Court Opinion

ID: 9635901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:09:45.291277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:35:16.385171
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chief Justice Bell :
The majority opinion reverses the decree of the lower Court which had declared the contract between the City and Landfill Corporation a nullity and restricted the City from entering into similar contracts unless obtained by competitive bidding.
The majority decision in my judgment flies in the teeth of the City Charter and certainly vitiates its spirit, purposes and objectives. The Charter provides in Section 8-200(1), that “Except in the purchase of unique articles or articles which for any other reason cannot be obtained in the open market, competitive bids shall be secured* before any purchase, by contract or otherwise is made or before any contract is awarded for construction, alterations, repairs or maintenance or for rendering any services to the City other than professional services and the purchase shall be made from or the contract shall be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder.”
The majority hold that this contract is not a contract for services but is a mere license to the City which simply permits the City to make a limited use of Landfill Corporation’s land, to wit, dumping refuse for which the City pays $125,000 a year. The contract by its very terms demonstrates how utterly erroneous that interpretation is, and unless it is changed the Charter can easily be evaded, eroded and nullified by subterfuge. The contract pertinently provides: “4. Licensor *553[Landfill Corporation] shall operate a sanitary landfill in and upon the said premises, and to that end shall provide all required labor, equipment, watchmen, fire protection facilities, snow fences and all other necessary service and facilities.” City employees drive refuse to this dump site and deposit the refuse on the site; Landfill then conducts a sanitary landfill operation on said premises. The Deputy Street Commissioner of the City in a comprehensive written report on refuse disposal problems classifies sanitary landfills by private contractors as “services rendered to the city.” His report pertinently states “It also represented the first time in many years that the City spent an appreciable sum of money for privately-operated refuse disposal service.” This view was shared by the City witness who testified that in his opinion the contract here in question was one for services to the City.
This is not as the City contends merely a release of a site for dumping refuse; Landfill does far more than merely rent its land as a dump site. The majority opinion admits, as it must, that “The agreement requires Corporation to operate a sanitary landfill upon said premises and to provide all required labor and equipment. No supervisory powers over Corporation’s operation were retained by City. . . .
“. .. the City of Philadelphia . . . dumped the refuse on the land of the Corporation — it got rid of the debris. Prom then on it became the obligation of the Corporation to operate its own facility with its own employees and under its own supervision. . . .” Since it is to “operate” a landfill, it is obviously rendering a service as both the language of the contract and the acts of Landfill clearly demonstrate.
The majority opinion also relies upon the uniqueness of a site for a dump refuse. The alleged uniqueness of such a site cannot possibly fall within the charter provision which specifically excepts the purchase of *554a unique article from the requirement of a competitive bid. By no stretch of the imagination can the workings and sanitary processing of a landfill operation be considered the purchase of a unique article.
The deplorable evils which are certain to flow from the majority’s construction of the City Charter are already evident in the instant case. We agree with the lower Court (a) that there was adequate testimony to show that the costs involved in this privately and uncompetitively negotiated landfill operation were exorbitant in comparison with the costs paid to operators of other landfill operations, and (b) “that the transaction reeked of personal and political favoritism,” and (c) that the City (acting through the Commissioner of Streets) abused its discretion in making this contract with Landfill Corporation.
We quote with approval the following language from the opinion of the Court en banc: “It [the City] is here attempting to justify a privately negotiated contract, being well aware that should its efforts succeed, the result would be the creation of a rent in the civic and fiscal fabric of the Charter which, once opened, could be widened by subsequent administrative edict or councilmanic enactment. If its viewpoint is to receive judicial sanction, henceforth, all work done for the City, and specifically defined or interpreted by the City’s executive or legislative officers not to be ‘for construction, alterations, repairs or maintenance or for rendering any services to the City’ could be awarded through the medium of a privately negotiated contract. To pose the question is to supply its answer. We shall and will not, by sustaining the City’s viewpoint, open the door that inevitably leads to the evils which this section of the Charter was specifically enacted to prevent and prohibit.”
I would affirm the decree on the opinion of Judge Blanc which, speaking for the Court en banc, con*555vineingly answers all of the majority’s conclusions and likewise refutes in detail all of the City’s contentions.
Mr. Justice Benjamin R. Jones joins in this dissenting opinion.

 Italics throughout, ours.