Court Opinion

ID: 9688647
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:59:26.595484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:40.912951
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
We granted a rehearing in this case upon the petition of the appellant. The case was reargued and a supplemental brief filed in which the appellant calls our attention particularly to the case of Pine Tree Lumber Company v. City of Fargo, 12 N.D. 360, 96 N.W. 357, 360, from which it quotes a number of passages that seemingly support the right to recover against the city. However, an analysis of that case discloses that it is not in point. The Pine Tree Lumber Company brought an action against the City of Fargo to recover upon ten warrants drawn against the city paving accounts. The court analyzed the pertinent statutes as they then existed and said:
“As between the city and the parties with whom it contracted to furnish the labor and mate'rial and to pave its streets, the city had power to render itself generally liable, notwithstanding the cost of the improvement was to fall ultimately upon the owners of abutting property. The scheme of the statute was to enable the city to make the improvements enumerated in the statute, and to reimburse itself for the costs of the same through special assessments of property abutting upon, and theoretically, at least, benefited, to the extent of the assessments, by the improvements made. * * * There is nothing in the statute which imposes upon the person to whom the contract is let to pave the streets the requirement to look alone to the proceeds of the special assessments for his pay, or limiting his recovery to the funds realized therefrom.”
At the session following the decision in Pine Tree Lumber Company v. City of Fargo, the legislature enacted Chapter 62, SLND 1905 providing a new charter for cities. Article 18 of that chapter dealt with sewers, paving and watermains. Section 149, which is a part of that article, prescribed in a general way what contracts entered into for work provided for in the act should contain and specifically stated:
“Each contract so entered into shall state the time on or before which such work must be completed, and must state from what fund the amount to be paid thereon by the city is to be paid, and *712that the consideration of such contract is payable only in warrants drawn on such fund, and that such city assumes and incurs no general liability under such contract.”
These requirements have continued to be the law of this state down to the present time and now form a part of Section 40-2236, NDRC 1943 which we have quoted in the main opinion. The statements in Pine Tree Lumber Company v. City of Fargo regarding the general liability of a city under a contract for special improvements are no longer applicable. We adhere to our former opinion.
GRIMSON, JOHNSON, SATHRE, and BURKE, JJ., concur.