City of Detroit v. Board of Water Com'rs of City of Detroit

• Decision Date: 03 March 1896
• Citation: 108 Mich. 494,66 N.W. 377
• Parties: CITY OF DETROIT v. BOARD OF WATER COM'RS OF CITY OF DETROIT.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

66 N.W. 377

108 Mich. 494

CITY OF DETROIT v. BOARD OF WATER COM'RS OF CITY OF DETROIT.

Supreme Court of Michigan

March 3, 1896

Certiorari to circuit court, Wayne county; Willard M. Lillibridge Judge.

Mandamus proceeding by the city of Detroit to compel the board of water commissioners of the city of Detroit to furnish, free to charge, water to the Detroit house of correction. There was a judgment granting the writ, and respondent brings certiorari. Reversed.

John J Speed, for relator.

Henry M. Duffield, for respondent.

HOOKER J.

The city of Detroit, through its corporation counsel, asks a mandamus to compel the board of water commissioners to furnish, free of charge, water to the Detroit house of correction. The writ was granted by the circuit court, and the respondent has brought the proceeding to this court by certiorari.

The Detroit house of correction appears to have been built by the city under a general power, given to the common council, "to establish and build jails workhouses and houses of correction for the confinement of offenders, to erect, and provide for erecting the necessary buildings therefor, and control and regulate the same; to appoint all necessary officers for taking charge of the same and of persons confined therein; to prescribe their powers and duties, to provide for their removal from office, and the filling of vacancies." Sess. Laws 1857, p. 106, subd. 60. Other sections of the charter provide for the confinement of state offenders, at the expense of the state and the various counties, and subsequent statutes took away much of the control originally given to the council, and lodged it elsewhere. See How. St. c. 344. The status of this institution has been before the courts, and in the case of Detroit v. Laughna, 34 Mich. 402, this court said: "The city, indeed, built the prison, and has an interest in its finances, as it is responsible to a certain degree for its expenses; but, after the house was built under provisions of the city charter, which may or may not have been legally sufficient to provide for its future management, the legislature, either discovering defects, or, more probably, recognizing the manifest impropriety of allowing a prison to be managed by a city council, passed a statute which removed any doubt concerning the legal position of that establishment. On the 15th of March, 1861, an act was passed, entitled 'An act to establish the Detroit house of correction and authorize the confinement of convicted persons therein.' By this act, the government of the prison was put under the control of a board of inspectors, of whom three were to be appointed by the common council, on the nomination of the mayor, and, in addition to these, the mayor and the chairman of the board of state prison inspectors were made ex officio members. The regulation and discipline were to be under rules adopted by the board, leaving the council no voice except concerning the approval of rules relating to salaries and compensation of officers and employ�s. There is no very important power which the council can exercise without the concurrence of the inspectors, except in the selection of the superintendent, whose powers and duties are all governed by the act of 1861 and the general laws of the state. Any interference whatever by the common council, either in the selection of inferior officers or in the internal management of the prison, would be unlawful and nugatory. While it has, at various times, in legal experience, been...