Broughton v. Pensacola
| Decision Date | 01 October 1876 |
| Citation | 23 L.Ed. 896,93 U.S. 266 |
| Parties | BROUGHTON v. PENSACOLA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Florida.
Argued by Mr. P. Phillips and Mr. Thomas G. Jones for the appellant.
Submitted on printed arguments by Mr. C. C. Yonge for the appellee.
By an act passed on the 2d of March, 1839, by the then Territory, now State, of Florida, the city of Pensacola, at the time a pre-existing corporation, was rechartered, and its powers were vested in a mayor and board of aldermen, who were, at all times, to continue 'to act in their respective functions' until the election and qualification of their successors in office. Among the powers conferred by the charter was the power to borrow money, not exceeding $5,000 a year, and to levy taxes and provide for their collection, with a limitation of the amount to be levied upon real estate to three-fourths of one per cent.
In December, 1850, by an amendatory act, these limitations were repealed, and a larger loan and a greater rate of taxation upon real estate were allowed. By a further amendatory act, passed on the 3d of January, 1853, the mayor and aldermen, with the consent of a majority of the corporation, were authorized to subscribe, in the name of the city, any amount of money which they might deem necessary to any railroad leading from the city; and, for the purpose of procuring the amount of the subscription, were empowered to borrow the same, and impose a tax upon real estate within its limits, not exceeding two percent on the assessed value of the property. By another act, passed in the same month, the Alabama and Florida Railroad Company was chartered to construct a railroad from some point on Pensacola Bay (the city being the point afterwards selected) northward to the boundary line of Florida and Alabama, and there to connect with another line of road to be constructed from the city of Montgomery, Ala.
Under the act of Jan. 3, 1853, the city of Pensacola subscribed $250,000 to the capital stock of this railroad company, and in payment of the same executed and delivered to the company five hundred bonds of $500 each, payable twenty years after date, with interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum, payable semi-annually on the first days of January and July, at such bank in the city of New York as the treasurer might direct, on the surrender of the coupons for such interest attached to the bonds.
The plaintiff is the holder of sixteen hundred and ninety of these coupons, now past due, and alleges that the city has never made any provision for their payment at any bank in the city of New York, or at any other place; that, until about the 1st of January, 1871, the city received the coupons in payment of taxes, although the taxes assessed were never sufficient to absorb the coupons as they matured, but that since that time the city has refused, and still refuses, to recognize its obligation to pay them. Several judgments have been recovered by other parties upon coupons of the same kind against the city; but executions issued thereon have been returned wholly unsatisfied, because the city possessed no property out of which they could be made.
The constitution of Florida, adopted in 1868, provided that the legislature should 'establish a uniform system of county, township, and municipal government.' In pursuance of this requirement, the legislature, in 1868 and 1869, passed acts 'to provide for the incorporation of cities and towns, and to establish a uniform system of municipal government' in the State. These acts authorized the establishment of a municipal government, with corporate powers and privileges by the voluntary action of the male inhabitants of any hamlet, village, or town in the State, not less than one hundred in number; and also provided for the reorganization of existing municipal corporations under their provisions. Under these acts the charter of the city was surrendered, and attempts were made to reorganize its government; but these attempts failed, because the reorganization was not made within the periods prescribed. In consequence of such failure, and because the acts provided for the cessation of corporate authority in case the reorganization was not effected within the periods designated, the citizens residing within the limits of the city proceeded to establish a municipal government with corporate authority, under the act of 1869, as citizens not having any existing corporation were authorized to do. Such establishment or reorganization of...
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...235, 240-241, 6 S.Ct. 1038, 30 L.Ed. 173; Steamship Company v. Joliffe, 2 Wall. 450, 458-459, 17 L.Ed. 805; cf. Broughton v. City of Pensacola, 93 U.S. 266, 270, 23 L.Ed. 896; Town of Red Rock v. Henry, 106 U.S. 596, 604, 1 S. Ct. 434, 27 L.Ed. 251; Campbell v. City of Boston, 290 Mass. 427......
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