Bridgeman v. City of Derby

• Decision Date: 28 January 1926
• Citation: 104 Conn. 1,132 A. 25
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BRIDGEMAN v. CITY OF DERBY.

132 A. 25

104 Conn. 1

BRIDGEMAN v. CITY OF DERBY.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

January 28, 1926

Appeal from City Court of Hartford; Herbert A. Ross, Judge.

Action by Robert W. Bridgeman against the City of Derby to recover compensation for services, together with expenses incurred. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Judgment reversed, with directions.

Maltbie and Jennings, JJ., dissenting.

James W. Knox, of Hartford, for appellant.

John J. O'Connell, of Derby, for appellee.

Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and CURTIS, MALTBIE, HAINES, and JENNINGS, JJ.

WHEELER, C.J.

The plaintiff seeks to recover for services and expenses incurred by him through sending detectives to defendant city of Derby for the purpose of obtaining evidence and securing the conviction of persons engaged in the illegal sale of intoxicating liquor and gambling. As a result of such services a large number of persons were convicted of such illegal sales and gambling. These services were reasonably worth $180 and the expenses incident thereto, and were incurred by the plaintiff in pursuance of his employment by the chief of police of the city of Derby acting by the authority and direction of the city attorney and judge of the city court of the city of Derby. A voucher for the purpose of payment for these services and expenses was prepared by the clerk of the city court providing for payment out of the appropriation for the city court of Derby, which voucher was approved by the judge of the city court, and by the finance board of the city of Derby. These sums have not been paid to the plaintiff.

The trial court reached the conclusion that there was by the charter of the city of Derby neither express nor implied power to make such employment and overruled plaintiff's claims of law:

(1) By the terms of the charter of the city of Derby the city attorney of that city was fully authorized and empowered to employ private detectives for the investigation of the commission of crime within the jurisdiction of the city court of the city of Derby.

(2) The city of Derby is liable for the payment of the reasonable charges and disbursements of such detective who has performed services and incurred expenses in such investigation at the request of the city attorney of the city of Derby.

The appeal is from the overruling of these claims of law. Among the chief functions of the defendant municipality are the subjects expressly committed to the legislative authority of its board of aldermen, " to preserve order and peace" and to " prevent vice and immorality." The powers which this and every municipality possesses are well defined in the law:

" The powers expressly granted to a municipal corporation carry with them such other powers as are necessarily implied in or incident to such grants, and it also possesses all powers which are indispensable to the attainment and maintenance of its declared objects and purposes." Crofut v. City of Danbury, 65 Conn 300, 32 A. 366.

Whether the employment of detectives by this municipality to ferret out crime would exist by fair implication from the general grant of power " to preserve order and peace" and " to prevent vice and immorality," in the absence of specific grant of power to make such employment, would be a question of most serious import. We may suppose a case. An industrial community of 12,000 people, having few peace officers, has one incendiary fire after another, and this small police force is utterly powerless to cope with this situation. To run down the criminal or criminals and stop this series of incendiarism require the employment of men skilled in detective work, unknown to that community, and plain clothes men instead of uniformed policemen. The increasing acumen and reckless wantonness of criminals, the facilities of escape due to modern methods of living and inventions, particularly the automobile, add to the difficulties of the task of apprehending such criminals. Is the community helpless to protect the life and property of its citizens by the employment of private detectives by reason of the failure of the Legislature to grant to the municipality express power so to to?

In many instances, and as early as 1750, one of our eminent justices once pointed out, we have recognized the existence in a municipality or a town of a power by implication to do those things which are necessary to the attainment and maintenance of the objects for which its charter declares that it exists. In Farrel v. Derby, 58 Conn. 234, 245, 20 A. 460, 7 L.R.A. 776, the town under its implied powers was permitted to raise funds to resist an attack in the Legislature upon its territorial integrity. In New Haven v. N.H. & D. R. R. Co., 62 Conn. 252, 255 25 A. 316, 18 L.R.A. 256, the city under its implied power was held to have been authorized to oppose an application for changes in its location by a railroad company before the railroad commissioners and to withdraw its opposition upon the payment of compensation for municipal interests and endangered by this location. So in Newton v. Town of Hamden, 79 Conn. 237, 64 A. 229, the town under its implied authority was held to have been authorized to employ counsel to defend a suit against the school visitors and school committee. We held, in State v. Cederaski, 80 Conn. 478, 483, 69 A. 19, that the power to provide for the licensing and regulation of peddlers and hawkers necessarily implies, if it does not clearly express, the power of prescribing the amount of the license fee and of enforcing its payment. Id.; Van Hoosear v. Wilton, 62 Conn. 106, 108, 25 A. 457.

The standard by which to determine whether a municipality possesses by implication a certain power, viz. that it must be necessarily implied or incident to the powers granted, or indispensable to the attainment and maintenance of its declared objects and purposes, is unchangeable. But what is indispensable to the attainment and maintenance of its declared objects and purposes may change with changing circumstances. What might not have been implied at one time may be implied at another time. And we can well understand that the implication of a power to employ detectives might not exist in one generation, but might in another through the growth of population, the congestion of living conditions, the multiplied increase or dangers of criminal practices, and the easier evasion of detection arising through the agencies of human inventions. If this power is by fair implication vested in the municipal Legislature, that does not mean that it is required in every case to itself act. Publicity of a proposed raid upon criminal offenders would defeat the purposes of the employment of the detectives. A power of this character may be delegated to an official by order or ordinance of the legislative department upon such reasonable conditions as it may determine. If this power exists by implication in the defendant municipality arising from the provisions of this charter, it is vested in the legislative department of its government and not in the city attorney of this municipality. If the power to employ private detectives for which the plaintiff was employed was vested in the city attorney, it must be because of an express grant of power in the charter, and not by fair implication from the general powers expressly granted to this municipality " to preserve the peace" and " to prevent vice and immorality."

The express authority of the city attorney of the city of Derby to contract for the employment of the plaintiff, if it exists at all, must depend upon this section of its charter as found in Special Acts of 1921, at page 800:

" Within the cognizance and jurisdiction of said court and as may be provided and restricted by this act, said city attorney shall exercise the same authority and perform the same duties as now provided by law for state's attorneys in the several counties."

What then is the meaning of " said city attorney shall exercise the same authority and perform the same duties as now provided by law for state's attorneys in the several counties" ? The state's attorney exercises authority and performs duty in the employment of private detectives under Public Acts of 1919, c. 185, which reads:

" Any state's attorney, upon the authorization of the judges of the superior court, or any judge thereof, and the prosecuting attorney of any criminal court of common pleas, or district court of Waterbury, with the approval of the court for which such prosecuting attorney is appointed, or of any judge thereof, may employ suitable persons to make investigations regarding criminal offenses which he may have reason to believe have been committed or are about to be perpetrated, and to assist in procuring evidence for the state, and to prevent any unlawful interference with the course of justice in civil or criminal cases. The person so employed shall be allowed a reasonable compensation, to be fixed by the judge or court authorizing such employment and paid monthly by the treasurer of the state in the same manner as costs in criminal cases."

Under this act the state's attorney's authority to act is subject to the authorization of the judges of the superior court, or any judge thereof.

As we seek to interpret this provision of defendant's charter it will be well to keep before us some of the fundamental principles of statutory construction. The intent of the lawmakers is the soul of the statute and the search for this intent we have held to be the guiding star of the court. It must prevail over the literal sense and the precise letter of the language of the statute. Brown's Appeal, 72 Conn. 148, 158, 44 A. 22, 49 L.R.A. 144; Stapleberg v. Stapleberg, 77 Conn. 31, 35, 58 A. 233; Wetherell et al. v....