Water Works & Sewer Board of Wetumpka v. City of Wetumpka

773 So. 2d 466, 2000 Ala. LEXIS 229, 2000 WL 739590
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJune 9, 2000
Docket1981348
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 773 So. 2d 466 (Water Works & Sewer Board of Wetumpka v. City of Wetumpka) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Water Works & Sewer Board of Wetumpka v. City of Wetumpka, 773 So. 2d 466, 2000 Ala. LEXIS 229, 2000 WL 739590 (Ala. 2000).

Opinion

HOUSTON, Justice.1

The City of Wetumpka (“the City”) named Lewis Washington, a duly elected councilman for the City, as a director of the City’s Water Works and Sewer Board (“the Water Board”). The Water Board; Dr. J.E. Dunn, chairman of the Water Board; and Kendall Smith, vice chairman of the Water Board, petitioned for a writ of quo warranto and sued for a declaratory judgment against the City and Washington. The facts were stipulated. The trial court denied the Board’s petition for a writ of quo warranto and its request for a declaratory judgment. The Board appeals.

The Water Board was organized in 1949 under Title 37, §§ 394 to 402, Code of 1940, as amended. Paragraph four of the Water Board’s certificate of incorporation provided:

“The corporate power shall be exercised by a Board of Directors, which shall consist of three members which shall be the maximum and minimum thereof. The members of the Board of Directors shall be elected by the governing body of the City of Wetumpka. None of the members of the said Board of Directors shall be an officer thereof. The members of the Board of Directors shall be elected in the manner and hold office for the term as provided by law.”

(Emphasis added.)

The Water Board’s bylaws also provided in pertinent part:

“The property and business of this corporation shall be managed by its board of directors, consisting of three members who shall be duly qualified electors of and property owners in Wet-umpka, Alabama, shall not be officers thereof, and shall be elected by the governing body thereof.”

The Water Board’s certificate of incorporation, at the time of its execution, and its bylaws, at the time of their adoption, complied with Title 37, § 397, which provided in pertinent part as follows: “No member of the board of directors shall be an officer of the municipality.”

Title 37, § 397, was amended in 1956 to provide: “Any officer of the municipality shall be eligible for appointment and may serve as a member of the board of directors but shall not receive a fee for his services.... ” That section has been brought into the current Code, Aa.Code 1975, as § ll-50-234(a). That section provides: “Any officer of the municipality [468]*468shall be eligible for appointment and may serve as a member of the board of directors but shall not receive a fee for his services; provided, that at no time shall the board consist of more than two officers of the municipality.” Neither Dunn nor Smith is an officer of the City.

Paragraph four of the Board’s certifícate of incorporation was not specifically amended to conform with the changes in the statute and, when the City appointed Councilman Washington as a director of the Water Board, the certifícate still provided: “The members of the Board of Directors shall be elected by the governing body of the City of Wetumpka. None of the members of said Board of Directors shall be an officer thereof.”

In denying the writ of quo warranto, the trial court held that a city councilman was not “an officer” of the city he serves and that, even if a councilman was an officer of the city, a Wetumpka councilman is permitted to serve as a director of the Water Board, pursuant to what is now Ala.Code 1975, § 11-50-234, without the necessity of a formal amendment to the Water Board’s articles of incorporation. The trial court further held that even if the City did not have the authority to appoint a council member to the Water Board, the Court should not remove Councilman Washington from the Water Board because, the court held, the Water Board would be estopped to challenge Washington’s service on the Water Board and had waived any right to challenge his service as a director.

Councilman Washington is an officer of the City. Jackson v. Hubbard, 256 Ala. 114, 120, 53 So.2d 723 (1951): “If a water works corporation is organized in a municipality having a mayor and councilmen, such officers cannot serve as members of the board of directors.” (Emphasis added.) See also Buffalow v. State ex rel. Inabinett, 281 Ala. 132, 199 So.2d 672 (1967); and Akers v. State ex rel. Witcher, 283 Ala. 248, 215 So.2d 578 (1968).

The term “an officer thereof,” in paragraph four of the Water Board’s certificate of incorporation, refers to the City of Wetumpka. The wording of the Water Board’s certificate of incorporation was consistent with what was the law of Alabama at the time the certificate was executed. Title 37, § 397, Code of 1940, provided: “No member of the [Water Board’s] Board of Directors shall be an officer of the municipality.” See Buffalow v. State, 281 Ala. at 133, 199 So.2d at 673-74.

The City argues that it was automatically entitled to appoint a city councilman as a director of the Water Board after Title 37, § 397, was amended in 1956 to allow an officer of a municipality to serve as a member of a water board without an amendment to the Water Board’s certificate of incorporation.

This Court has addressed the question whether a water board’s certificate of incorporation is automatically amended when the statute restricting the membership of such a board is broadened, in Water Works Board of the City of Leeds v. Huffstutler, 292 Ala. 669, 299 So.2d 268 (1974). The Court held that it was not. In Leeds, the directors of a three-person water board sued to have a city ordinance that purported to increase the membership of the board from three to five declared void. The board was incorporated at a time when Title 37, § 397, provided that there would be three persons on the board of directors, and the certificate of incorporation provided for three directors. Title 37, § 397 (now § ll-50-234(a)), was amended after the Leeds water board was incorporated to allow for a five-member board of directors. The City of Leeds appointed two additional directors. This Court held that the City of Leeds could not increase the membership of the board of directors in disregard of the water board’s certificate of incorporation and in disregard of the statutory procedure for amending the certificate of incorporation. In this present case, the City argues that [469]*469it can appoint a city councilman to the Water Board pursuant to § 11-50-234(a) — given the wording added by the 1956 amendment — without an amendment to the Water Board’s certificate of incorporation. It cannot.

We are dealing with a question of one’s eligibility to serve on the Water Board, rather than a question of the Water Board’s powers. Paragraph five of the Water Board’s certificate of incorporation, as amended, does not in any way empower the City to appoint a city councilman as a director of the Water Board when such an appointment is prohibited by the certificate of incorporation. That certificate provides:

“The objects for which the corporation is formed are to acquire, construct, operate, maintain, improve and extend a water works plant or plants and system or systems and any part or parts thereof in the City of Wetumpka, Alabama, and in the territory in the vicinity thereof.
“In furtherance of the said objects, the corporation shall have all powers conferred on corporations of like nature by the aforesaid sections of said code under which the corporation is organized and any amendments thereof at any time enacted by the legislature, and all other powers conferred upon corporations generally by the laws of Alabama.”

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Bluebook (online)
773 So. 2d 466, 2000 Ala. LEXIS 229, 2000 WL 739590, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/water-works-sewer-board-of-wetumpka-v-city-of-wetumpka-ala-2000.