Barber Asphalt Paving Co. v. Muchenberger

105 Mo. App. 47
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 1, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 105 Mo. App. 47 (Barber Asphalt Paving Co. v. Muchenberger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barber Asphalt Paving Co. v. Muchenberger, 105 Mo. App. 47 (Mo. Ct. App. 1904).

Opinion

SMITH, P. J.

This suit was brought by the plaintiff, the Barber Asphalt Paving Company, to recover upon a special taxbill issued against the defendant’s property for paving with asphalt a portion of Felix street in the city of St. Joseph. Defendant set up by special plea two defenses: First, that the service upon the property owners by publishing the proposed ordinance, known as Document 29698, was insufficient in that one of the five days of publication was Sunday, and the service for that reason void and insufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the common council to condemn defendant’s property; and, second, that the work ordered and in fact done upon the street was repairs, for which the city, and not the defendant, was liable.

This publication of the proposed ordinance was made May 30th, 31st, June 1st, 2d and 3d, 1900, this [50]*50last date being Sunday. Afterwards, and on tbe 18th day of June, 1900, this document 29698, so published, was approved as Special Ordinance No. 2695, under which the work was done. On the same day the council also passed an ordinance, No. 2694, finding and declaring that special ordinance known as document 29698, providing for the paving of Felix street from Third to Eighth street, had been published for five consecutive days in the St. Joseph Gazette, the newspaper at the time doing the city printing. The contract was duly let and confirmed by the passage and approval of a special ordinance.

The cause was tried before the court, a jury being dispensed with. The judgment was for plaintiff and defendants appealed. The question to be decided is whether or not said special ordinance ordering the improvement to be made was published for five consecutive days before the passage thereof by the city council as required by section 5661, Revised Statutes. It is not disputed but that the said ordinance was published for five consecutive days before the passage of the ordinance, but it is insisted that as the last day on which it was published was Sunday that it was only published for four days, and for that reason there was an absence of authority in the council to pass it. But if the publication on the last day, which was Sunday, is to be included in the computation, then it sufficiently met the statutory requirement and the said ordinance is not vulnerable to attack on that account.'

Cities of the second class, of which the city of St. Joseph was one, have no power under their charter— section 5661, Revised Statutes — to pass an ordinance like that here in question until the publication required by said section 5661 is made. The publication of the proposed ordinance is in the nature of notice to the property holders and is required to be made for the purpose of affording them an opportunity to appear before the common council and interpose any objection [51]*51they may have to its passage. Dennison v. City, 95 Mo. 416. Was this notice given in this case? It can not be denied that it was published for the requisite number of days, but because the last day was Sunday it is insisted that it must be excluded from the count and therefore there was in legal effect no notice whatever.

The statute — section 4683 — provides that no person shall serve or execute any writ or process on Sunday. "While the publication here was notice and in some respects analogous to the service of a writ of summons by publication, yet it was not the judicial “writ or process” specified in the statute. The prohibition in that statute has reference only to personal service of such writs and process. It is obviously inapplicable in any case of constructive service and especially so in cases like the present where there is a statute requiring notice to be given by publication in a newspaper for a stated number of days or period of time. It is in effect conceded that the common council did not pass the special ordinance until after it had been published for five consecutive days or that no opportunity was afforded the abutting lot owners to appear and object to its passage. If five days intervened between the first day of the publication and the date of the passage of the special ordinance, as was the fact, the notice was all that was required to vest in the council the power to pass the ordinance. Drainage Dist. v. Campbell, 154 Mo. 151. The case of City ex rel. Bank v. Landis, 54 Mo. App. 315, was where the ordinance ordering the improvement to be made required the city engineer to advertise for ten days for proposals to do the work. The publication was made for ten days if two Sundays were included in the computation, otherwise not. The rule that in computing statute time Sunday must not be excluded (State v. Green, 66 Mo. l. c. 645; Ex parte Dodge, 7 Cowen 147; Anderson v. Baughman, 6 Mich. 298), was held applicable and accordingly that the publication met the requirements of the ordinance. Clapton v. Taylor, 49 [52]*52Mo. App. 117, was where an ordinance required notice of the letting of the contract to he published five days before the time fixed for opening the bids. The publication was made for five consecutive days but the last day was Sunday. It was objected that as the last day of the publication was Sunday that the notice was insufficient to authorize the letting of the contract; but in disposing of this objection it was curtly and correctly said, that the fact that the last day of the publication was on Sunday did not affect the legality of that class of notices.

The notices referred to in the City ex rel. Bank v. Landis, and in that of Clapton v. Taylor, related to matters that affected the substantial rights of the property owners and it was ruled in those cases that a fair compliance with the ordinance requiring the publication to be made was a condition precedent whether prescribed by charter or ordinance. Cole v. Skrainka, 105 Mo. 303. Or, in other words, until the publication was made there was no authority to let the contract. No good reason is seen, if in the computation of the time of the publication of such notices as those referred to in City ex rel. Bank v. Landis and in Clapton v. Taylor, the Sunday inclusive rule is applicable, why that rule may not be properly invoked and applied in the computation of the time of the publication of the notice in the present case. The publication we think sufficiently met the statutory requirement.

But this is not all. The common council by ordinance expressly found and determined that said special ordinance had been published for five days. Section 5661, Revised Statutes, provides that if the common council shall find and declare that such special ordinance has been published for the time and in the manner required, that such finding and recitals shall be conclusive upon all the parties concerned and no taxbill shall be held invalid on account of the insufficiency of such ordinance and notice. The finding and declaration [53]*53of the common council in such cases as this has been declared to be “conclusive for all purposes.” Adkins v. Railway, 36 Mo. App. 662; Dennison v. City, supra; Buchan v. Broadwell, 88 Mo. 31. We do not, however, think that the ordinance finding and declaration of the common council was required to render it valid, but that it was valid without that as respects the publication.

II.

Section 5651, Revised Statutes, from which we have previously herein quoted, further provides: “The common council shall have power to cause to be graded, constructed, reconstructed,

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Bluebook (online)
105 Mo. App. 47, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barber-asphalt-paving-co-v-muchenberger-moctapp-1904.