City of Wardner v. Pelkes

69 P. 64, 8 Idaho 333, 1902 Ida. LEXIS 19
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedMay 14, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 69 P. 64 (City of Wardner v. Pelkes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Wardner v. Pelkes, 69 P. 64, 8 Idaho 333, 1902 Ida. LEXIS 19 (Idaho 1902).

Opinion

SULLIVAN, J.

— This proceeding involves the corporate existence of the city of Wardner, Shoshone county. At the January, 1902, meeting of the board of county commissioners of said county, a petition signed by four hundred and twenty-eight of the taxable male inhabitants of the city of Wardner was presented to the board, praying that the said city of Wardner be incorporated, and be granted such rights as are provided by the laws' of Idaho, the petition describing the boundaries of said incorporation according to the subdivisions of the public land surveys, containing a total area of three hundred and twenty-one and four-tenths acres, and a total claimed area of three hundred and nineteen and five hundred and three thousandths aeres, to which petition was attached a map of the proposed city of Wardner. On the seventeenth day of January, 1902, the board of county commissioners, having considered the petition, granted the prayer thereof. Said order incorporating the - city of Wardner sets forth that a majority of the taxable male inhabitants, as well as a majority of the taxable inhabitants, of the said city of Wardner, had petitioned the said board that the said city of Wardner be incorporated, and further sets forth the metes and bounds of the proposed city of Wardner, with the adjacent bounds thereof, in all not exceeding six miles square, and recites that the board was satisfied of the reasonableness of the prayer of the petition, and, pursuant to the provisions of section 2224 of the Revised Statutes of Idaho, declared said city of Wardner incorporated, and in the order described the same according to the public land surveys of the United States. The board further ordered that the corporate powers and duties of the said city of Wardner be vested in a board of trustees, and appointed Richard Toner, Alfred Page, Hugh France, W. F. Goddard, and David Reese as such board of trustees. Publication of said proceedings was [337]*337first made in the “Wallace Press,” a newspaper published at Wallace, Shoshone county, Idaho, in the issue dated January 25, 1902; and within twenty days thereafter W. H. Holman, declaring himself to be a citizen and taxpayer of the city of Wardner, and John Keating, declaring himself to be a citizen and taxpayer of the city of Wardner, feeling themselves to be aggrieved by said order, gave notices of appeal to the district court of the first judicial district of the state of Idaho, in and for the county of Shoshone. Thereafter, on the twentieth day of February, 1902, within ten days after the filing of the appeals from the order of the board, John Pellces, declaring himself to he a citizen and taxpayer of said town of Wardner, by leave of the court filed his complaint in intervention, setting up therein that the act of the board in incorporating said city of Wardner on the seventeenth day of January, 1902, was illegal and void. The intervener sets forth in his complaint that on April 14, 1891, in answer to a petition of a majority of the taxable inhabitants praying for the incorporation of the town of Wardner, describing the boundaries thereof, the board of county commissioners of Shoshone county declared the town of Wardner incorporated, and described the boundaries thereof as follows, to wit: Commencing at the center of the main street of Wardner, where it intersects with the Emma and Last Chance millsite; then running five hundred feet west, and then five hundred feet east; thence running north with Main street, or county road to the town of Kellogg, to the street in the town of Milo bounding the private residence of Jacob Goetz on the north; and thence running from the center of said street five hundred feet east; and thence five hundred feet west. And the board appointed five trustees, in whom were vested the proper power and authority. The intervener then alleges that the said corporation of the town of Wardner has never been dissolved, but still exists, and is in full force and effect. The case came on to be heard before the court on the twenty-seventh day of February, 1902, at a special term, upon an agreed statement of facts. After argument the court took the matter under advisement, and on the fourth day of March [338]*338entered judgment in favor of the intervener, and, under stipulation of the parties, adopted the statement of facts as the findings of fact of the court. The judgment was in favor of the intervener, holding that by virtue of the act of the board of county commissioners of said county on April 14, 1891, the inhabitants of the town of Wardner were duly incorporated as a city, and that the act of said board had on the seventeenth day of January, 1902, attempting to incorporate said town, was void, and of no effect, because of the former order of April 14, 1891, incorporating said town. From said judgment the city of Wardner, W. H. Holman, and John Keating appealed.

It was stipulated that the statement of the ease then prepared and settled might be used by each of said appellants on appeal, and that each of said appeals might be heard on the same transcript, thus avoiding the expense of printing three transcripts of the record. The record contains an agreed statement of facts, which statement, in part, is as follows, to wit: “In the above-entitled proceeding on appeal the following facts are hereby stipulated, upon which the court may determine the validity of all proceedings of the board of commissioners of Shoshone county, state of Idaho, affecting the incorporation of the town of Wardner.” Under the stipulated facts this court is called upon to determine whether the inhabitants of the city of Wardner are living under a valid municipal government; and, if so, whether under the original incorporation of April 14, 1891, or under the incorporation of January 17, 1902.

At the outset, counsel for appellants Holman and Keating contend that the intervener, Pelkes, was simply a meddler, without standing in court, and for that reason contend that the act of the board of county commissioners attempting to incorporate said town on April 14, 1891, is not before this court. Under the stipulated facts, we are not called upon to decide that question, as counsel have stipulated the facts upon which the court may determine the validity of “all proceedings” — not only of those of January 17, 1902, but “all proceedings” of the board of county commissioners of said county “affecting the incorporation of the town of Wardner” — which [339]*339stipulation certainly includes the proceedings of April 14, 1891. Counsel have thus submitted for consideration the acts of incorporation of date April 14, 1891, as well as the acts of said board of January 17, 1902.

The attempted incorporation of said town was made on April 14, 1891, under the provisions of section 2224 of the Eevised Statutes of 1887, which section provides, inter alia, that the petition must set forth “the metes and bounds of their town or village, with adjacent bounds,” etc., and, in case the board declare such town or village incorporated, they must designate in the order so made the metes and bounds thereof, etc.

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In re Village of Chubbuck
226 P.2d 484 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1950)
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191 P.2d 364 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1948)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
69 P. 64, 8 Idaho 333, 1902 Ida. LEXIS 19, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-wardner-v-pelkes-idaho-1902.