Donaldson v. Police Jury of Tangipahoa Parish
| Decision Date | 01 March 1926 |
| Docket Number | 27518 |
| Citation | 109 So. 34,161 La. 471 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | DONALDSON et al. v. POLICE JURY OF TANGIPAHOA PARISH et al |
On Rehearing May 3, 1926; On Application for Rehearing May 31 1926
Appeal from Twenty-First Judicial District Court, Parish of Tangipahoa; Columbus Reid, Judge.
Suit by Oscar Donaldson and others against the Police Jury of Tangipahoa Parish and others. Judgment for plaintiffs, and certain defendants appeal.
Annulled in part, and in part modified and affirmed.
A. L Ponder, Jr., Dist. Atty., of Amite, for appellant Police Jury of Tangipahoa.
A. L Ponder, Sr., of Amite, and Benton & Benton, of Baton Rouge, for appellants Standard Highway Co., Inc.
Harry Gamble, of New Orleans, and Shelby Reid, of Amite, for appellees.
This is a suit brought by five citizens and resident taxpayers of consolidated road district A of Tangipahoa parish. The plaintiffs seek to annul a contract which the police jury of the parish entered into with the Standard Highway Company, Inc., for the construction of roads in said district, to perpetually enjoin the execution of the contract, and to restrain two members of the board of supervisors of the district from approving or joining in the execution of the contract. From a judgment annulling the contract, enjoining the police jury and Standard Highway Company, Inc., from executing it, and enjoining the police jury from entering into any contract for the construction of roads in consolidated road district A, to be paid for out of the special taxes voted for roads in said district, both defendants, the police jury and the Standard Highway Company, Inc., appealed.
There is no attack upon the proceedings creating consolidated road district A of Tangipahoa parish, or upon the election to incur debt for road construction therein, or upon the issuance and sale of bonds to obtain funds for that purpose. Plaintiffs attack the authority of the police jury of the parish to contract with the Standard Highway Company, Inc., for the construction of 33 roads, or sections of roads, in the district, and to appropriate $ 264,121.22 of the fund realized from the sale of bonds to pay for said road construction.
The petition, stripped of gratuitous and unimportant allegations, alleges that the police jury exceeded its authority in letting the contract to the Standard Highway Company, Inc.; that the letting of contracts for road construction is the function of the board of supervisors of the road district; that the contract was entered into by the police jury without the recommendation or approval, and against the will, of the board of supervisors of the district; and that the contract, if it was let upon the bid submitted by the Standard Highway Company, Inc., to the board of supervisors of the district upon specifications prepared by the board of engineers, omits a vital provision of the specifications, viz., for engineering supervision of the work. It also alleges that when the contract was executed, the conditions existing at the time the bids were submitted had materially changed, and the cost of road construction had decreased. It is apparently upon this allegation that plaintiffs predicate their charges of tyranny, oppression, fraud, unseemly haste, and favoritism.
The record is, in part, a history of the various incidents leading up to and culminating in this suit. After the sum realized from the sale of the bonds had been placed to the credit of the road district fund, specifications for the construction of the roads named in the contract were properly made, and the usual advertisement for bids was published. There were five or six bidders for the work. The lowest bidders were S. A. Gano and the Standard Highway Company, Inc. The Gano bid was $ 368,862.20, and the bid of the Standard Highway Company, Inc., was $ 351,708.12, or $ 17,154.08 less than the Gano bid. Notwithstanding this vast difference in the bids, the board of supervisors of consolidated road district A approved and recommended to the police jury the acceptance of the Gano bid as the lowest responsible bid. The police jury accepted the approval and recommendation of the board of supervisors of the district without investigation, and executed a contract with Gano in accordance therewith. The Standard Highway Company, Inc., successfully attacked that contract in the lower court, and, on appeal, this court affirmed the judgment. 158 La. 294, 103 So. 819. The decree in that case is as follows:
"That the said police jury and board of supervisors be ordered and required to reject all of the bids submitted and readvertise the work for the construction of highways in said road district, or that they accept the bid of petitioner, ...
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