Cranor v. Board of Com'rs of Volusia County

• Decision Date: 12 November 1907
• Citation: 54 Fla. 526,45 So. 455
• Parties: CRANOR v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF VOLUSIA COUNTY et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

45 So. 455

54 Fla. 526

CRANOR v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF VOLUSIA COUNTY et al.

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

November 12, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Volusia County; Minor S. Jones, Judge.

Bill by John Cranor against the board of county commissioners of Volusia county and others. Decree for defendants, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

Where a bill, filed to restrain and enjoin the execution of a contract made by a county for the construction of hard-surfaced public roads, alleges illegalities and irregularities against such contract in respect only of matters and features connected therewith that the Legislature had the power to dispense with in the first instance, an act passed by the Legislature, subsequently to the making of such contract, ratifying, validating, and approving it, purges it of all such alleged illegalities and irregularities; and such bill should be dismissed upon the passage of such validating act, though it had been filed prior to its enactment.

COUNSEL D. L. Gaulden, for appellant.

Landis & Fish, for appellees.

OPINION

TAYLOR J.

The appellant, as complainant below, filed his bill in the circuit court of Volusia county, in chancery, against the board of county commissioners of said county, and against W C. Cannons and R. T. Long, the appellees, as defendants below, in which he alleged in substance that he, the complainant, was a taxpayer in said county of Volusia, and as such interested in the proper expenditure of the public funds of said county; that the said board of county commissioners after resolving to construct a hard-surfaced or macadamized public road from the town of De Land to the town of Daytona in said county, advertised for bids for the building and grading or surfacing thereof and in said advertisement specified that said work should be completed by January 1 1908; that in response to such advertisement various parties filed bids for the work, and that at least two of these bids were much lower than the bids put in by the defendants W. C. Cannons and R. T. Long, notwithstanding which the said board ignored such lower bids, and in secret session awarded the contracts to said Cannons and Long at their higher bid, and further illegally contracted with them for the completion of said work by January 1, 1909, when the advertisement for bids specified the completion of the work to be on January 1, 1908; that the total amount of funds of the county in its treasury available for such public road work amounted to only $15,000, and that the tax levy for such road purposes for the year 1907 will bring a total of not more than about $20,000, and that said board has illegally contracted for the building of said road at an amount far in excess of its funds in hand or possible to be derived from taxation during the course of several years, said contracts calling for about $76,250; and that said board proposes illegally and without authority of law to draw warrants on the county treasurer in payment for such work when there will be no available funds in the county treasury with which to pay them. These in substance are the main complaints of the bill, which prays for injunction, temporary and permanent, to restrain said board and the two other defendants, Cannons and Long, from proceeding with the work under the contracts entered into with them by said board on the 17th day of April, A. D. 1907.

All of the defendants demurred to this bill, which demurrers were on the 3d day of May, 1907, sustained by the court, with leave to the complainants to amend their bill. From...