Case Name: Clements Brothers' Construction Co. v. Cleveland
Court: Ohio Circuit Court
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1901-01
Citations: 12 Ohio Cir. Dec. 844
Docket Number: 
Parties: Clements Brothers’ Construction Co. v. Cleveland.
Judges: Caldwell, Hale and Marvin, JJ.
Reporter: Ohio Circuit Decisions
Volume: 12
Pages: 844–849

Head Matter:
PUBLIC WORKS — MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.
[Cuyahoga Circuit Court,
January Term, 1901.]
Caldwell, Hale and Marvin, JJ.
Clements Brothers’ Construction Co. v. Cleveland.
1. Same — Municipal Corporation agent of State.
A municipal corporation is simply an agency of the state for the conduct of the affairs of government and therefore subject to the control of the legislature in all respects, except as limited by the constitution.
2. Control of Legislature over Municipal Public Works.
The state, acting through its legislature, has absolute power and control over all the public works within the state, undertaken and carried on with public funds, whether the work be paid for by a municipality or by the state at large, and those who let the contracts, superintend the construction, audit the bills and pay them, are in such work but the agents of the state, whether the agency be created by the provisions of a charter or by special enactment.
3. Power of State to Compel Municipal Corporations to Pay Current Wages.
It is competent for a state, by its legislature to provide that its agents and agencies, wherever throughout the state they may be situated, in the doing of a public work, shall pay the going wages wherever the work is to be doue by day’s work; and whenever it is to be done by contract, that the agent wherever situated, shall put into the contract that it executes by authority of the state, a provision that the contractor shall pay such rate.
4. Legality of Municipal Contracts Incorporating Such a Statute.
A successful bidder for a municipal contract, upon being awarded and voluntarily executing the contract, into which is incorporated the provisions of a statute, that labor to be performed under the contract, must be paid for by the contractor at the going rate, is bound by the terms of the contract, although the statute itself may be declared nnconstitutional.
Heard on Error.
Wilcox, Collister, Hogan & Parmely and Weed & Meals, for plaintifi in error.
Hogsett, Beacom, Excell and Gage & Carey, for defendant in error.

Opinion:
Caldwell, J.
There is really no opinion in this case, for we have preferred tc adopt others that we have found rather than to write one of our own.
The opinion referred to in the pamphlet from New York State (The People of the State of New York ex rel. Rodgers, Respondent, v. Bird S. Coler, Comptroller of the City of New York, Appellant, rendered February 26, 1901,) is, on the part of the majority of the court, a wel1 reasoned opinion, and one that we think lays down the law of this case and we follow the law there laid down; that is, the majority of the coun do.
There is another case, Low v. Printing Co., 41 Neb. 127 (24 L. R. A. 702; 43 Am. St. 670), that has a law very much like the one that ii being contested in this court, and we like the reasoning in that case ver] much.
In 62 Am. St. Rep. 176, there is a note that discusses much of thi litigation on this question, and it shows that the courts are not unani mous, and, as a rule, the opinion of the judges of a court passing upon the law, is not by a unanimous court, the opinion being by the majority only. Some courts have stood equally divided. But we follow these opinions, although it would seem from the adjudications that oftentimes the opinion is the other way.
[Court of Appeals of the State of New York.]
O'Brien, J.
Randon, J. (Concurring)
Parker, C. J. (Dissenting)
Haight, J. (Dissenting)
EXTRACTS FROM OPINION.
Refusal of comptroller based upon violation of the Rabor Raw (Chap. 415 of the Raws of 1897, as amended by Chap. 192 and Chap. 567 of the Raws of 1899), of the state of New York.
CITATIONS.