City of Atlanta v. Stein
| Decision Date | 09 August 1900 |
| Citation | 36 S.E. 932,111 Ga. 789 |
| Parties | CITY OF ATLANTA et al. v. STEIN. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
A municipal corporation, though not required by its charter to let contracts for public work to the lowest bidders, and though clothed, as to such matters, with the broadest discretionary powers, has no authority to adopt an ordinance prescribing that all work of a designated kind shall be given exclusively to persons of a specified class. Such an ordinance is ultra vires and illegal, because it tends to encourage monopoly and defeat competition, and all contracts made in pursuance thereof áre void.
Error from superior court, Fulton county; J. H. Lumpkin, Judge.
Action by George Stein against the city of Atlanta and others. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendants bring error. Affirmed.
J. A Anderson, J. T. Pendleton, Lumpkin & Colquitt, and C. T Ladson, for plaintiffs in error.
C. W Smith and Arminius Wright, for defendant in error.
The mayor and general council of the city of Atlanta adopted the following ordinance:
This ordinance went into effect March 9, 1900. In obedience to its requirements, the city comptroller made a contract with the Pease Printing Company, a member of the union, to do certain printing at an agreed price. Stein, a citizen and taxpayer of Atlanta, filed an equitable petition to enjoin the municipal authorities and the Pease Company from carrying this contract into effect, and the former from further enforcing the ordinance mentioned. At the hearing it appeared that there were in the city four union and fifteen nonunion printing establishments, and that the comptroller, solely because of this ordinance, refused to entertain bids for printing from the proprietors of any of the latter. The evidence was conflicting as to the value of the work embraced in the contract with the Pease Company, but the preponderance of it was to the effect that it was worth less than the price to be paid that company; and that the city, if the nonunion printers had been allowed to compete for it, could have made a more advantageous contract. The charter of the city does not require the mayor and general council to let contracts for public work to the lowest bidders, but, under its provisions, the municipal authorities are, as to such matters, invested with a wide discretion. The injunction was granted, and the defendants excepted. As the contract was made strictly in pursuance of the ordinance, the validity of the former depends upon that of the latter. If, therefore, the ordinance was void, and it was right to enjoin the further enforcement of it, there was certainly no error in preventing by injunction the consummation of the contract. The fall of the ordinance necessarily carries with it the agreement, which had no other source of vitality. In our judgment, the ordinance was void, and the injunction was properly granted. It cannot be seriously denied that the ordinance tended to defeat competition and encourage monopoly. Indeed, the evidence introduced before the trial judge fully warranted a finding that such was not only the tendency, but the actual effect, of the ordinance. It is not within the power of municipal authorities to enact legislation of this kind. On the contrary, with all respect to the members of the city council, we are constrained to hold that so doing is an unwarranted act, which calls for judicial interference. We cannot agree with the able and distinguished counsel for the city that "the ordinance attacked and enjoined below amounted only to a direction by the mayor and general council to the ministerial officers of the city to place the orders for public printing with printers using a union label." This ordinance is something more than a mere "direction." It has the form, and was intended to have the effect, of law; and, if valid, would, until repealed, bind the members of council as much as it would the subordinate officials of the city. These members could not, with propriety, disregard it so long as they permitted it to stand upon the municipal statute book; and the mere power to repeal it certainly did not prevent its operation on all concerned. If, in the absence of such an ordinance, the contract in question had been let to the Pease Company, it could not properly be said that the making of it was an abuse of discretion on the sole ground that the price of the work was too high. It would require an extreme case to justify the courts in setting aside a municipal contract on such a ground, when made under a charter like that of Atlanta. With respect to agreeing on prices, securing good work, prompt service, etc., the municipal discretion must and should be allowed a wide scope; and, when exercised, the courts should be exceedingly slow and reluctant to interfere. Certainly, they should never undertake to substitute their judgment, in matters of judgment, for that of the city's governing authorities.
This court, in Semmes v. Mayor, etc., 19 Ga. 471, held that "a body corporate is not answerable for an erroneous exercise of a discretion, though the consequences be injurious," and that "inadequacy of price unless so great as, of itself, to be evidence of fraud, is not a sufficient ground for impeaching" a contract for the sale of property belonging to a city. In Wells v. Mayor, etc., 43 Ga. 67, it was decided that, where a municipal corporation is acting within the scope of its powers, a court will not "interfere to restrain or control its action on the ground that the same is unwise or extravagant," and that, "to sustain such interference, it must appear either that the act is ultra vires, or fraudulent, or corrupt." Again, in Danielly v. Cabaniss, 52 Ga. 212, it was ruled that "when a town council is authorized by law to do a particular act at its discretion, the courts will not control this discretion, and inquire into the propriety, economy, and general wisdom of the undertaking, or into the details of the manner adopted to carry the project into execution." The case of Mayor, etc., v. Eldridge, 64 Ga. 524, is on the same line, and there are many others in which this court has made decisions of similar import. The doctrine of all these cases, viz. ...
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