Court Opinion

ID: 9685681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:57:04.267371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:09.384841
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice
(dissenting in part and concurring in part).
I do not agree that this appeal is moot because the bonds have been issued by the City of Fargo. Article X, § 16 of the North Dakota Constitution does specify that “all laws or ordinances providing for the payment of the interest or principal of any debt shall be irrepealable until such debt be paid.” But the purpose of such provision is obvious, i.e., to protect the bondholders. See generally 64 Am.Jur.2d Public Securities and Obligations § 50, et seq. (1972). When, such as here, the proceeds of the bonds have not yet been expended for the purpose for which they were issued and are thus available to repay the bondholders, should the project not be constructed, the bondholders are protected and the purpose of Article X, § 16, is accomplished. I cannot acquiesce in a decision which holds that under these circumstances the courts are powerless to correct any wrongs which may have occurred prior to the issuance of the bonds when those corrections can be made without detriment to the holders of the bonds. Cf. Werner v. Riebe, 70 N.D. 533, 296 N.W. 422 (1941).
The majority opinion would encourage a municipality which may have committed errors in its proceedings to issue bonds with unseeming haste in order to avoid any challenge to the validity of the proceedings although it intends to hold the proceeds in a special fund for some time because it is not yet prepared to proceed with the improvement for which the bonds were issued. A similar purpose may have existed *806here and it ill serves the municipality and the public’s respect for the law to stifle dissent and opposition to a project with such ploys. When the interests of bondholders are protected because the proceeds of the bonds are still available for their payment, we ought not conclude that we are powerless to protect the interests of residents and taxpayers of the municipality under the guise that the issues are moot because of Article X, § 16, of the North Dakota Constitution.
I am in complete agreement with the conclusion of the majority opinion that Article III of the North Dakota Constitution applies only to State, not local, laws, and that § 40-05.1-09, NDCC, is not an unconstitutional restriction of the people’s reserved power to initiate legislation under that Article.
I therefore concur that the district court judgment be affirmed.