Rockhill Iron & Coal Co. v. City of Taunton

273 F. 96, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 1425
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedMay 12, 1921
DocketNo. 1458
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 273 F. 96 (Rockhill Iron & Coal Co. v. City of Taunton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rockhill Iron & Coal Co. v. City of Taunton, 273 F. 96, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 1425 (1st Cir. 1921).

Opinion

BINGHAM, Circuit Judge.

This is an action brought by the Rock-hill i ron & Coal Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, against the city of Taunton, a Massachusetts municipal corporation, for breach of contract.

The plaintiff’s business consists in mining coal in Pennsylvania and shipping it to purchasers in the different states. The defendant corporation was authorized (Acts of Massachusetts 1905, c. 410, § 3) to maintain and operate a plant for manufacturing and distributing electricity for the benefit of its inhabitants. The provisions of the above act, so far as material to this case, read as follows:

“Sec. 3. The mayor of a city * * ' shall appoint a manager of municipal lighting who shall, under the direction and control of the mayor !i - - hare full charge of the operation and management of the plant, the manufacture and distribution of gas or electricity, the purchase of supplies, the employment of agents and servants, the method, time, price, quantity and quality of the supply, the collection of bills, and the keeping of accounts. His compensation and term of office shall be fixed in cities by the city council [or corresponding body], * * All bills chargeable to the plant or to the appropriations therefor shall be paid by the treasurer on requisition by the manager. ® ”

[98]*98By ordinance the term of the manager was fixed at three years. On December 16, 1911, Michael Golden was appointed manager for an unexpired term ending June 30, 1914. June 17, 1913, he entered into a contract in behalf of the defendant with the plaintiff for the purchase of coal for the lighting plant, covering the balance of his term and a year and a half beyond it.

In the contract it was agreed that the plaintiff would supply and the defendant would buy all of the bituminous coal required by the lighting plant from the date of the contract to December 31, 1915. For the year 1913 the defendant was to take 4,000 tons more or less, and for each of the years 1914 and 1915, 5,000 tons more or less. All shipments were to be alongside wharf of the lighting plant and the price of the coal was to be $4.25 per gross ton alongside. Payments were to be made on the 15th day of each month for coal furnished the previous month, and the coal was to be of the brand known as “Rockhill” semi-bituminous smokeless coal and of the same quality previously furnished the lighting plant.

Under this contract 7,866 tons of coal were delivered from time to time down to and including August 7, 1914, and were paid for. Of this amount five shipments of 2,336 tons were received between July 1 and August 7, 1914.

On or about July 1, 1914, Deland D. Wood was appointed manager to succeed Golden, whose term had expired. August 7, 1914, Wood, having entered upon the performance of his duties, notified the plaintiff that the defendant refused to recognize as valid the contract of June 17, 1913, and declined to receive or pay for any further coal which might be tendered under the contract; whereupon, on the 19th of December, 19.14, this action was brought.

During the period from August 7, 1914, to December 31, 1915, the defendant, through its manager, purchased from another dealer for use at its plant 9,895 tons of coal, which was the total amount purchased -for consumption at the plant during the unexpired term of the contract. It further appeared what the coal thus purchased cost at the mines and what its selling or market price there was, and that the profit to the vendor on this basis of computation for the 9,895 tons was $5,641.43.

In the declaration the plaintiff set out the contract, alleged its breach by the defendant, and that it had been at all times ready and willing to perform.

The defendant in its answer set up three defenses: (1) It denied the authority of Golden to make a contract for, the city beyond the period of his employment; (2) alleged that the plaintiff and Golden did not act in good faith in making the contract; and (3) that the contract was void for the reason that the plaintiff was not licensed to do business in Massachusetts. No evidence was adduced at the trial to support the second defense, and, as to the third, the court found and ruled against the defendant.

It was agreed that no regulations pertaining to the duties of the manager of the lighting plant had been prescribed by the mayor, and that none were in force during Golden’s tenure of office.

[99]*99The case was submitted to the court upon agreed facts and certain oral testimony, the latter of which is not reported, as it is not material to the questions presented.

The plaintiff requested -the court to rule: (1) That, upon all the evidence, Golden, as manager, was authorized to execute, in behalf of the defendant, the contract declared upon; (2) that Wood’s refusal, as manager, to receive or pay for the balance of the coal, constituted a breach by the defendant of the contract; (3) that, upon all the evidence, the measure of damages was the difference between the cost of production and the selling price at the mines of such coal as the defendant refused to receive and pay for in accordance with the terms of the agreement; and (4) that, upon all the evidence, the plaintiff was entitled to recover damages in the sum of $5,641.43, with interest from the date of the writ. These requests were refused, and the plaintiff excepted.

The court found and ruled: (1) That Golden had no authority to make the contract, unless it was conferred upon him by the statute under which the defendant operated its municipal lighting plant; (2) that it was not established that the contract sued upon was actually or impliedly authorized; (3) that the defendant rightfully terminated the contract on August 7, 1914, and is not liable for its refusal to accept subsequent deliveries thereunder; and (4) that the plaintiff, if entitled to recover, could recover only nominal damages. Judgment was entered for the defendant, and the plaintiff prosecutes this writ of error.

In Capron v. Taunton, 196 Mass. 41, 81 N. E. 873, section 3 of chapter 410 of the act of 1905, and the preceding acts of which it was an amendment, were under consideration. It was held that section 3 took away from the city council the right of supervision over the manager previously vested in that body and conferred it “solely upon the may- or”; that while the mayor, like the city council before it, was not required to prescribe regulations by which the manager’s “statutory duties should be performed,” he was empowered, if he thought it expedient, to prescribe “such general regulations concerning the exercise by him of his statutory powers as were found, to be reasonably required, and as did not violate the statute.”

After stating that, subsequent to the enactment of section 3, “no regulations whatever were established by the mayor under which the manager should perform his official functions,” the court further held that the legislative purpose manifest throughout the act was “that original authority to contract in behalf of the city for the hiring of all employees, or to discharge them, was delegated only to the manager,” and that, inasmuch as the plaintiff, an employee of the electric lighting plant, had been discharged by the manager, the discharge was lawful, “and, the mayor not being vested with any authority to re-employ him, he [had] no cause of action either for wages or damages against the city.”

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

Related

Duggan v. City of Taunton
277 N.E.2d 268 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1971)
Tractortechnic Gebrueder Kulenkempft & Co. v. Bousman
301 F. Supp. 153 (E.D. Wisconsin, 1969)
Doyle v. McBee.
420 P.2d 247 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1966)
Commonwealth v. Oliver
172 N.E.2d 241 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1961)
Quality Paper Box Co. v. Westminster Motors, Inc.
3 Mass. App. Dec. 56 (Boston Municipal Court, 1951)
Municipal Light Commission of Taunton v. City of Taunton
80 N.E.2d 31 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1948)
Jacobberger v. School District No. 1
256 P. 652 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1927)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
273 F. 96, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 1425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rockhill-iron-coal-co-v-city-of-taunton-ca1-1921.