Case Name: Robert I. McQuiddy, Respondent, v. Mary M. Brannock, Appellant
Court: Kansas City Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Missouri
Decision Date: 1897-05-03
Citations: 70 Mo. App. 535
Docket Number: 
Parties: Robert I. McQuiddy, Respondent, v. Mary M. Brannock, Appellant.
Judges: Gill, J., concurs. Smith, P. J., not sitting.
Reporter: Missouri Appeal Reports
Volume: 70
Pages: 535–554

Head Matter:
Robert I. McQuiddy, Respondent, v. Mary M. Brannock, Appellant.
Kansas City Court of Appeals,
May 3, 1897.
1. Tax Bills: ordinances: time of pleading: contract. An ordinance prescribed that certain street improvements should be completed within eighty days of the taking effect of the contract. The work was not completed until about six months after said time. Held, tax bills are void.
2. -: CONTRACT: LIMITED POWERS OF MUNICIPALITIES. While a municipal corporation is in a substantial sense the agent of the property owner it can not dispense with a substantial performance of contracts for public improvements, and all persons contracting with a corporation as well as its own officers are bound to ascertain the nature and extent of its corporate authority.
3. -: -: -: time essential. The time within which a contract for making a public improvement is to be completed is an essential element of the contract on the ground of justice to competing bidders and protection to property owners and can not be set aside by the contractor and the city’s officers.
4. -: COMPLETION OF CONTRACT: INJUNCTION AGAINST. The fact that a contractor may have been prevented by an injunction from completing an improvement within the contract time will not excuse him where he has not contracted against such contingency.
5. -: -: liability. Bad weather, unless contracted against, will not excuse the delay to complete a public improvement within the contract time.
6. -: GENERAL V. SPECIAL ORDINANCE: DELEGATION OP AUTHORITY: contract. A special ordinance required a certain street improvement to be completed within eighty days from the taking effect of the contract. A general ordinance relating to such improvements made the city engineer umpire between the parties and gave him power to extend the time for performing the contract in certain contingencies. Held, the general ordinance was a delegation by the council of a power conferred on it and, therefore, void, as well as a contract providing for such extension of time.
7. -: CONTRACTS: STREET IMPROVEMENT: PUBLIC LETTING: TIME. Public lettings of public works are required on the ground of public policy to avoid corruption and favoritism and encourage competition. All competitors are therefore entitled to an equal basis and time is a material element for the consideration of bidders and it can not without injustice be lengthened after the contract is let.
8. -: -¡ratification. A contract for a street improvement which is void by reason of an extension of the time beyond that allowed by the ordinance can not be ratified by the city council and thereby legalized.
8. -: -: -: changing time. The general and special ordinances hereinbefore referred to, can not be so construed as to permit an officer to extend the time for the completion of the contract without delegating legislative authority to the engineer.
10. -: -: QUANTUM MERUIT: KANSAS CITY FREEHOLDERS’ CHARTER. A provision of the freeholders’ charter of Kansas City provid- . ing for a recovery'of the actual value of the work done, where it did not comply with the contract, can not be applied to a street improvement done under a void contract, nor will such provision apply to the work done under a valid contract which was wholly ignored in the performance of the work.
11. -: -■ — : -:-: time. Said provision of the charter will not warrant a recovery in quantum meruit where the contract, though in strict compliance with the ordinance, makes time the essence of the contract and the performance is not within the contract time.
Appeal from the Jackson Circuit Court. — Hon. C. L. Dobson, Judge.
Reveesed.
Geo. A. Neal and A. 8. Marley for appellant..
The alleged contract with Patrick Lyons was approved by the mayor and common council of Kansas -City on the twenty-first day of July, 1890, and in section 2, ordinance 1005 offered in evidence (the ordinance authorizing the contract), it is provided: “The work shall be completed within eighty (80) days from the time a contract therefor binds and takes effect. The time of beginning and rate of progress and time of completion being essential conditions of this contract.” The work was not completed until April 23, 1891, which was nearly six months later than the ordinance and stipulations provided; the time for the completion of the work under the contract expired October 9, 1890. Rose v. Trestrail, 62 Mo. App. 352; French v. Wallace, 13 Wall. 506; Beater v. Coal Co., 56 Mo. App. 221; Brinkenhoff v. Elliott, 43 Mo. App. 186; Fulkerson v. Eads, 19 Mo. App. 620. It must appear that there has been a fair compliance with all the conditions precedent, whether prescribed by charter or ordinance to entitle a city or contractor to recover from the abutting property holder the expenses of paving a street or other local assessment. Cole v. Skrainka, 105 Mo. 303; Bank v. Payne, 31 Mo. App. 512; Meyers v. Wright, 19 Mo. App. 283; Turney v. Dougherty, 53 Cal. 619; Beverage v. Livingston, 54 Cal. 57; Dillon on Municipal Corporations [3 Ed.], sec. 810; Cheeney v. Inhabitants of Town of Brookfield, 60 Mo. 53; Ver den v. City of St. Louis, 131 Mo. loc. cit. 98; Keating v. City of Kansas, 84 Mo. 416.
T. B. Buckner and J. V. C. Karnes for respondent.
(1) Appellant’s second contention is that the tax bills are void because the work was not done within the time named in the contract. The very section of the contract which provided within what time the work should be done also provided the penalty for the failure to complete it within the time, and how the deduction should be computed. It would seem that the contract itself is a complete answer to the contention of appellant. The case of Bose v. Trestrail, 62 Mo. App. 352, cited by appellant, bears not the slightest analogy to the case at bar. In that case no effort was made by the contractor to commence the work until the time-for the completion of the work had expired some sixty days previous. The court held that an injunction would lie to prevent the doing of the work, no effort whatever having been made to perform the contract during its life. Then, too, no such provisions were in this contract as the latter part of section 7 and section 12 found in the contract in this case. (2) Courts are beginning to look with disfavor on technical defenses in cases of this kind and character by parties who know of such improvements and interpose no objection, not even a protest. The most recent decisions of this state and those of other states cited by our courts approvingly fully support this position and we would invite their careful examination. Shehan v. Owen, '82 Mo. 464; Boss v. Stackhouse, 114 Ind. 200; Cole v. Skrainka, 105 Mo. 309; Morse v. City of Westport, 110 Mo. 502; Johnson v. Duer, 115 Mo. 381; Gibson v. Owen, 115 Mo. 269; Warren v. Pav. Go., 115 Mo. 580; Herman on Estoppel, see. 1221; Pav. Co. v. JEdgerton, 125 Ind. 455; Clements v. Lee, 114 Ind. 399; Pretdnger v. Harness, 114 Ind. 498.

Opinion:
Ellison, J.
This is an action on tax bills issued for street grading in Kansas City. The bills were issued in lieu of those declared to be void by this court in an opinion found in 60 Mo. App. 610. The ordinance directing the grading, and under which the contract was let and the bills issued, provided:
"The work shall be completed within eighty days from the time a contract therefor binds and takes effect, and shall be paid for in special tax bills against and upon the lands that may be charged with the cost thereof according to law." The contract became binding on July 21, and the work thereunder was not begun until about thirty days thereafter. The work was not completed until the next April following, being about six months after the time specified by the ordinance. It was, however, received by the city authorities and the original tax bills aforesaid issued therefor.
This, was not a substantial compliance with the ordinance, and under the authority of Rose v. Tresfrail, 62 Mo. App. 352, we must hold the bills void, unless they are rendered valid by the following considerations:
2. It appears that the contract made with the contractor in pursuance of the ordinance aforesaid contained the following provisions: "The work embraced in this contract shall be begun within ten (10) days after this contract binds and takes effect, and shall be prosecuted regularly and uninterruptedly thereafter (unless the engineer shall specially direct otherwise in writing) with such force as to secure its full completion within eighty days thereafter; the time of beginning, rate of progress, and time of completion being essential conditions of this contract. And if the contractor shall fail to complete the work within the time above specified, an amount equal to the sum of ten (10) dollars per day for each and every day thereafter until such completion, shall be deducted, as liquidated damages for such breach of this contract, from the amount of the final estimate of said work."
"To prevent all disputes and litigations it is further agreed by the parties hereto that the city engineer shall in all cases determine the amount and quantity of the several kinds of work which are to be paid for under this contract, and he shall decide all questions which may arise relative to the execution of this contract, on the part of the contractor, and his estimates and decisions shall be final and conclusive."
It is urged that these provisions distinguish this case from Rose v. Trestrail, supra. It is argued that the provision agreeing upon a forfeiture of $10 for each day of failure to complete the work within the time is an implied concession that the work might not be completed within the time and yet the contract remain, binding. In our opinion, this provision of the contract can not be applied to any substantial departure from the contract as to time. Whether it could find application to some slight failure as to time we need not say, since here, as before stated, the work was not finished for six months after the time limited. The following extracts from Mr. Dillon's work on Municipal Corporations have been so frequently applied by the courts of this state to proceedings of the present nature that we need do no more than quote them:
"Sec. 810. The property owners are not parties nor privies to contracts for improvements, yet to a cer tain extent anpl in a substantial sense the municipality is their agent; and since the burden to pay rests upon them they have a right to insist upon a faithful performance of the contract and the corporate authorities can not dispense with such performance."
"Sec. 447. And it is a general and fundamental principle of law that all persons contracting with a municipal corporation must at their peril inquire into the power of the corporation or its officers to make the contract, and the contract beyond the scope of the corporate power is void, So also those dealing with the agent of a municipal corporation are likewise bound to ascertain the nature and extent of his authority. This is so in all cases where this authority is special and of record or conferred by statute." See, also, Cheeney v. Brookfield, 60 Mo. 53; Verden v. St. Louis, 131 Mo. loc. cit. 98; Keating v. Kansas, 84 Mo. 416.
A contract for the performance of such work as is usually contemplated in grading the streets of a city presenting the topography that Kansas City presents is frequently much more onerous when it must be completed in a short time than when the time is extended indefinitely, or over a long period. It is a matter of the first importance to bidders on municipal public work that they should know the time in which work shall be done, whether it must be done during a busy season, or when work is scarce and labor is cheap; or, whether they will be given opportunity to sell or dispose of rock and other material taken from excavations, etc. If the bidder understands that his time is not limited he can very well bid much lower for work than he could if the same work had to be performed in a limited time. So that if an ordinance requiring work to be completed in a short, specified time is to be altered by a contract which annuls the provision as to time, it results unfairly for other bidders and for the property owners. Competition is an important safeguard to the property owner in the matter of street improvement. Galbreath v. Newton, 80 Mo. App. 392-394. The contract in the case before us, if interpreted as plaintiff contends, would be no more the contract contemplated by the ordinance than if it had prescribed a substantially different width or depth of grade. Again, it is a fair and natural inference that the city council, in directing street improvement, has in view the desire of the property-owning citizens. Indeed these improvements are generally ordered by the council at the instigation of such citizens. It may well be that any given improvement would not be desired unless it can be done in a specified way, or of certain material, or within a certain time. Sometimes such improvements are set on foot preparatory to some great exhibition or other like purpose. If the contractor and the city's agent for letting the work may set aside the wish of the citizen (who has perhaps only favored the work because of such purpose) and the direction of the only body having authority to order the improvement, all protection to the property owner is removed and the wholé theory of the law as heretofore understood and administered would be overturned. The judgment will be reversed.
Gill, J., concurs. Smith, P. J., not sitting.