Court Opinion

ID: 9545013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:04:40.805646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:53.536627
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice HARNSBERGER
concurring in the opinion of Mr. Justice McINTYRE for reversal of the district court:
The town council which contracted for installation of the meters acted within its authority insofar as the meters were to be used within the term of that council’s existence, but it was without authority to bind its successors to continue their use thereafter. It follows that the antecedent council could not in any way obligate its. successors to continue their use or for payment of the same either as lease rental or in purchase. In 37 Am.Jur., Muncipal Corporations, § 66, p. 679, a distinction is recognized between rights of governmental, bodies of municipalities to bind their successors when performing governmental! functions and the contractual authority of such bodies in their business or proprietary-capacity, saying:
«⅜ ⅜ ⅜ -where the contract involved', relates to governmental or legislative-functions of the council, or involves-a matter of discretion to be exercised by the council, * * * no power of the council so to do exists, since the.power conferred upon municipal councils to exercise legislative or governmental functions is conferred to be exercised as often as may be found needful or politic, and the council presently-holding such powers is vested with no-discretion to circumscribe or limit or diminish their efficiency, but must transmit them unimpaired to their successors. * * * ”
Authorities cited amply justify the statement. In East St. Louis & Interurban Water Co. v. City of Belleville, 360 Ill. 490, 196 N.E. 442, 103 A.L.R. 1155, there was a somewhat analogous situation to the present-case. The city council there contracted for installation, use, and rental of fire hydrants. In discussing the binding effect of the contract upon council’s successors, the court said, “A city cannot, by ordinance or other means, contract away its police power of fixing rates. Such power may be exercised' from time to time or even continuously. * * * For the same reason appellant could' not bind future city councils by setting up-a fixed hydrant rental for the period.” (at 196 N.E. 443) If a council cannot bind its. successors to a fixed rental for fire hydrants, a council certainly should not be able to> *121bind those successors to pay rental for parking meters and much less to bind its successors for future payment in purchase of parking meters.
63 C.J.S. Municipal Corporations § 979c, p. 534, also notes the distinction between proprietary and governmental functioning, •saying:
“A municipal corporation cannot make a binding contract for the discharge of a purely public duty * * *. How•ever, when a city’s public duty does not interfere with its performance of a private service, it may make a valid contract for the use of its instrumentalities in the latter. * * * ”
But, “A municipality cannot make contracts which will embarrass or control its legislative powers and duties, or which amount to an abrogation of its governmental function ■or of its police power.”
62 C.J.S. Municipal Corporations § 139, pp. 281-282, likewise says:
“A municipal corporation may, by contract, curtail its right to exercise functions of a business or proprietary nature, but, * * * such a corporation ■cannot surrender or contract away its ■governmental functions and powers, and any attempt to barter or surrender them is invalid. Accordingly, a municipal ■corporation cannot, by contract, ■ordinance, or other means, surrender •or curtail its legislative powers and ■duties, its police power, or its administrative authority.”
However, some doubt has been expressed as to the sufficiency of this type of classification, i. e., governmental or proprietary. The court in Plant Food Co. v. City of Charlotte, 214 N.C. 518, 199 S.E. 712, 714, said “The true test is whether the contract itself deprives a governing body, or its ■successor, of a discretion which public policy demands should be left unimpaired.”
There is a valid difference between contracts of a town or city governing body which merely procure services to carry on its business or proprietary activities and contracts incident to the performance of governmental functions. This would seem to be especially true of contracts which are so intimately related to governmental functioning that they require enactment of ordinances to render them effective. Matters of policy, particularly those within scope of police power (which the contrary opinion concedes was the activity here involved), looking toward the protection of public health, safety, welfare, and convenience, are peculiarly politic and are for discretionary determination from time to time as it may appear to be either necessary or expedient in the judgment of the current body upon or with whom governmental responsibilities lie. The use of meters is so interrelated with ordinances respecting parking, and charges therefor, that any contract for their installation and use involves the discretionary legislative authority of a current council. Hence, a decision as to the wisdom or expediency of enacting such ordinances is a discretionary or governmental function of a town council, and the act of one such council cannot be binding upon its successor. If one council can irrevocably commit a town to a continuing policy or determination, its successors would be robbed of the very authority for which they are selected. Their functions would deteriorate to those of robots and their positions would be that of mere figureheads.
Whether a city is to have parking meters or not lies in the sound discretion of the city fathers just as they may decide either to have or not to have one-way streets. See City of Clayton v. Nemours, 353 Mo. 61, 182 S.W.2d 57, 59, appeals dismissed (two cases) Nemours v. City of Clayton, 323 U.S. 684, 65 S.Ct. 560, 89 L.Ed. 554, citing Cavanaugh v. Gerk, 313 Mo. 375, 280 S.W. 51, 52, which said, “As a police regulation, the city could provide for the safety and convenience of its inhabitants, by ordinance, define the parking places, establish automatic signals and one-way streets, and other regulations,” and, in the earlier case of City of Clayton v. Nemours, 237 Mo.App. 167, 164 S.W.2d 935, *122942, “a city, under its power to regulate parking, may define and establish zones where parking shall be either limited or prohibited,” and “that the ordinance constitutes a proper police regulation may therefore be taken for granted.” Parking and its control is essentially a traffic problem and is an element of policing regulation. It is not rendered less so because charge is made by the use of meters for temporary use of street space. Such a practice is but an adjunct to traffic policing and is primarily an aid to policing and enforcing traffic regulation. The payment for space use and penalties for overtime parking are not different from fines for other traffic violations.
No consistency is found in decisions from different jurisdictions in their determination of what functions are governmental and what are proprietary. For instance, in McBean v. City of Fresno, 112 Cal. 159, 169, 44 P. 358, 361, 31 L.R.A. 794, 53 Am.St, Rep. 191, the court held a contract for sewers was not binding upon successors in absence of clear showing of reasonable necessity; but, on the other hand, if it appeared to be prompted by necessities and advantages to the municipality, it would not be construed as an unreasonable restraint upon the powers of successors. In Robbins v. Hoover, 50 Colo. 610, 115 P. 526, it was held an acceptance of a bequest which imposed perpetual obligation to support a hospital was invalid. In State ex rel. Consumers Public Power Dist. v. Boettcher, 138 Neb. 22, 291 N.W. 709, the court held that a municipal water supply system was handled under police or governmental power, yet an electrical light and power system was not. In Leidigh v. Nebraska City, 138 Neb. 136, 292 N.W. 115, it was said a contract for purchase of a park which required payment beyond the mayor’s and commissioners’ terms of office was invalid as they could not bind their successors.
There are courts which even hold invalid a contract in aid of fire departments as being an attempt to bind successors in performance of their governmental capacities. Commonwealth ex rel. Fortney, for Use of Volunteer Fire Department of Coal Township, Northumberland County v. Bartol, 342 Pa. 172, 20 A.2d 313. Yet courts from that same jurisdiction also held a contract assigning rents from its gas works to be binding upon a council’s successors because the function was deemed to be proprietary, even though the contract itself required a subsequent tax levy (a purely governmental prerogative). Graham v. City of Philadelphia, 334 Pa. 513, 6 A.2d 78.
Most courts uphold contracts for water supply as binding on successors upon the ground the supplying of water is a business activity, entirely ignoring the irrefutable fact that water is a health and even a life necessity and thus a matter properly within governmental police power. See Annotation 149 A.L.R. 336, 339, III. But a few states, such as Nebraska in State ex rel. Consumers Public Power Dist. v. Boettcher, supra, at 291 N.W. 709, held to the contrary that such an activity was a governmental function. So, depending upon the distinction drawn to suit the ideas of the particular court between governmental and proprietary functioning, we find the. maintenance of a park in one case is said to be a governmental function, that providing for water or sewer may be either proprietary or governmental, even though these services intimately affect the public health and safety, and numerous other oddities.
While the holding of these different courts as to the right of a governmental body or agency to bind their successors has so frequently and even generally turned upon a particular court’s own determination that the subject matter involved was either a governmental function or a proprietary activity, the critical point underlying all decisions seems to be whether that which was done was so necessary as to warrant a contract extending beyond the term of office of those who made it.
There is neither equitable nor legal reason which favors the meter company. It stands charged with knowledge of and is bound at its peril to know the contractual power of the town council with which it dealt. 63 *123C.J.S. Municipal Corporations § 979, p. 530. As a matter of fact, that it had such knowledge is apparent from the very nature of the contract it prepared and induced the council to sign. It carefully avoided wording which said unequivocally that the company would sell and the city would buy the meters for a sum certain under any condition. The contract gives every indication of a purpose to mislead and confuse the lay mind. The ■company’s only loss is discontinuance of rentals at the end of the period for which the town could have lawfully contracted. If the company did not accept the return of the meters, that was the company’s own fault.
The contract nowhere requires the town to pay rental for the meters from any other source than from revenues produced from their use; but, notwithstanding the contract ■does not require the town to pay at all events .a purchase price for the meters, the interpretation by the contrary opinion that it was a conditional sale contract can mean nothing ■other than that the contract created a firm ■obligation to pay for the meters at all events. In other words, a town indebtedness was incurred by the contract which required the debt be satisfied either by continuing the use ■of the meters indefinitely until payments from the company’s share of the meters’ receipts equalled the price fixed as their value or, at all events, as is now authorized by the contrary decision, from future revenues of the town which normally should be under the exclusive control of successors in the government of the town. As payment for the meters was not made within the term of office of the then current administration, the contract was constitutionally violative, because thereby a debt was created in a manner other than by legislatively sanctioned bond issue. Art. 16, § 2, Wyoming Constitution. Furthermore, § 15-127, W.S.1957, requires a town council to annually make appropriation not exceeding the probable amount of revenue to be collected (current revenue), and § 15-129, W.S.1957, prohibits the council from making any contract incurring expense unleSs appropriation has been made therefor, except under inapplicable conditions. Under the conclusion given the contract by the contrary opinion, the town was committed for a payment which was not to be made from the current revenues nor from funds appropriated for that purpose, thus violating these statutes. If the contract compelled the town to continue the meters in use until such time as the rentals equalled the value of the meters, the contract denied discretion to the successors in the exercise of police power, thus robbing them of their governmental authority.
Lastly, as the contrary opinion holds the contract to be one of conditional sale, and involved a purchase amounting to more than $1,000, it was entered into in violation of § 15-20, W.S.1957, which requires that such contracts be let to the lowest responsible bidder after notice by advertisement containing complete specifications, thus providing for competitive bidding.
The law of this State was settled in this respect in the case of Tobin v. Town Council of Town of City of Sundance, 45 Wyo. 219, 17 P.2d 666, 84 A.L.R. 902. The contract between the town council and a company there considered was for certain street improvement and provided that payment therefor should be one-half cash, the balance by warrants payable not more than one year from date of issue. The cash payment was made, but when the company’s claim for payment of the balance was made, slightly more than one year from the date of the contract, the council rejected it and the company sued. The town asserted the contract was void: (1) for failure to obey the provisions of § 1774, W.C.S.1920, because the agreement exceeded $200 and was not let to the lowest bidder after advertisement; and (2) for failure to comply with §§ 1756 and 1757, W.C.S.1920, in that no valid appropriation had been made by the town. Section 1774, W.C.S.1920, is now § 15-20, W.S.1957, but the amount necessary to invoke its requirement for advertisement for competitive bidding is therein raised from $200 to $1,000, but §§ 1756 and 1757, W.C.S. 1920, are now unchanged and appear as §§ 15-127 and 15-128, W.S.1957. In the Tobin *124case, the court said the council had disregarded the prohibition of § 1757, W.C.S. 1920 (§ 15-128 W.S.1957), which forbids added corporate expenditures in any one year over and above the amount provided for in the annual appropriation bill of that year, and held against the company’s claim that the improvement was a necessity. The decision also sets forth with obvious purpose the provisions of § 1758, W.C.S.1920 (now § 15-129, W.S.1957, without change) requiring that no contract shall be made by a town council and no expense shall be incurred unless an appropriation therefor shall have been previously made.
The only conclusion that may properly be drawn from the opinion in the Tobin case is that up to the time of the contrary decision now rendered, the law in Wyoming was-that: (1) Contracts of municipalities for purchases in excess of amounts legislatively prescribed are void unless let to the lowest bidder after advertisement; and (2) that failure of municipalities to comply with the budgeting procedure prescribed by §§ 15-127, 15-128, and 15-129, W.S.1957, render any such contracts void.
The contrary opinion therefore not only violates the constitution and the statutes of this State, but reverses and holds for naught the former decision of this court where questions identical with the instant case were considered.
I agree the judgment should have been for the defendant and the case should be reversed.