Court Opinion

ID: 5030931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2021-10-01 05:26:41.507641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:09.607545
License: Public Domain

HILL, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion of this Court for the two following reasons: First, because the opinion is unsupported by and contrary to the great weight of authority; and second, because appellee, City of Muldraugh, in good conscience and according to every rule of equity should be estopped from imposing liability on appellant for the individual water bills of the occupants of twenty separate rental houses which he owns.
It should be kept in mind that appellant’s twenty units of rental property are not contained in an apartment house but are, in fact, twenty separate houses located on individual lots. (I do not, however, mean to imply that a different rule should apply to apartment houses containing separate apartments.) Also to be remembered is the fact that appellee required appellant to pay $3,000 for twenty tap-ins at the time service was initially provided. I shall refer to this later in connection with the element of estoppel.
The result of the majority opinion is to hold the owner of property liable for utilities furnished to the tenant of the property. To me this result is unjust, unreasonable, confiscatory, and devoid of any rhyme or reason. As authority for my position, I quote from 55 A.L.R., p. 781:
“A municipal corporation engaged in the business of furnishing water to its inhabitants by means of a permanent waterworks stands on the same footing, and has exactly the same right to make and enforce reasonable rules and regulations, as a private corporation upon whom a franchise for that purpose has been conferred, and therefore an ordinance prescribing such regulations has the same force, and no more, as a by-law of a private corporation whose powers are of like character and conferred for the same purpose.”
And quoting further from the same page of 55 A.L.R.:
“A municipal ordinance, requiring a property owner, in the absence of contract, to pay rent due the city for water consumed on the premises by a tenant, which is obviously designed to enforce the collection of the water rents, and not a regulation conservative of the tenant’s health, with which it is but remotely connected, is not only unreasonable and unnecessary, but unconstitutionally deprives the owner of his property without due process of law.”
*258Following the general rule and the great weight of authority 43 Am.Jur., Public Utilities and Services, section 62 states:
“In the absence of statute affecting his rights, however, the occupant of premises dependent upon a public service corporation for service, if otherwise entitled to such service, cannot be denied because he is the tenant and not the owner of the premises; nor, in the absence of statutory authority therefor, justification under the police power, or a contract with the landlord in such respect, can a public service company by regulation or a municipal corporation by ordinance render a property owner subject to charges for service furnished a tenant.”
The general rule is also followed by text writers as indicated in Nichols on Public Utilities Service and Discrimination, p. 215, from which I quote:
“In the absence of a statutory provision there is no lien on the premises occupied by a customer for unpaid bills of a tenant; and a provision in the rules and regulations of a water utilities attempting to make a water bill a lien on property is directed to be entirely without the authority of either the utility or the Commission.”
The following states have followed the general rules above announced: State ex rel. Milsted v. Butte City Water Co., 18 Mont. 199, 44 P. 966, 32 L.R.A. 697; Farmer v. City of Nashville, 127 Tenn. 509, 156 S.W. 189, 45 L.R.A.,N.S., 240; City of Galveston v. Kenner, 111 Tex. 484, 240 S.W. 894; Waldron v. International Water Co., 95 Vt. 135, 112 A. 219; Etheredge v. City of Norfolk, 148 Va. 795, 139 S.E. 508, 55 A.L.R. 781. The Waldron case, supra, is discussed in 13 A.L.R., p. 340 from which I quote: “A regulation of a water company unauthorized by statute, requiring a property owner to pay for water furnished his tenant, is unenforceable.” It is true some of the states of this Union have announced a contrary view on the present subject, but the number so doing can be counted on the fingers of one hand with fingers to spare, and I can find no reasoning in any of the opinions justifying their conclusions except those based upon police powers exercised in the interest of health.
The majority opinion wants to know the reason for the general rule above announced. Here are some of the reasons. The City has elected to operate its own utility rather than grant a franchise to a private utility. It does so voluntarily. Clearly, it is bound by the same rules and regulations as a private utility and is in the utility business for a profit. It has its paid employees, protected by workmen’s compensation, to install and keep its lines in repair. It employs meter readers to determine the service rendered; it must maintain bookkeepers and clerks to send and collect bills for service. For all this service, the City is authorized to collect not only the cost of the service but a reasonable profit for rendering it.
The City is empowered to require a reasonable deposit to insure against loss on account of delinquent bills. In this connection, I concur with the majority that the lower court was correct in holding that so much of the ordinance as required a $100 deposit for service is arbitrary and unreasonable. Certainly, a deposit of $30 or thereabout would be reasonable and sufficient to protect the City against loss from delinquencies.
The majority opinion forces the owner of a number of houses, or the owner of an apartment house, to go into the utility business, by reading meters, keeping them in repair, and collecting utility bills, as well as many other menial functions incident to the operation of a utility. It is an unjust discrimination against a property owner and an undue burden upon the property. Such a rule cannot be justified by any *259rule of right, reason, or justice with which I am familiar. '
Under the majority opinion, a lazy or avid city may force owners of rental property or apartment houses to enter the utility business, read meters, keep records, collect bills, and otherwise assume detail duties that have been assumed by the city when it voluntarily undertook to provide those services.
The only justification for invoking such a ridiculous rule as the majority opinion authorizes is to enable the City to collect its bills. The City has another remedy as above pointed out, that is, to require a reasonable deposit. Therefore, it is unnecessary to the welfare of the City to invoke such a rule of law.
So far as my research has disclosed, this Court has not specifically passed on the questions presented in the present case. However, a question was answered in the closely analogous case of City of Covington v. Ratterman, 128 Ky. 336, 108 S.W. 297, 17 L.R.A.,N.S., 923 (1908), wherein the City sought to withhold water service to an applicant, or property owner, because a former owner had not paid his water bill. The following is a quotation from Ratterman:
“In other words, it is asserted that the water rent is a debt or demand against the building to which the water was furnished, for which reason a change of ownership or in the possession of the property cannot interfere with the right of the water commissioners to refuse further use of water to the building until all past due water rents, no matter by whom owing, are paid. We think the foregoing contention is based upon an erroneous hypothesis. It assumes that the ‘building’ in which water was furnished appellee’s vendor or his tenants owes or is liable for the water rent in controversy. As a matter of law and of fact, this is not true. The building could not contract for the water. * * * Liability for the water rent, therefore, rests u-pon the person or persons to whom the water was furnished, and does not attach to the building or lot; indeed, such liability could not attach to or be placed upon the building or lot without express authority derived from some legislative enactment, which has not been shown to exist and is not claimed in this case.”
My second ground for dissent is based on facts which I think justify the invocation of the doctrine of estoppel against the appellees. Appellees collected from appellant $3,000 for twenty separate tap-ins. It was contemplated by both the City and appellant that separate service would be furnished each separate house and that separate meters would be and were installed. The City undertook to render separate service. Had the property owner known he would later be held liable for all water bills, he could have installed his own meters for much less than the tap-in charge.
After requiring appellant to pay such a stupendous sum for connecting charges in anticipation of separate service, appellee in good conscience should be estopped to claim appellant is liable personally for the payment of his tenants’ water bills solely by reason of ownership of the houses.
Neither can liability be attached to the owner of the property upon the cry of financial need of the City, be it a small incorporated hamlet or a great teeming city.
I am mindful of the fact appellee is a small town and that it is near Fort Knox and may not enjoy a large annual revenue. It is also true appellant is a member of the legal profession and that during one year of the pendency of this action he was called by patriotic duty for military service with the 100th Division. But this Court is not concerned with charity or sentiment. It is not the province of this Court to grant an unnecessary and unjustified poverty package to this little City just because of its *260size, location, or because appellant is a non-resident of the City.
For these reasons I would reverse the judgment insofar as it authorizes the City to look exclusively to the appellant, property owner, for its water bills. I would affirm the judgment holding the $100 deposit requirement arbitrary and unreasonable with directions to fix an amount in the neighborhood of $25.
My views in the present case are better expressed by a prominent writer in the January 1966 issue of Reader’s Digest, page 208, in these words: “And the authorities should make sure that the hand that turns the faucet writes the check.”