Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/206/496/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:08:01+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 206 › Vicksburg v. Vicksburg Waterworks Co.
A decree must be read in the light of the issues involved in the pleadings and the relief sought, and a decree in a suit brought by a water company against a municipality to enjoin it from regulating rates does not finally dispose of the right of the city to regulate rates under a law passed after the contract went into effect and after the bill was filed.
A state may, in matters of proprietary rights, exclude itself and authorize its municipal corporations to exclude themselves from the right of regulation of such matters as water rates.
of the city for a limited period, which, in the absence of fraud or convention, will be beyond legislative or municipal power to alter to the prejudice of the other contracting party under the impairment of obligation clause of the federal Constitution.
Cases involving the rights of the Vicksburg Waterworks Company, under the contract made between the City of Vicksburg and the company, for furnishing the water supply of the city, have been before this Court in two preceding actions, viz., Vicksburg Waterworks Co. v. Vicksburg, 185 U. S. 65, and Same v. Same, 202 U. S. 453.
Owing to the previous statements of the case, it is only necessary to set out enough of the facts involved in the controversy now before us to make plain the conclusions at which we arrive.
"to provide for the erection and maintenance of a system of waterworks to supply said city with water, and to that end to contract with a party or parties, who shall build and operate waterworks."
"The said Samuel R. Bullock & Company, their associates, successors, or assigns, shall have the right to make all needful rules and regulations governing the consumption of water, the tapping of pipes, and general operation of the works, and to make such rates and charges for the use of said water as they may determine, provided that such rates and charges shall not exceed 50 cents for each thousand gallons of water."
and it was duly accepted by that company. The supply company put in the works and operated until August, 1900, when the mortgage upon the property, including all the franchises and contract rights, was foreclosed and purchased by a Mr. Crumpler, who assigned all his rights and title to the Vicksburg Waterworks Company, the appellee herein, which company has operated the works since.
The contract contained an agreement to pay a stipulated rental for certain hydrants for public use.
The Legislature of Mississippi, on March 18, 1900, passed an act authorizing the city to issue bonds and build a waterworks system of its own for the supply of the city and its inhabitants, and on the third of July, 1900, an election was held in the city under the statute, which resulted in a vote to build or buy a waterworks plant of its own.
"The bill prays for an injunction to restrain the defendant from assuming to abrogate and take away the franchises and contract rights of the complainant, and from attempting to coerce the company to sell its works to the defendant for an inadequate price, and that said act of the Legislature of Mississippi, adopted on March 9, 1900, and said resolution and ordinance adopted and passed by said city on the seventh day of November, 1900, be declared to impair the obligations of said contract between said city and said Bullock & Company and their assigns, and to cast a cloud upon the title, franchises, and rights of complainant, and said act, ordinance, and resolution, and each of them, are alleged to be in contravention of the Constitution of the United States in this: that they impair the obligations of said contract between said city and said Bullick & Company and their assigns. "
On April 20, 1904, about one month before the rendition of the final decree in the original case, the city adopted two ordinances fixing the maximum charge for the use of water, one by what is known as the "flat rate" and the other for water measured by meters.
On December 7, 1903, the city passed an ordinance prohibiting the water company and gas company from charging damages and other penalties for failure to pay bills, until ten days after presenting the same, and giving an opportunity for the payment thereof.
From this decree the present appeal has been prosecuted.
It is contended on behalf of the appellee that the original decree of May 18, 1904, finally disposed of all the issues between the parties, including the right of the city to make rates for water consumption to private consumers under the authority of the Act of March 19, 1904, and that the present controversy is foreclosed by the decree in the former case.
"that no such contract would now be made with the Vicksburg Waterworks Company or any other company; that the rates authorized in said ordinance far exceeded the rates charged in other cities under like circumstances, and, in general terms,"
the city denied that it was bound to the complainant by contract; "that, for the many reasons therein set forth, no liability existed on the part of the city by reason of the contract."
An examination of the record in the former case shows that the only testimony taken in the case as to the reasonableness of the rates charged to private consumers was on behalf of the company, and tended to show that the rates charged were reasonable, and if it could be said that the pleadings put in issue the reasonableness of the rates then charged, was the right of the city to regulate rates under a subsequent law of the state necessarily involved and concluded? The determination of issues as to the right of injunction against the city's building its own works, or denying liability or refusing to pay the rentals contracted for, and a finding that existing rates were reasonable, did not necessarily conclude a controversy which might thereafter arise as to the right of the city to fix rates when the Legislature of Mississippi should pass a law for that purpose, giving the city the right to regulate the same. It is to be remembered that, when the bill was filed in the original case, no such law had been passed; that, when the Act of March, 1904, went into effect, the case was nearly ready for final decree, and the city passed its ordinances long after the beginning of the suit, an shortly before that decree. No supplemental bill was filed, but after the decree, in January, 1905, the present independent suit was brought, with a view to enjoining the proposed action of the city in enforcing ordinances regulating the rates by charges other than those contained in the contract.
involved. But a decree must be read in the light of the issues involved in the pleadings and the relief sought, and we are of opinion that the matters now litigated were not involved in or disposed of in the former case, and that, when properly construed, the decree does not finally dispose of the right of the city to regulate rates under a law passed after the contract went into effect, and long after the bill was filed in the case.
"to provide for the erection and maintenance of a system of waterworks to supply said city with water, and to that end to contract with a party or parties who shall build and operate waterworks."
That a state may, in matters of proprietary rights, exclude itself from the right to make regulations of this kind, or authorize municipal corporations to do so, when the power is clearly conferred, has been too frequently declared to admit of doubt. Los Angeles v. Los Angeles City Water Co., 177 U. S. 558; Walla Walla v. Walla Walla Water Co., 172 U. S. 1, 172 U. S. 7; New Orleans Waterworks Co. v. Rivers, 115 U. S. 674; Freeport Water Co. v. Freeport, 180 U. S. 587, 180 U. S. 593.
In the latter case, this Court, following the construction of the Supreme Court of Illinois, held that where a city council was authorized to contract with any person or corporation to construct and maintain waterworks at such a rate as may be fixed by ordinance for a period not exceeding thirty years, the words "fixed by ordinance" being capable of application so as to make one ordinance endure for the period of thirty years, for which the contract was made, or to give the right to pass ordinances from time to time regulating rates, the latter construction was adopted.
In the cases generally in this Court, it will be found that, in determining the matter of contract, the local decisions have been given much weight and, ordinarily, followed. As this is a Mississippi contract, and the power was exercised under the authority of an act of the legislature of that state, we naturally look to the decisions of the courts of that state, particularly to such as had given construction to similar charters at the time the contract was made, with a view to determining the extent of the power conferred.
by contract to do so, and thereby bind the citizens, then there is no authority by which it can be done."
"It is not a matter open to serious discussion in this state since the decision by this Court in the case of Stone v. Railroad Company, 62 Miss. 607, decided at the April term, 1885, and before the act of 1886 (Laws 1886, p. 694, c. 358), amending the charter of Vicksburg, was enacted, that a quasi-public corporation may have a contract right to fix rates within a certain designated maximum, and that the rates so fixed are matter of contract, guaranteed by the contract clauses of the United States Constitution. In that decision, the court was manifestly directing it observations to the binding character of the rates as between the company and the shippers; otherwise, the decision was practically meaningless and without point. The philosophy of the situation is simple. Granting that the company is lawfully invested with authority to fix its rate, then such rate being so fixed by it within the maximum limit allowed by the charter, or allowed by the duly authorized ordinance, is by the courts presumed to be reasonable, and it is not permissible for each individual citizen, in every controversy that may arise, to have that question, once passed upon by the lawfully constituted public authorities charged with power in the premises, reopened and litigated anew."
"The power to contract is an essential attribute of sovereignty, and is of prime importance. Its exercise has been productive of incalculable benefits to society, however great may be the evils incident to its injudicious employment. It cannot be denied merely because of its liability to abuse. The power to contract implies the power to make a valid contract. . . . The right to grant charters includes the right to grant such as will be upheld. Conferring power on the grantee of the franchise to fix rates of compensation at discretion, or within prescribed limits fixed by the charter, has been the common practice of the legislatures of the states of the United States from an early period of their history. The fight of the corporators to exercise the powers conferred by the act of incorporation, whether to fix rates themselves or to take those fixed by their charter, and to rest securely on its provisions in this respect, has hitherto been generally regarded as indisputable."
"A grant in general terms of authority to fix rates is not a renunciation of the right of legislative control so as to secure reasonable rates. Such a grant evinces merely a purpose to confer power to exact compensation which shall be just and reasonable."
"If the grant can be interpreted without ascribing to the legislature an intent to part with any power, it will be done. Only what is plainly parted with is gone. Fixing rates in a charter is a specification of what is reasonable -- an exclusion of tacit or implied conditions on the subject. It is an essential part of the contract of incorporation, the most important condition of its existence, the inducing cause of its acceptance. "
We are referred to other cases in Mississippi which deal directly with the extent of the power conferred upon municipal corporations in charters in general terms, some of which we may notice.
of the capital necessary to the construction of the plant. The words from 'year to year,' relied upon by the appellee as limiting the power of the officers of the city to the making of the annual contracts, derived much of their significance from the subject and nature of the thing contracted for, the character of the body on which the power is conferred, the end to the attainment of which the power is to be exercised, and the extent to which such powers for such purposes are usually conferred. . . ."
"A few days after the act was passed, a commission was appointed by the legislature to contract for water for the state institutions, situated in and near the city, for the term of twenty-five years. In this act, power was conferred upon all municipalities to enter into contracts for a term not exceeding twenty-five years, for supplies of water, on a two-thirds affirmative vote of the qualified electors, but the act provided that it should not apply to municipalities whose charters already conferred the power of making contracts for water."
"A contract made by the authorities of a municipality with a water company for supplying the city with water for a period of twenty years is within the power conferred on them by an act of the legislature authorizing them to contract with any reliable corporation for supplying the city with water from year to year, in view of the purpose of the delegation of power, the nature of the body on which it was conferred, the subject matter of the contract, the large outlay for machinery and appliances, the profit of which was dependent upon the permanency of the enterprise, and the contemporaneous legislation, from which the intent to authorize a contract of as great duration as twenty-five years is deducible."
"The intent of the legislature to confer the power without restriction appears to us to be too plain, from the collocation and order and sequence of the sections and article of the charter act, to admit of obscuration by learned argument about original power. The very last legislative action on the subject, that in the municipal charter of the Code of 1892, shows that the lawmakers thought the power to be one to be conferred or prohibited, because it expressly confers it on cities and towns and prohibits its exercise by villages."
that there was nothing in it. Aside from this, the question was at the very root of the cause, and was considered and decided, and it is the exact question in the case at bar, except that this case is somewhat stronger in favor of the power than the case decided."
"By section 3 of the act of February 29, 1888, the Jackson board was 'hereby authorized and empowered to contract.' etc., while, by the Vicksburg charter act, the board was authorized to so contract 'at any regular or special meeting.' We presume that no charter then existent 'otherwise provided' by an express prohibition of electric lighting without vote. The grant of the power without restriction is to 'otherwise provide.'"
And the court held that, under this power, the municipal authorities had the right to make the contract for electric lights without advertising for bids, and without submitting the matter to a popular vote, and the power was not taken away by the Act of March, 1888.
"Within its charter powers, the board has a discretion independent of courts, and no exercise of it will be held void for unreasonableness, unless so gross as to strongly suggest fraud or corruption. The people elect their council, and the courts are not chosen members of it."
right beyond legislative or municipal alteration to the prejudice of the other contracting party.
While we therefore reach the conclusion that the former case did not adjudicate the matter, we think the contract in this respect was within the power of the council, and cannot be violated consistently with the contract rights of the company by the subsequent ordinances of the city.
In this case, the circuit court rendered a final decree practically upon the bill and answer. No testimony was taken, and all that was before the court was the bill, answer, and exhibits. We think the decree goes too far in enjoining the city from interfering with the contract right of the company to charge the rates fixed thereby, in view of the allegations of the answer, that the rates charged by the company exceeded those named in section 13 of the ordinance of 1886.
The decree should be modified so as to enjoin interference on the part of the city during the term of this contract, with the right of the company to charge rates not in excess of 50 cents a thousand gallons to private consumers, as set forth in the ordinance.
"Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Vicksburg, Mississippi"
"This day this cause came to be heard in accordance with the motion of complainant and defendant filed January 12th, 1904, upon the original bill, amended and supplemental bill, exhibits, answer of defendant, proof, and exhibits, and the court, after hearing and attending the evidence and the arguments of counsel, and being fully advised in the premises, and being satisfied that the complainant is entitled to the relief prayed for in its original and amended and supplemental bills, and for full relief, it is thereupon hereby ordered, adjudged, and decreed:"
"First, That the defendants, the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Vicksburg, be and are hereby perpetually enjoined from abrogating and taking away, or from assuming to abrogate or take away, the franchises or contract rights of complainant under and by virtue of the ordinances, franchises, or contract of said defendants entitled, 'An Ordinance to Provide for a Supply of Water to the City of Vicksburg, in Warren County, Mississippi, and to Its Inhabitants, Contracting with Samuel R. Bullok & Company, their Associates, Successors, and Assigns for a Supply of Water for Public Use, and Giving the Said City of Vicksburg an Option to Purchase the Said Works,' ordained the 19th day of November, 1886, approved by John W. Powell, mayor, November 19th, 1886, being the ordinance, contract, and franchise marked exhibit B to the original bill of complaint, and said ordinance, contract, and franchise being specifically and accurately set out in words and figures in the pleadings, which ordinance, contract, and franchise was acquired by and is the sole and exclusive property of said complainant."
"Second, That said ordinance, contract, and franchise be and is hereby declared and held to be in every respect legal, valid, and enforceable and binding upon said defendant, and said defendant is hereby perpetually enjoined from infringing, ignoring, rescinding, or denying liability under said ordinance, contract, and franchise in any of its parts, or from in any manner disturbing or interfering with the rights, privileges, and benefits acquired by complainant thereunder."
"Third, That said defendant be, and he is hereby, directed to rescind its resolution and ordinance adopted the 7th day of November, 1900, which is in words and figures as follows:"
" Resolved, that the mayor be and is hereby instructed to notify the Vicksburg Waterworks Company that the mayor and aldermen deny any liability upon any contract for the use of the waterworks hydrants. That from and after August, 1900, they will pay reasonable compensation for the use of said hydrants. That the city attorney take such action as shall be necessary to determine the rights of the city in the premises."
"And also to rescind the ordinance or resolution of said defendant adopted the 7th day of February, 1901, when said defendant adopted the report of the committee on waterworks, as set out in the pleadings."
"Fourth, That the said defendant refrain from in any manner accepting the benefits of or proceeding under the act of the Legislature of the State of Mississippi approved March 9, 1900, and from issuing bonds under and by virtue of said act, or any other act or ordinance, for the purpose of erecting waterworks of its own during the period prescribed by ordinance, contract, and franchise."
"Fifth, That the said defendant refrain from constructing waterworks of its own until the expiration of the period prescribed in said ordinance, contract, and franchise, dated the 16th day of November, 1886."
"Sixth, That the said defendant be, and is hereby, required to pay all moneys due or owing, or that may hereafter be due and owing to said complainant under and by virtue of said ordinance, contract, and franchise."
"Seventh, That the said defendant be, and is hereby, perpetually enjoined from making or adopting any resolutions or ordinance refusing to pay the contract price of water fixed by said ordinance, contract, and franchise until the expiration of the period prescribed in said ordinance, contract, and franchise."
"Eighth, [relates to certain sewers.]"
"Ninth, That said defendant pay the costs of this cause to be taxed."
"Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, That the corporate authorities of any city, town, or village now or hereafter incorporated under any general or specific laws of this state, in which any individual, company, or corporation has been, or hereafter may be, authorized by said city, town, or village to supply water, electric light, or gas to said city, town, or village, or the inhabitants thereof, be, and they are hereby, empowered to prescribe by ordinance maximum rates and charges for the supply of water, electric light, or gas furnished by such individual, company, or corporation to such city, town, or village or the inhabitants thereof, such rates and charges to be just and reasonable. And in case the corporate authorities of any such city, town, or village shall fix unjust and unreasonable rates and charges, the same may be reviewed and determined by the circuit court of the county in which said city, town, or village may be; provided, that this act shall not be construed so as to impose [impair] the effect of obligation of any valid or binding contract with any waterworks company, electric light company, or gas company now existing, or heretofore made with any individual or water company, electric light or gas company."
"This case coming on to be finally heard at this January term, 1906, of this Court, upon the original bill of complaint and the answer of the defendant thereto, and all the exhibits which are made such, to said original bill of complaint and said answer, and all of the other pleas and proceedings in this cause, together with a certified copy of the charter of the said Vicksburg Waterworks Company, which is filed in the record as evidence in the cause, also the petition of the defendant for a modification of the temporary injunction granted in this cause, so that the complainant shall not be authorized to cut off water from its patrons who refuse to pay the rates of complainant, claiming the right to have the injunction modified by virtue of the ordinances of the defendant, fixing water rates, and the motion of complainant to have said injunction granted heretofore made perpetual. And the court having heard the arguments of counsel, and being fully advised in the premises, and being satisfied that the complainant is entitled to the relief prayed for in its bill of complaint for full relief, it is thereupon finally ordered, adjudged, and decreed:"
"First. That the defendant, the mayor and aldermen of the City of Vicksburg, is hereby denied the relief prayed for in its petition, to-wit, that the injunction be modified so that the mayor and aldermen of the City of Vicksburg shall not be restrained from enforcing the ordinances passed by them fixing the water rates and prescribing rules and regulations of the Vicksburg Waterworks Company, and that the Vicksburg Waterworks Company shall not be permitted to cut off patrons' water, providing patrons pay the rates fixed in said ordinances."
"Second. That said defendant be, and is hereby, enjoined from enforcing the said three ordinances described in said bill, to-wit: An ordinance entitled 'An Ordinance to Fix and Prescribe Maximum Rates and Charges for Water Suppliedto the Inhabitants of the City of Vicksburg, Whether Measured by Meters, and for Other Purposes,' approved the 20th of April, 1904, an ordinance entitled 'An Ordinance to Fix and Prescribe the Maximum Flat Rates and Charges for the Supply of Water to Consumers in the City of Vicksburg, and for Other Purposes,' approved the 20th day of April, 1904, and an ordinance entitled 'An Ordinance to Require Waterworks, Gas, and Electric Companies to Present Bills before Charging Damages for a Failure to Pay Them When Due,' approved the 8th day of December, 1903, so far as the latter relates to complainant."
"Third. That the restraining order heretofore granted in this cause on the 11th day of January, 1905, be and the same is hereby made permanent."
"Fourth. That the said defendant be, and is hereby, enjoined from in any manner interfering with the complainant's contract rights under its said contract with the City of Vicksburg, entered into between Samuel R. Bullock & Company and said city, under the ordinance of November 19th, 1886."
"Fifth. That the defendant be, and is hereby, enjoined from interfering with the rules and regulations of complainant, the Vicksburg Waterworks Company, and the water rates for the inhabitants of the City of Vicksburg, now in force, established by the Vicksburg Waterworks Company."
"Sixth. That said defendant be, and is hereby, enjoined from interfering with the water rates known as the flat rates, now in force, established by the Vicksburg Waterworks Company."
"It is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the defendant pay all costs of this cause."
"Finally ordered, adjudged, and decreed this, the 3d day of Jan. A.D. 1906."

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