Case Name: State ex rel. Fire & Rust Proof Construction Company, Appellant, vs. Icke, Respondent
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1908-11-10
Citations: 136 Wis. 583
Docket Number: 
Parties: State ex rel. Fire & Rust Proof Construction Company, Appellant, vs. Icke, Respondent
Judges: TtMXirr, T.. I concur in the .foregoing.
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 136
Pages: 583–588

Head Matter:
State ex rel. Fire & Rust Proof Construction Company, Appellant, vs. Icke, Respondent
September 30
November 10, 1908.
Mandamus: Duty of city engineer: Granting estimates to contractor for worlc done.
1. Mandamus will not He to compel performance of a duty unless It is a clear and absolute one imposed by law.
2. Sec. 92S — 94, Stats. (1898), provides, with reference to work done under contract with a city, that “the board of public works, or such officers as shall be designated to discharge its duties, may from time to time, at their discretion, grant to the contractor an estimate of the amount and proportionate value of the work done, which shall entitle him to receive the amount thereof, less twenty per cent.,” etc. A contract with the city provided that in each month the city engineer should make such an estimate, and for payment to the contractor thereon. Seld, that the statute is not a command to the city engineer, but to a board of which he is only one member, and that the duty imposed thereby is a discretionary one. If, by virtue of the contract, an •absolute duty rests upon the engineer to make such estimates, such duty is only a contractual one, and performance thereof will not be compelled by mandamus.
SnsBEOKBB and Timlin, JJ., are of the opinion that, to prevent failure of justice, the writ of mandamus should issue to enforce contract obligations when that remedy is appropriate and there is no other adequate and efficient remedy; that in this case the duty of the engineer is one imposed by law, but that it is a discretionary duty and therefore mandamus will not lie to compel performance.
Baknes, J., is of the opinion that if the duty of the engineer to make an estimate is clear his refusal to do so is necessarily arbitrary and the contractor has an adequate remedy at law; and for that reason mandamus will not lie.
Appeal from a judgment of the municipal court of Dane -county: E. Ray Stevens, circuit judge, sitting for the municipal judge.
Affirmed.
The petitioner, a Wisconsin corporation, contracted with the city of Madison to furnish all the labor and materials to lay gutters, to grade, macadamize, and otherwise improve Rlount street of the city, and to build a concrete drain under this street from Dayton street to Lake Monona. The contract provided that during the first week of each month the defendant John Iclce, the city engineer, should malm an approximate estimate of the value of the work completed and the materials delivered; that on or before the 16th of each month the contractor should be paid the balance due as shown by such estimate, after twenty-five per cent, had been deducted (any partial payment so made not to be construed as a final or partial acceptance of the work performed) ; and that final payment should be made within sixty days after acceptance of the work by the city.
The petitioner alleges that on July 1, 1907, he had partly completed the cement curb' and gutter and the grading, had partly excavated and put in the bottom and sides of the drain, and had delivered a large portion of the materials necessary for its construction. At or about July 8, 1907, the engineer made an estimate of the value of a portion of the work so claimed by the petitioner to have been completed, but included nothing therein for a concrete drain between Railroad street and Washington avenue and nothing for materials delivered for such drain. Petitioner alleges that such part of the drain had been completed and the materials were delivered as called for by the contract. Demand has been made on the engineer that he make an estimate for such work and materials, but he has refused so to do. Petitioner prays that peremptory mandamus may issue commanding the engineer to make an estimate of the value of the part of the drain so completed and the materials so delivered.
The return asserts that, by reason of noncompliance with specifications and injury from floods, such work and material are of no value to the city. There was no traverse to the return, yet the case seems to have been tried as if at issue on the facts. The court found certain failures of relator to comply with the contract, and impossibility of estimating the value of his work to the city, which findings are assailed as not supported by the evidence. Judgment denying the peremptory writ and dismissing the action, from which relator appeals.
For the appellant there was a brief by Sanborn & Blalee, attorneys, and Kronshage, McGo.vern & Fritz, of counsel, and oral argument by John B. Sanborn and Theodore Kron-shage.
For the respondent there was a brief by John A. Aylward, city attorney, and B. M. Bashford, of counsel, and oral arJ gument by Mr. Bashford.

Opinion:
Dodge, J.
At the very threshold of this case the court is confronted with the question whether mandamus is either a possible or a proper remedy conceding that all the facts are as relator claims them. This question is at least akin to jurisdictional, for it must be resolved in the affirmative before the court can properly proceed to consider the controversy between the parties. [Neither was this question considered by the court below apparently, nor is any aid thereon given to this court by the briefs. Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, and one of the most absolute conditions to it is that the duty sought to he compelled shall be a clear and absolute one imposed by law. State ex rel. Pfister v. Manitowoc, 52 Wis. 427, 9 N. W. 607; Stale ex rel. O'Donnell v. Benzenberg, 108 Wis. 435, 438, 84 N. W. 858; State ex rel. Board of Ed. v. Hunter, 111 Wis. 582, 588, 87 N. W. 485; State ex rel. Wis. Met. Tel. Co. v. Milwaukee, 132 Wis. 615, 619, 113 N. W. 40; Fox v. Workman, 6 Cal. App. 633, 92 Pac. 742; Eberle v. King (Okl.) 93 Pac. 748. A careful examination of all laws and ordinances relating to the city engineer or city surveyor of the city of Madison fails wholly to disclose any provision of law requiring him, as an absolute duty, to make certificates of partial performance of contract work. Indeed, the only provision we find with reference to estimates at all is contained in sec. 925 — 94, Stats. (1898)— a portion of the general charter apparently adopted by the city of Madison, — to the effect that as the work progresses "the board of public works, or such officers as shall be designated to discharge its duties, may, from time to time, at their discretion, grant to the contractor an estimate of the amount and proportionate value of the work done, which shall entitle the holder to receive the amount thereof," etc. This is not a command to the city engineer or surveyor, hut to a board of which he is only one member. Besides, it does not impose an imperative duty, but a discretionary one. But, presumably, the relator would contend that a duty to issue intermediate certificates arises by virtue of the contract provision that the city engineer will make an estimate during the first week of each month as the work progresses and that payments will he made thereon. We shall not deem it necessary to decide whether a contract was competent to the city providing absolutely for such certificates and payment, thus in advance forestalling the discretion which sec. 925 — 94 vests in the board of public works, but shall proceed on the hypothesis of the existence of such power. Even in that case, however, the duty resting on the engineer is only a contractual one and hot one imposed by law, and as to such duties and obligations, which depend wholly upon a contract, the authorities hold with practical unanimity that courts will not exercise their power by the extraordinary writ of mandamus to compel performance, even by a municipal or other public corporation or its officers. State ex rel. Burg v. Milwaukee Med. Coll. 128 Wis. 7, 106 N. W. 116; Chicago v. Chicago Tel. Co. 230 Ill. 157, 161, 82 N. E. 607; Mt. Vernon v. State ex rel. Berry, 71 Ohio St. 428, 453, 73 N. E. 515; Putnam F. & M. Co. v. Barrington, 27 R. I. 422, 67 Atl. 733; U. S. ex rel. Greenbrier C. & C. Co. v. Norfolk & W. R. Co. 143 Fed. 266, 268. It is not an absolute duty imposed by law.
The result is that the court should have dismissed the writ and the proceedings without considering and deciding upon the facts in controversy. The present judgment correctly disposes of the action and proceeding and should not be reversed in that respect, but it should not stand as a conclusive adjudication of the facts or other controverted questions which should not have been considered. With that qualification, therefore:
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.