Prince v. City of Quincy

21 N.E. 768, 128 Ill. 443
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedMay 14, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 21 N.E. 768 (Prince v. City of Quincy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Prince v. City of Quincy, 21 N.E. 768, 128 Ill. 443 (Ill. 1889).

Opinion

Per'Curiam:

This case originated in the circuit court of Adams county, and was there determined adversely to appellant on a general and special demurrer to his declaration. He appealed to the Appellate Court, where the judgment of the circuit court was affirmed, and he now brings the record to this court.

The following opinion was rendered in the Appellate Court for the Third District, by Pleasants, J.:

“This was an action on the case, brought by the appellant, against appellee. The declaration contained eleven counts. A demurrer, general and special, to the whole declaration, and to each count thereof, was sustained, and the plaintiff abiding, a judgment of nil capiat and for costs was rendered against him, from which he took this appeal. The question is upon the sufficiency of this declaration.

“In the first count it is alleged that the defendant was incorporated by special act, which empowered it, among other things, to appropriate money and provide for the payment of the debt and expenses of the city; that in August, 1873, it passed an ordinance, (set out in hace verla,) which was duly accepted by plaintiff, and so became a contract between them, whereby plaintiff was to construct, maintain and keep in operation within the corporate limits of the city, a general system of water works, to be extended and enlarged, from time to time, as therein prescribed; and the defendant was to pay him, in monthly installments, from the time water should be turned on, the sum of $2600 per annum, and also, in like manner, $200 per annum for each of the first one hundred hydrants, which contract was, by its terms, to run for a period of thirty years; that the plaintiff fully performed all the things by said contract required of him, and within the time thereby limited for that purpose, and at all times during the fiscal year next. mentioned, had and furnished water through seventy-seven hydrants, on each of which water had been previously^ turned, and all of which had been located under and pursuant to the provisions of said contract; that the city had a fiscal year of its own, commencing March 31,1880, and an income and revenue of its own for said year; that at the comtiiencement of said year, and at all times during the same, it was indebted upon its valid bonds theretofore issued and then outstanding and unpaid, to the amount of more than $1,700,000, which greatly exceeded five per cent on the value of all the taxable property within its limits, as ascertained by the last assessment for State and county taxes made before the commencement of said year, or by any assessment therefor made during said year; that by reason thereof, plaintiff became and was entitled to payment out of the revenue of said year, and the city council ought to have provided out of the same for the payment to him of the contract rate per hydrant specified in said ordinance; that although the city, during said fiscal year, received and used the water so furnished through said seventy-seven hydrants, and its income and revenue during said year was ample and sufficient for such payment in full, nevertheless the city council willfully neglected and refused to appropriate the revenue of said year to or provide for the payment of the amount so due to the plaintiff, but, on the contrary, permitted said revenue to be dissipated, scattered and diverted from the payment thereof, by means whereof the revenue of said fiscal year was lost to the plaintiff, and the amount due him for water furnished to the defendant during said year remains unrecovered and unpaid.

“In this count the duty of the council is alleged to have been to provide for the payment to plaintiff, out of the revenues of the year, the amount of the contract rate for. the water furnished during the year. This duty is predicated upon (1) the chartered power of the council to appropriate money and provide for the payment of the debts and expenses of the city; (2) its express contract with plaintiff, performed on his part j (3) its indebtedness, previously and then existing, to the full limit of its constitutional power to contract indebtedness; and (4) its possession of revenue for that year sufficient for such payment. The breach complained of is its refusal so to provide for payment to the plaintiff, and the appropriation of said revenue to other uses; and the damage or injury to the plaintiff alleged is the non-payment of his claim.

“The other counts, excepting the 9th and 11th, are, in principle and general form, the same as the first, the difference being that some relate to the claims for water furnished during the two following years, respectively. Some aver that an actual though insufficient appropriation was made for the year therein mentioned; some allege the contract as one implied, from the receipt and use of the water, to pay the plaintiff quantum meruit; some state the duty as to pay -for current expenses pro rata, and some charge the refusal to pay as designed and malicious.

“It is not proposed to notice all of the many points discussed and authorities cited by counsel, but only two or three which, in the light of our own State decisions, are deemed decisive of the question here presented.

“At first blush it would seem that by each of these counts it is sought to charge the city in tort for the simple refusal of its council to pay an indebtedness contracted directly in the face of an express constitutional prohibition, and so to recover as damages the precise amount of that indebtedness, with interest from the time when it became due by the terms of the contract. But counsel, as was to be expected, disclaim a position so clearly untenable. Yet this apparent effect of all the facts alleged, is obviated only, if at all, by the introduction into the pleading itself, by,inference and as argument, of certain propositions of law touching the effect of the constitutional prohibition upon the contract and claim in question, and the character of the fund called ‘current revenue,’ which are admitted to be essential to the sufficiency of these counts. Those propositions are, that the legal effect of the prohibition upon plaintiff’s claim was to make it, not non-payable, but payable only out of current revenue, and that current revenue was a specific fund for its payment, and they raise the question we purpose mainly to consider.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

East St. Louis & Interurban Water Co. v. City of Belleville
196 N.E. 442 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1935)
Eastern & Western Lumber Co. v. Patterson
264 P. 441 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1927)
Anderson v. International School District No. 5
156 N.W. 54 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 1915)
O'Rear v. Sartain
69 So. 554 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1915)
In re State to Issue Bonds to Fund Indebtedness
127 P. 1065 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1912)
In Re Application of State
1912 OK 702 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1912)
State ex rel. University of Utah v. Candland
104 P. 285 (Utah Supreme Court, 1909)
Hagan v. Commissioner's Court
49 So. 417 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1909)
Brockway v. Roseburg
79 P. 335 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1905)
City of Ottumwa v. City Water Supply Co.
119 F. 315 (Eighth Circuit, 1902)
State ex rel. Hill v. Wabash Railroad
70 S.W. 132 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1902)
State ex rel. Helena Water Works Co. v. City of Helena
63 P. 99 (Montana Supreme Court, 1900)
Windsor v. City of Des Moines
81 N.W. 476 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1900)
City of Chicago v. McDonald
52 N.E. 982 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1898)
Earles v. Wells
68 N.W. 964 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1896)
The City of Guthrie v. the New Vienna Bank
38 P. 4 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1896)
Gold v. City of Peoria
65 Ill. App. 602 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1896)
Schulenburg & Boeckler Lumber Co. v. City of East St. Louis
63 Ill. App. 214 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1896)
Spilman v. City of Parkersburg
14 S.E. 279 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1891)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
21 N.E. 768, 128 Ill. 443, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/prince-v-city-of-quincy-ill-1889.