City & County of Denver v. Hallett

34 Colo. 393
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedSeptember 15, 1905
DocketNo. 4918
StatusPublished
Cited by56 cases

This text of 34 Colo. 393 (City & County of Denver v. Hallett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City & County of Denver v. Hallett, 34 Colo. 393 (Colo. 1905).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Steele

delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff alleges that there was submitted to the taxpaying voters of the city and county of Denver the following question: “Shall the city and county of Denver issue bonds to an amount not exceeding four hundred thousand dollars, bearing interest at a rate of four per cent per annum and maturing in not less than fifteen years nor more than thirty years, the principal to be payable in equal annual installments commencing the next year following the issuance of said bonds, for the purpose of erecting a public auditorium, including the purchase of a site therefor, if desired?” That subsequently to the submission of said question the city council of the city and county of Denver passed an ordinance providing for the issuance of four hundred thousand dollars in bonds for the purpose of erecting a public auditorium, including the purchase of a site therefor.

Section 4 of the ordinance provides that the bonds "shall be payable at the option of the city and county fifteen years after date, and absolutely due and payable twenty-five years after date. They shall be of the denomination of one thousand dollars and shall bear interest at the rate of four per centum per annum, payable semiannually." The complaint further alleges that the city and county of Denver has no power or authority to construct or have an auditorium, nor to issue bonds for the payment of the [395]*395cost thereof, and that the officers of the city and county are about to issue bonds in accordance with the terms of said ordinance, and prays that an injunction issue restraining the city and county and the officers thereof from issuing or signing the bonds proposed to be issued, or from entering into any contract for the sale thereof, from acquiring a site for the erection of said auditorium or taking any steps relating thereto. It appears that the plaintiff, in his capacity as executor, is the owner of large tracts of real estate in the city upon which large taxes are annually paid, which will be subjected to very heavy additional burdens for the payment of the principal and interest of the bonds if issued. The complaint does not state the result of the vote on the question submitted, but from the fact that the case is here, we conclude that the vote was in the affirmative.

Demurrer to the complaint was overruled. The defendants elected to stand by the demurrer; judgment was rendered in accordance with the prayer of the complaint, and the defendants appealed to this court.

The judgment of the district court was right. The power to direct the issuance of bonds for the erection of an auditorium was granted by the people when they voted affirmatively upon the question submitted; but the people granted the- power to issue bonds “bearing interest at the rate of four per cent per annum, maturing in not less than fifteen nor more than thirty years, the principal to be payable in equal annual installments commencing the next year following the issuance of said bonds,” not bonds “payable at the option of the city and county fifteen years after date, and absolutely due and payable twenty-five years after date.” The people vested in the city council the discretion of determining when, after fifteen years and within thirty years from their date, [396]*396all the bonds should mature, but they required that the principal should be made payable in equal annual installments. The bonds authorized by the ordinance are not the bonds authorized by 'the people; and it follows that the issuance of the bonds under the ordinance was properly enjoined.

The city attorney urges that bonds providing for the payment of the principal in equal annual installments are unsalable, and that the will of the people in voting for an auditorium will be overthrown unless bonds such as proposed are held to be in accordance with the question submitted. The city council derives all its powers to issue bonds for' an auditorium from the people. The plain, unambiguous mandate was that the bonds when issued should be payable in equal annual installments. If the bonds then authorized cannot be sold, we know of no' authority that can direct the issuance of another and different character of bond.

It is also said that the charter requires a sinking fund to meet the bonded indebtedness, and that the annual deposit in that fund is the equivalent of payment ; and that the bonds are made “payable in equal annual installments,” when annual deposits in the sinking fund are made. The word “payable,” in this connection, is not susceptible of any such construction. “Payable in equal annual installments” means that an equal amount of each bond or of the whole debt shall become due each year; that the payment thereof shall become legally enforcible against the city, that it is the right of the city to make annual payments of the principal, and the duty of the holders of the bonds to accept such payment. The words are in daily use by the English-speaking people and need no interpretation, and to construe them as meaning that the city may place annually in its sinking [397]*397fund an amount to meet the obligations at maturity would be without justification.

In holding, as we do, that the bonds proposed are not the bonds directed by the people to be issued, we have determined the case, and might well refuse to decide the other questions involved. But in as much as the power of the city to erect a public auditorium is challenged and the question is of public moment and concern, and as much time and expense will be saved by a determination of this, the main question, we are constrained by the force of the public interests to give our opinion upon this subject.

This court, in passing upon the authority of the city of Leadville to license certain occupations, said, page 520 of 14th Colorado: “ It is a well settled elementary principle that the charter of a municipal corporation, or, if organized under a general law, that such general law is the instrumentality by means of which the legislature of the state delegates to" the municipal body the right to exercise such franchise, and such legislative power and authority as may.be essential to the safety, well-being and prosperity of the community. It is equally well settled that the charter or tire law by which the municipal body is created is to be strictly construed and that no powers are to be exercised except those which are expressly conferred or which exist by necessary implication. This principle of law is expressed with extraordinary clearness in 1 Dil. Mun. Corp. 389: ‘It is a general and understood proposition of law that a municipal corporatipn possesses and can exercise the following powers and- no others: First, those granted in express words; second, those necessarily or fairly implied in, or incident to, the powers expressly granted; third, those essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation — not simply convenient, but indispensable. Any fair, reasonable [398]*398doubt concerning the existence of power is resolved by the court against the corporation, and the power is denied. Of every municipal corporation the charter or statute by which it is created is its organic act. Neither the corporation nor its officers can do any act or make any contract or incur any liability not authorized thereby.

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Bluebook (online)
34 Colo. 393, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-county-of-denver-v-hallett-colo-1905.