Court Opinion

ID: 9826544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 16:04:56.958246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:06.043590
License: Public Domain

'' Mr. CiiiEE Justice Jones.
/ concur in the judgment.
Where the statute confers upon the municipality the power to contract for waterworks and sewerage in an aggregate sum, and to submit the question of bond issue therefor as a single proposition, I do not think the courts have a right to'interfere, because in their view such submission is unwise and dangerous. If the municipal action is within the statutory power granted, and no constitutional inhibition appears, courts can not annul.
McWhirter v. Newberry, 47 S. C., 418, in which bonds for $43,000 for waterworks and electric light were sustained as constitutional, although the precise question here presented was not raised. In Lumberton v. Nuveen & Co., *46756 S. E. Rep., 491, bonds for $25,000 for waterworks and sewerage, were sustained, although there was but one form of ballot and one ballot box, the Court construing the statute as giving the commissioners discretion. Where the statute expressly, or by necessary implication, requires a separate submission to the voters on the issuance of a specific amount of bonds for each particular corporate purpose, the Court may interfere if the municipal action is not within the powers conferred, as in Ross v. Lipscomb, 83 S. C, 136.
I am doubtful whether section 2008, construed in connection with section 2010, and the Act of February 27, 1902, allows the city council any discretion to combine a proposition for sewerage with a proposition for waterworks, and in view of the general impolicy of such a proceeding, I solve the doubt against the municipal action, especially since no rights of bona fide holders of the bonds are involved, and the irregularity may be cured by another election.
But if the bonds are not invalid the writ of mandamus must be refused, on the ground that it has not been shown that it is the ministerial duty of the respondents- to deliver the bond issue in question to petitioners. Under section 2010 the commissioners of public works have no power, with respect to sewerage, which by the Act February 27, 1902, is placed in the control of a sewerage commission, under the general power of the city council.
If the city' council has power to proportion the bonds between waterworks and sewerage, the power has not been exercised, and the 'Court has no means to make the proportionment. Section 2008 does require that the bonds issued thereunder be delivered to ■ the commissioners of public works, but that must be construed as limited to bonds issued for purposes within the jurisdiction of such commission. Hence, petitioners are not entitled to receive such portion of the bonds as may be appropriated to sewerage. State v. Young, 66 S. C., 121.