Bradley County Road Improvement Districts Nos. 1 And 2 v. Jarratt
| Decision Date | 24 May 1920 |
| Docket Number | 14 |
| Citation | 222 S.W. 14,144 Ark. 260 |
| Parties | BRADLEY COUNTY ROAD IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS NOS. 1 AND 2 v. JARRATT |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Bradley Chancery Court; E. G. Hammock, Chancellor reversed.
Decrees reversed and causes remanded.
J. R Wilson, for appellants.
All the attacks by appellee on the various provisions of act 237 are without merit and the act ought to be held valid and the decree should be reversed and the injunction dissolved. 15 R C. L. 523-4; 16 L. R. A. 737; 17 Ore. 640; 5 L. R. A. 115; 120 Ark. 277; 36 Cyc. 1102.
J. C. Clary and B. L. Herring, for appellees.
The court properly granted the injunction. The method of dealing by public functionaries and the ruthless squandering of public tax money without regard to the actual and reasonable cost of the proposed employment is against the law of this State and all principles of equity for the reasons the chancellor stated and that H. R. Carter's contract was void as a fraud upon the people of the districts. The decree should be affirmed.
W. C. Smedley, for appellee Tatum.
The act, No. 237, is void, because it repeals the long established rules of chancery practice requiring an attorney or guardian ad litem for nonresidents and minors. The act gives the commissioners unlimited powers and made their office perpetual; there is no provision for reimbursement to property owners for damages for property taken and no provision to protect taxpayers against contracts being let for construction work or anything else, and the commissioners are not required to report to any court or other tribunal and the public has no protection against unlawful contracts or expenditures of money and is against public policy. The act is unconstitutional and void, as it is confiscatory, and the contract with Carter was void. Art. 2, § 8, Const., Ark., and art. 14, Const., U. S. The decree is correct and should be affirmed. 80 Ark. 145.
Appellees, E. A. Jarratt et al., property owners in Bradley County Road Improvement Districts Nos. 1 and 2, instituted suit against appellants in the Bradley Chancery Court to restrain them from making a preliminary survey of the roads proposed to be constructed in said districts, created by act No. 237 of the Legislature of 1919, and to cancel contracts entered into between the boards of commissioners of said road improvement districts with H. R. Carter, an engineer, to do all the engineering work connected with the improvements to be made and supervision of the construction thereof, at his own expense, for a compensation equal to five per cent. of the cost of construction not exceeding one million dollars and four per cent. in excess of one million dollars, one-half of the compensation to be paid when the plans, specifications and estimates of cost of the improvements are completed, and the balance in installments as the work progresses. The validity of the contracts was attacked on the grounds, first, that they embraced the cost of the preliminary surveys, plans and estimates of cost of the improvements, which, under the act aforesaid, were to be made and prepared for said districts by the Highway Department of Arkansas, free of charge; and, second, that the contracts were procured by taking advantage of the ignorance of the commissioners as to the meaning and terms of the act creating the districts and are arbitrary, unjust and inequitable.
Appellant, H. R. Carter, filed answer, admitting that he entered into the alleged contracts with said Bradley County Road Improvement Districts, but denying that the boards of commissioners of said districts were without authority to embrace in the contracts the charge for preliminary surveys, plans and estimates of the cost of improvements, and that the contracts were procured through a lack of knowledge on the part of the commissioners as to the meaning of the act creating the districts or that they are arbitrary, unjust and inequitable.
Appellee J. T. Tatum, alleged owner of real estate in said districts, also entered suit in said court to enjoin appellants from making a preliminary survey, plans and estimate of the cost of the contemplated improvements in said district, upon the same grounds alleged in the bill of appellees E. A. Jarratt et al., and the further ground of the alleged invalidity of practically every section of act No. 237 aforesaid, creating Bradley County Road Improvements Districts Nos. 1 and 2.
Appellant H. R. Carter filed answer to the petition of appellee J. T. Tatum, specifically denying every allegation assailing the validity of his contracts with said improvement districts and the act of the Legislature creating them.
The testimony in the two cases was the same and disclosed that after the passage of act No. 237, creating the districts, the commissioners of each met in the office of the State Highway Commissioner and perfected an organization; that the commissioners thereupon made personal requests of the State Highway Department to have preliminary surveys made of the roads to be made under said act No. 237, which requests were refused by the State Highway Commissioner for the reason that no funds were available for that purpose; that the appropriations were insufficient to cover preliminary surveys, plans and estimates for proposed districts under the Alexander road law, which required preliminary surveys, plans and estimates of costs as prerequisites to the organization of proposed road districts; that only $ 20,000 had been appropriated for the purpose of making preliminary surveys by the State Highway Department; that the general and special sessions of the Legislature of 1919 provided that 9,600 miles of roads in the State should be improved; that a preliminary survey thereof would have cost $ 8 per mile and a final survey to ascertain the yardage of the road would have cost from $ 100 to $ 125 per mile; that the boards of commissioners of Bradley County Road Improvement Districts were informed by the State Highway Department that they would have to employ an engineer any way, and he could make the survey under the direction of the State Highway Department and file the surveys, plans and specifications with it for approval;...
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Carter v. Bradley County Road Improvement Districts 1 and 2
...and for supervision of the construction work, for an agreed fee. The facts just stated and others recited in the opinion in the Jarratt case, supra, throw light on circumstances under which the contract here sued on was made and something of the public policy involved in the engineer's oath......
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