Castner v. City of Minneapolis

• Decision Date: 29 April 1904
• Docket Number: 13,875 - (209)
• Parties: FRANK H. CASTNER v. CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS and Others
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

99 N.W. 361

92 Minn. 84

FRANK H. CASTNER v. CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS and Others

Nos. 13,875 - (209)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

April 29, 1904

Appeal by Claus O. Peterson, intervenor, from a judgment of the district court for Hennepin county, entered pursuant to the findings and order of W. R. Cray, J., by which defendants city of Minneapolis and its officers, were restrained from paying to intervenor, a defeated candidate for alderman, the sum of $190 in reimbursement of his expenses in an election contest. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Expenditure of Public Money.

The legislature is powerless to authorize the expenditure of public funds by a municipal subdivision of the state, except for a public purpose. Section 17 of chapter 33, p. 598, of the Special Laws of 1889, being section 18 of chapter 6 of the charter of the city of Minneapolis, construed as to limiting certain expenditures.

Illegal Expenditure.

The reimbursement by the city council of a defeated candidate for a public office for expenses incurred in conducting an election contest is an expenditure of public funds for a private purpose, and therefore illegal.

A. Y Merrill and Geo. H. Selover, for appellant.

Willoughby M. Babcock, for respondent.

The city council of Minneapolis has only such powers as are distinctly delegated to it by the legislature, or are necessary to the proper carrying out of those powers. Not even the legislature has the power of taxation and giving away the public money for private purposes. Minnesota Sugar Co. v. Iverson, 91 Minn. 30, and cases cited.

The question of what are legitimate expenses of a municipality has been litigated many times by taxpayers desirous of protecting the public treasury from waste of the public funds in ways not authorized by law. The following are cited as illustrations of what the courts have held in such cases: Hood v. Mayor, 1 Allen, 103; Gregory v. City, 41 Conn. 76, 87; Merrill v. Plainfield, 45 N.H. 126, 134; Vincent v. Inhabitants, 12 Cush. 103, 106; Hodges v. City, 2 Denio, 110, 112; Stetson v. Kempton, 13 Mass. 272, 278; Halstead v. Mayor, 5 Barb. 218; Waters v. Bonvouloir, 172 Mass. 286; James v. City, 22 Wash. 654; In re Jensen, 28 Misc. (N.Y.) 382; Wisconsin v. Milwaukee, 95 Wis. 160; Lowell v. City, 111 Mass. 454, 473; Minnesota Sugar Co. v. Iverson, supra; State v. Gates, 35 Minn. 385; Bell v. Municipality, 2 Upper Can. C.P. 507; Regina v. Mayor, 4 Q.B. 796; Dillon, Mun. Corp. (4th Ed.) 221, and notes; Peck v. Spencer, 26 Fla. 23; Board v. Ellis, 59 N.Y. 620.

OPINION

DOUGLAS, J.

The respondent Castner, a taxpayer of the city of Minneapolis, brought this action in the district court of Hennepin county to enjoin the said city and its officers from paying to Claus O. Peterson, intervenor and appellant, the sum of $190 appropriated by the city council of the city of Minneapolis for the purpose of reimbursing him for expenses incurred in an election contest. It appears that appellant was a defeated candidate for the office of alderman of the Eleventh Ward. From the decision of the canvassing board he applied for a recount, under the statute, and filed a bond for the payment of costs, as required by law, with the result that the findings of the canvassing board were affirmed.

The sole question involved is, has the city of Minneapolis authority to reimburse a defeated candidate for expenses involved in a recount of the ballots in an election contest? It is claimed this appropriation is authorized by section 18 of chapter 6 of the charter of Minneapolis, being section 17 of chapter 33, p. 598, Sp. Laws 1889, which reads as follows:

The city council of the city of Minneapolis is hereby authorized and empowered to expend for purposes not in this charter otherwise authorized during any fiscal year, moneys out of the general fund of said city not exceeding in the aggregate the sum of $10,000; provided, that no part of such sum shall be expended except by a resolution adopted by the affirmative vote of at least three-fourths of the members of said council.

The rule is well settled that the legislature is powerless to authorize the expenditure of public funds by a municipal subdivision of the state, except for a public purpose. State v. Foley, 30 Minn. 350, 15 N.W. 375; Borough of Henderson v. County of Sibley, 28 Minn. 515, 11 N.W. 91; Coates v. Campbell, 37 Minn. 498, 35 N.W. 366; City of Chaska v. Hedman, 53 Minn. 525, 55 N.W. 737; City of Fergus Falls v. Fergus Falls Hotel Co., 80 Minn. 165, 83 N.W. 54. This is true regardless of constitutional limitations. Michigan v. Auditor General, 124 Mich. 674, 83 N.W. 625; United States v. Carlisle, 5 App. Cas. D.C. 138; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386; Loan Assn. v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655.

The question was recently before this court in a case involving added restrictions imposed upon the legislature by sections 5 and 10 of article 9 of the constitution in the expenditure of public moneys of the state. While these sections of the constitution were held applicable to the state solely, and not to municipal subdivisions thereof, the doctrine that such expenditures must be for a public purpose was reaffirmed as to the state as well as to its municipal subdivisions. Minnesota Sugar Co. v. Iverson, 91 Minn. 30, 97 N.W. 454. In State v. Foley, supra, an act providing for the payment of a gratuity, by way of added interest, to the holder of certain tax certificates was held invalid, as authorizing the payment of public funds for other than a public purpose. In Coates v. Campbell, supra, the court held an act invalid which authorized an issue of bonds by a village corporation to aid in the construction of a dam for the purpose of improving a private water power notwithstanding the fact that the power was, in part, used to furnish water to the inhabitants of the village. In City of Chaska v. Hedman, supra, the act of a village in appropriating money to a manufacturing company within its limits was...