Court Opinion

ID: 7974204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 00:58:06.342315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:34:51.684307
License: Public Domain

ELLIOTT, J.
(concurring).
The sureties cannot be heard to assert that this contract is ultra vires. A municipal corporation with charter power to construct sewers irregularly entered into a contract for the construction of a particular sewer which was to extend in part through land over which the corporation had acquired no right by grant or condemnation. The contractor executed a bond with the required sureties, conditioned upon the faithful performance of the contract with the city and the payment of the lawful claims for labor and materal used in the work. This bond recited that the principal had entered into a contract with the city, and that the contract had been duly executed by each of the contracting parties. By executing this bond the sureties acknowledged that the contract was valid and the bond authorized. I think it is settled that a guaranty of payment of an obligation or the performance of an undertaking imports an agreement that the instrument is valid and the undertaking legal.
If the sureties on the bond can defeat the claims of laborers and materialmen, because of irregularities in the making of the contract referred to in the bond, it follows that every man who contemplates selling a foot of pipe to a contractor, and every laborer, before commencing work with his shovel, must employ counsel learned in the .law to ascertain whether the corporation counsel has properly performed his duties and verify the formal statement of the sureties that a contract exists between the city and the contractor.
This burden rests upon the sureties, and they are bound by the recitals in the bond. I would place the decision upon this ground.