Court Opinion

ID: 9590115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:51:41.465313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:58.843161
License: Public Domain

RUSSELL, J.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion relies on Armstrong v. Henrico County, 212 Va. 66, 77, 182 S.E.2d 35, 43 (1971), for the proposition that the setting of sewer rates and fees is a nondelegable legislative function. It then reasons that since the County Administrator set the $700 tap fee in this case, having no authority to do so, the subdivision agreement is void to that extent. This conclusion is based upon the erroneous premise that the Administrator set the fee. The Administrator did not set the fee. The York County Board of Supervisors set the $700 tap fee as a part of its “Waste-water Ordinance,” adopted on January 12, 1976, more than a year before the subdivision agreement in issue was executed. The real question before the Court is whether the Board was bound by the contract which the Administrator executed as its agent.
York County’s subdivision ordinance appoints the County Administrator the county’s “Subdivision Agent” and provides that he “shall, on behalf of the Board, administer and enforce the provisions of this ordinance.” The ordinance further requires that he approve a subdivision plat only after the subdivider has either (1) completed all improvements on the plans, or (2) entered into an *453agreement with the county accompanied by a bond covering 100% of the cost of required improvements not yet completed.
The subdivider in this case chose to satisfy this requirement by entering into an agreement with the county accompanied by a bond covering 100% of the cost of required improvements not yet completed. The $700 tap fee, which the majority finds unauthorized, appears in this agreement. As a prerequisite to approval of the plat, the subdivider was required by the ordinance to execute the agreement, and the County Administrator was required by the ordinance to enforce the provision requiring the agreement.
The subdivision agreement between the parties assures the completion of the required improvements and indemnification for the county. It recites that the subdivider has posted sufficient collateral to guarantee the maintenance of a temporary pump station until it is replaced by a permanent pump station. It also states that the subdivider has posted further surety in the amount of $125,000 guaranteeing the construction of a permanent pump station on or before April 1, 1977. Paragraph 4, in which the $700 tap fee appears, states:
In the event county does not undertake to construct a permanent pump station or does not complete the construction of a permanent pump station on or before January 1, 1979, then and in that event owner agrees to build a permanent pump station in accordance with the plans and specifications and in the location shown which the county now has on file; provided however, that any costs of construction of the permanent pump station by owner in excess of $50,000 shall be reimbursed immediately up to the amount of tap fees upon payment of such tap fees chargeable on Sections 1, 2, and 3 of King’s Villa Subdivision. Such tap fees shall be $700.00 for each structure to be connected to the sewer.
Thus, the $700 fee is an integral part of the “cost of required improvements” mandated by the ordinance to be a part of a binding agreement between the subdivider and the county.
The subdivision ordinance provides that when the subdivider has complied with the provisions of the ordinance, the subdivision agent shall grant provisional approval to the plat, which action “shall be binding on the governing body, through its agent.”
*454The Administrator, having been authorized to enter into subdivision agreements as the governing body’s “Subdivision Agent,” merely set forth in the agreement the connection fees then required by the applicable ordinance. Indeed, he would have had no authority to specify any different fees. After he signed the agreement on behalf of the county, it was endorsed “Approved as to form” by the County Attorney.
There can be no doubt of the Administrator’s authority to enter into such contracts. Code § 15.1-320 provides:
[T]he governing body of any county . . . shall have power and authority: . . . (6) To enter into contracts with . . . any person, firm or corporation . . . providing for or relating to the treatment and disposal of sewage and industrial wastes.
(7) To fix, charge and collect fees, rents or other charges for the use ánd services of the sewage disposal system.
In S. H. Apts. v. Elizabeth City Co., 185 Va. 67, 78, 37 S.E.2d 841, 846 (1946), we said: “In furtherance of its purposes the Board of Supervisors of a county may employ agents and servants to do what the Board has authority to do, and to perform acts and enter into contracts which the Board, in the exercise of its discretion, has approved.” Reviewing the statutory powers of governing bodies, we specifically held that a Board of Supervisors, acting through its designated agent, might enter into binding contracts with developers with respect to sewer service fees. Such a contract was enforced against a developer in S. H. Apts. Id. at 81, 37 S.E.2d at 847.
A contract enforceable against one party is equally enforceable against the other. There is no doctrine of sovereign immunity in the law of contracts; a governing body is as accountable for breach of a valid contract as any other party would be.
The majority opinion appears to focus upon the theory that the subdivision agreement had the effect of freezing the sewer connection fees at $700, insofar as Sections 1, 2, and 3 of King’s Villa were concerned, and that binding the governing body to that figure somehow impaired its sovereign legislative power to adopt a different schedule of fees. I see no basis for such a concern. No legislature can bind its successors to leave the law unchanged. The Board of Supervisors was free to increase sewer connection fees at any time, whether it had entered into a contract concerning such *455fees or not. The new fees would apply to all citizens affected thereby. The Board would remain subject to equitable sanctions or responsive in damages for any breach of contract it might thus commit, but its sovereign powers would be unimpaired. Indeed, any other view would offend the constitutional provisions proscribing legislation which impairs the obligation of contracts. U.S. Const. art. I, § 10; Va. Const, art. I, § 11; see also Shoosmith v. Scott, 217 Va. 290, 227 S.E.2d 729 (1976).
In pursuance of their complex responsibilities, governing bodies must enter into contracts on countless subjects with a wide variety of private parties. In nearly all such cases, they act through designated agents, as our decisions and the applicable statutes authorize them to do. If the subject of such an agreement is within the contractual competence of the governing body, it is usually also within its legislative power. The majority’s reasoning would, by extension, imperil every contract entered into by or on behalf of a governing body concerning any subject matter upon which it might validly legislate. But it is of vital importance, both to governing bodies and to the citizens who must deal with them, that their contractual engagements be respected. The proper view, it seems to me, is to leave the governing body free to amend its ordinance at any time, but to preserve the enforceability of its contracts, and its liability in damages for their breach, notwithstanding such change.
For these reasons, I would affirm.
COCHRAN, J., joins in dissent.