Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/226/318/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 14:31:41+00:00

Document:
This Court is not prepared on the facts in this case to overrule the highest court of a state in construing the relative powers of the legislature and municipalities in establishing rates for water.
A statute of the State of Idaho establishing a method for fixing water rates is not unconstitutional under the federal Constitution as impairing the obligation of the contract with a water company under an ordinance of a municipality previously enacted and which established a different method of fixing such rates.
A court which is not empowered to grant relief whatever the merits may be cannot decide what the merits are, and a judgment sustaining a demurrer to and dismissing the bill on the ground of such lack of power is not res judicata on the merits.
Where the judgment cannot be res judicata on the merits because the court has no power to grant relief, it is not made res judicata by reference to the opinion in which the court expresses its views on the merits.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality under the contract clause of the federal Constitution of a statute of Idaho, are stated in the opinion.
constitution in force when the ordinance was passed made it impossible for the city to make a contract on the matter beyond the power of the legislature to change. The constitution declared the use of waters distributed for a beneficial use to be a public use, and subject to the regulation and control of the state, and also declared the right to collect rates for water to be a franchise that could not be exercised except by authority of and in the manner prescribed by law. It then ordained that the legislature should provide by law the manner in which reasonable maximum rates might be established. Art. 15, §§ 1, 2, 6. The court relied upon Tampa Water Works Co. v. Tampa, 199 U. S. 241; Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 211 U. S. 265, and Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467, which so far sustain its conclusion that we think further discussion unnecessary. We are not prepared to overrule the construction of the legislative power as continuing and irrevocable adopted by the supreme court of the state.
"take upon itself the exercise of the 'legislative or administrative' power to determine in advance what will be a reasonable schedule of water rates for the defendant to charge for the next three years."
demurrer excludes a decision upon the merits, and even if the decree referring to it did not have the same effect by itself, the opinion to which the decree also refers would show the same thing. Of course, if the court was not empowered to grant the relief whatever the merits might be, it could not decide what the merits were. The two grounds are not on the same plane, as they were in Ontario Land Co. v. Wilfong, 223 U. S. 543, 223 U. S. 559, and when jurisdiction to grant equitable relief was denied, the ground of the merits could not be reached. In Forsyth v. Hammond, 166 U. S. 506, jurisdiction had been taken in the earlier decision relied upon. Here, it was refused.

References: Art. 15
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