Cutrona v. Mayor of Wilmington

124 A. 658, 14 Del. Ch. 208, 1924 Del. Ch. LEXIS 28
CourtCourt of Chancery of Delaware
DecidedMay 9, 1924
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 124 A. 658 (Cutrona v. Mayor of Wilmington) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Chancery of Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cutrona v. Mayor of Wilmington, 124 A. 658, 14 Del. Ch. 208, 1924 Del. Ch. LEXIS 28 (Del. Ct. App. 1924).

Opinion

The Chancellor.

This case is to be treated as one where the directors of the Street and Sewer Department have refused to issue a permit in the first instance. The only questions agitated in the cause concern the validity of the resolution adopted by the Board of Directors of the Street and Sewer Department of the City of Wilmington. The complainant assails that resolution upon two grounds. These are:

(1) The resolution in question is beyond the charter power of the City of Wilmington, is wholly unreasonable, and is therefore void. (2) It is unconstitutional as attempting to confer unrestrained and arbitrary power upon the Street and Sewer Department.

[212]*212These points will be disposed of in the order of their statement.

First. Is the city possessed with corporate power to legislate upon the subject matter of the resolution? The answer to this question, of course, turns upon the extent of power which the legislative authority of the State has seen fit to confer upon the city, for a municipal corporation has no power except such as is expressly conferred by the Legislature, or is necessarily or fairly implied as incident to or essential for the attainment of the purposes expressly declared. This principle is elementary. It is laid down in innumerable cases and has received recognition in this State in Coyle v. Mclntire, 7 Houst. 44, 30 Atl. 728, 40 Am. St. Rep. 109, and Gray v. Wilmington, 2 Marv. 257, 43 Atl. 94.

Turning to the statutory charter of the City of Wilmington, it appears that the act of 1883 (Laws of Delaware, vol. 17, c. 207) confers on the Council power to enact ordinances for many enumerated purposes and among these is found the power to enact ordinances “generally to prescribe and regulate the use of the highways, streets, squares, lanes and alleys of the city, and to have and exercise control over the same.” Section 31. The act of April 20, 1887 (Laws of Delaware, vol. 18, c. 188), created the Board of Directors of the Street and Sewer Department, upon which was conferred “entire jurisdiction and control within the limits of said city of the streets, squares, lanes, roads or alleys thereof, said jurisdiction and control to extend from building line to building line.” Section 1. This act further provides that the said board shall “have the same rights and powers, and be vested with the same authority over the said streets, squares, lanes, roads,” etc., “ * * * as are now held and exercised by ‘the Council’ of the * * * city * * * under the charter, laws, ordinances and regulations appertaining to or in any manner made for the government of said city.” Id.

In referring to the act just mentioned, the Supreme Court of this State in Bullock’s Adm’r. v. Wilmington City Railway, 5 Pennewill, 209, 64 Atl. 242, said:

“The purpose and object of the Street and Sewer Act was manifestly to take the whole subject-matter of the construction, and also the regulation of the use of the streets,” etc., “from‘the Council,’ * * * and at the same [213]*213time to give the street and sewer commissioners [directors] the power to see that the streets of Wilmington should be so constructed and used, so far as it lay within the power of the municipality, in a manner which would make them both fit and safe for the uses of a public highway.”

It appears from the foregoing, therefore, that the legislative authority to the Street and Sewer Department respecting the streets of the city is generally to prescribe and regulate their use and to exercise entire jurisdiction and control over the same. If the resolution in question has any warrant in legislative grant, it must rest for its support on the statutory provisions just adverted to.

The complainant contends that the language referred to is not sufficiently broad to justify the passage of a resolution such as the one complained against which, he argues, must be regarded solely as undertaking to regulate the business of operating motor busses within the city limits. It is argued that the charter of Wilmington confers authority on the Council to regulate certain named business, among which the operation of bus vehicles is not mentioned, and that such being the case the business of operating busses must be regarded as never having been intended by the Legislature to be embraced within the regulatory powers of the municipality, on the principle that where an enumeration of businesses that may be regulated is contained in the statute, the enumeration is to be taken as exclusive. Dillon, Municipal Corporations, vol. 2, § 667.

If this principle is conceded, it can be of no avail here. This is for the reason that the right to regulate the use of the'streets and the right to exercise entire jurisdiction and control over the same is among the enumerated powers of the municipality through its proper agencies. As I view the point now under consideration, it is not to be regarded as a question of whether a specific power is to be recognized when not precisely designated in an enumerated list; it is rather a question of whether a clearly granted power has been exercised in an unwarranted manner. In other words, is the attempt to regulate the business of operating busses fairly to be implied as incident to the power to regulate the use of the streets and to exercise entire control and jurisdiction over the same? If it be, then there is no occasion to resort to the principle [214]*214for which Judge Dillon is cited as an authority. I proceed, therefore, to consider whether power to pass the resolution in question is fairly to be implied from the general grant of power over the use of the streets of the city.

Very many cases have been cited in the course of the argument. Generally speaking, they are of little assistance in considering the point now under discussion, because they arise under legislative charters whose language is quite dissimiliar to the language of the Wilmington charter, and in many of them express legislative power has been conveyed to the municipality to deal with the subject of motor bus transportation.

The right conveyed to the City of Wilmington to exercise entire jurisdiction and control over the streets and generally to regulate the use of the same is couched in language of very broad import. In St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 149 U. S. 465, 13 Sup. Ct. 990, 37 L. Ed. 810, Mr. Justice Brewer speaking of the power given to a city to regulate the use of streets said:

“The word ‘regulate’ is one of broad import. It is the word used in the Federal Constitution to define the power of Congress over foreign and interstate commerce, and he who reads the many opinions of this court will perceive how broad and comprehensive it has been held to be. If the city gives a right to the use of the streets or public grounds, as it did by Ordinance No. 11604, it simply regulates the use when it prescribes the terms and conditions upon which they shall be used. If it should see fit to construct an expensive boulevard in the city, and then limit the use to vehicles of a certain kind or exact a toll from all who use it, would that be other than a regulation of the use?”

As stated by the Supreme Court of this State in Bullock’s Adm’r. v. Wilmington City Railway Co., supra,

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Bluebook (online)
124 A. 658, 14 Del. Ch. 208, 1924 Del. Ch. LEXIS 28, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cutrona-v-mayor-of-wilmington-delch-1924.