscribed one hundred dollars to the canal fund in 1828. In 1829 the legislature appropriated the subscription to the treasurer of Pickaway county, to erect a free bridge across the Scioto river. The county commissioners neglected to collect the subscriptions and build the bridge. In 1831, the legislature appropriated the subscription for a bridge and road, to be collected and expended under the direction of the town council of Circleville. The council compromised with the subscribers, by agreeing to take one-half of the subscription at a future day, and under this agreement Doane confessed a judgment, to be paid at the stipulated time, and was discharged from the other part of the subscription. He now alleges the agreement to compromise, and the judgment were nude pacts, and inoperative — that the town council have changed the plan and place of erecting the bridge, so as to make it a nuisance, injurious to the complainant, and unjustly sued out process to revive their judgment to obtain execution, on which the justice gave judgment against the complainant; he appealed to the Common Pleas, and succeeded in dismissing the process, and they now threaten execution on the original judgment. On these premises he prays to enjoin the judgment. The defendants demur for want of equity on the face of the bill.
    
      Olds for the defendants.
    
      Doane in person.
   WRIGHT, J.

The case made is not one calling for our interference. The complainant by compromise obtained a discharge of one-753] *half of his obligation, and voluntarily confessed a judgment for the balance. The money was to be appropriated to a public work, which has been done; but the complainant alleges that those superintending the expenditure have changed their plan, and the work they have erected is a nuisance instead of a benefit. If the trustees of the fund were misapplying it, he should have restrained when he first discovered it, and not lain by until they had expended the money, and then seek to prevent their collections. There is no equity in the bill, and the demurrer is allowed.