Court Opinion

ID: 8191317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 23:14:20.501396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:40:37.245998
License: Public Domain

TimliN, J.
(dissenting). By a city ordinance, which, when reasonable and within the legislative jurisdiction of the common council, has the same force as a statute, this sidewalk was required to be fifteen feet wide like other sidewalks in that part of the city. The board of public works ordered a sidewalk built without specifying the width, but in describing its area evidently computed this upon a width of six feet. The contractor built a fifteen-foot sidewalk as the ordinance required and the lotowner paid for the same and now sues to *59recover wbat it cost in excess of the erroneous computation contained in the order of the board of public works. By permitting a recovery on this technicality we give the plaintiff a sidewalk fifteen feet wide at the cost of one six feet wide, discriminate in his favor as against other abutting owners in his-immediate vicinity, add to the embarrassments and difficulties of municipal governments; and then probably wonder why American city government has-not been a success.