City of Chaska v. Hedman

• Decision Date: 21 June 1893
• Citation: 53 Minn. 525,55 N.W. 737
• Parties: CITY OF CHASKA v HEDMAN ET AL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

53 Minn. 525

55 N.W. 737

CITY OF CHASKAvHEDMAN ET AL.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 21, 1893.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Where the officers of a municipal corporation pay out its money upon a contract which the corporation has no power to make, the payment is not an act of the corporation, and it may recover the money paid.

Appeal from district court, Carver county; Cadwell, Judge.

Action by the city of Chaska against John Hedman and others. Plaintiff had judgment, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Bion A. Dodge and Henry C. James, for appellant.

W. C. Odell, for respondent.

GILFILLAN, C. J.

This is an action to recover money which belonged to plaintiff, and which its city council paid or caused to be paid to defendants upon a contract between said council and them, according to the terms of which it was agreed that they should establish and operate for a specified period a shoe factory in the city of Chaska, and in consideration thereof the city should pay them the sum of $5,000. It is conceded that the contract was invalid; that it was beyond the power of the corporation, and, a fortiori, of any officer of the corporation, to make such a contract. It would be hard to conceive anything more foreign to the purposes of a municipal corporation than contracts which provide for the appropriation of public moneys to be derived from taxation to the private uses of individuals. But it is claimed that, conceding all this, the plaintiff cannot recover the money paid on the contract, because the payment was voluntarily made, and with full knowledge of all the facts. As a general rule, when an individual or private corporation pays money voluntarily with full knowledge of the facts, and without fraud or mistake, it cannot be recovered back, though there was no obligation to pay. To give such effect to the payment, however, it must be the act of the individual or corporation; and in this case the payment was not the act of the corporation. It had no authority to make it; no one of its officers, nor all of them together, had authority to make it. The case stands in law as it would had some person, not connected with the city government, taken the money from its treasury, and paid it to defendants. It may be different in a case where the payment is for a legitimate purpose, within the power conferred on the municipal corporation, and is made by an officer, or upon the direction of an officer, who has authority to determine whether some condition...