Bennett v. City of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 13 November 1907
• Parties: BENNETT et al. v. MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF BALTIMORE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

68 A. 14

106 Md. 484

BENNETT et al. v. MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF BALTIMORE.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

November 13, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court of Baltimore City; Thomas Ireland Elliott Judge.

Bill by Benjamin F. Bennett and others against the mayor and city council of Baltimore. From a decree dismissing the bill complainants appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Argued before BOYD, SCHMUCKER, BURKE, and ROGERS, JJ.

George A. Solter and Thomas G. Hayes, for appellants.

Edgar Allan Poe, for appellee.

SCHMUCKER J.

This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of Baltimore city overruling a demurrer to and dismissing a bill filed by the appellants as taxpayers and owners of lots abutting on Carroll street in that city, to restrain the city from performing a contract which it had made with Patrick Reddington for paving the street.

The substantial ground of the bill was that the contract with Reddington was void because the advertisement for proposals for the paving to which it related had not been published in conformity with the provisions of section 14 of the city charter. Laws 1898, p. 274, c. 123. That section requires all proposals for bids for public work to cost over $500 to be advertised in two or more daily newspapers published in Baltimore city. The proposals for bids for paving Carroll street involved an expenditure of over $500, and they were in fact, advertised in one English and one German newspaper published in that city. The pivotal question, therefore, in the case is whether the publication thus made gratified the requirements of the section in that respect. The full text of section 14 is as follows: "Sec. 14. Hereafter in contracting for any public work or the purchase of any supplies or materials involving an expenditure of five hundred dollars or more for the city or by any of the city departments, sub-departments or municipal officers not embraced in a department, or special commissions or boards, unless otherwise provided for in this article, proposals for the same shall be first advertised for the same shall be first advertised for in two or more daily newspapers published in Baltimore city, for not less than ten nor more than twenty days, and the contract for doing said work or furnishing said supplies or materials shall be awarded by the board provided for in the next section of this article and in the mode and manner therein prescribed." It is well settled as a general proposition in this country that, in the absence of a direction to the contrary, the publication of a notice required by law to be made must be in the English language and in a newspaper printed in that language. 21 A. & E. Encyc. Law, 308. This proposition has been definitely announced or relied upon by the courts of last resort of many of the states, and no direct decision to the contrary has been cited to us or come to our knowledge. City of Chicago v. McCoy, 136 Ill. 344, 26 N.E. 363, 11 L. R. A. 413; Goebel v. Chamberlain, 99 Wis. 503, 75 N.W. 62, 40 L. R. A. 843; Schloenbach v. State, 53 Ohio St. 345, 41 N.E. 441; Cincinnati v. Bickett, 26 Ohio St. 49; Schaale v. Wasey, 70 Mich. 414, 38 N.W. 317; Turner v. Hutchinson, 113 Mich. 245, 71 N.W. 514; Graham v. King, 50 Mo. 23, 11 Am. Rep. 401; Road of Upper Hanover, 44 Pa. 277. These cases all treat the English language as the official or ordinary language of the country, and hold that a mere direction in a statute that an advertisement be made in a given number of newspapers must be so construed as to require the use for that purpose of newspapers published in the English language. This proposition applies with especial force to a state like Maryland, where from the earliest colonial times the English language has been employed in the official proceedings of all departments of the government. If we turn now to the contents of the section of our law brought under review by the present appeal, we find that they are positive in their terms and comprehensive in their scope, and are plainly declared to be applicable to all advertisements of proposals for public work or materials, except such as may be "otherwise provided for" in the article of the Code of which section 14 forms a part. Turning to the other sections of the article relating to the same or kindred subjects, it appears that in some of them the other provision contemplated by section 14 is found, and that they contain express authority to insert in a German newspaper the advertisements which they direct to be made. Such a provision is found in section 43, relating to the publication of notice of the proposed sale of lands for the nonpayment of taxes, and section 49, relating to notices by the city collector of sale of goods and chattels distrained or levied on for nonpayment of taxes.

Counsel for the city contended in argument before us that the presence in sections 43 and 49 (pages 294, 297) of the expression, "one of which shall be in the German language," in connection with the direction to publish a notice...