Fort Pierce Gas Co. v. City of Fort Pierce

• Decision Date: 16 December 1959
• Citation: 116 So.2d 418
• Parties: FORT PIERCE GAS COMPANY, a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. CITY OF FORT PIERCE, a Florida municipal corporation, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 418

116 So.2d 418

FORT PIERCE GAS COMPANY, a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. CITY OF FORT PIERCE, a Florida municipal corporation, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Dec. 16, 1959.

J. M. Sample, Fort Pierce, for appellant.

Errol S. Willes, Willes & Bittan, Fort Pierce, and Patterson, Freeman, Richardson & Watson, Jacksonville, for appellee.

TERRELL, Justice.

The City of Fort Pierce filed its complaint to validate an issue of revenue certificates, the proceeds of which were to be used for constructing and operating a gas distribution system to serve the residents of Fort Pierce and its environs. Interest and sinking fund on said revenue certificates were to be paid from the net revenues of the proposed gas distribution system. Appellant, a taxpayer of the city, answered the petition, contending that the proposed revenue certificates were bonds within the contemplation of Section 6, Article IX of the Constitution, F.S.A. and required an approving vote of the freeholders. Evidence was taken on the issue so made, argument of counsel was heard, after which the chancellor entered a final decree validating the revenue certificates. We are confronted with an appeal from the validating decree.

Appellant contends that in addition to pledge of the net revenues of the gas distribution system to support the revenue certificates, the physical properities essential to the operation of the gas distribution system were also pledged for their support, that the net revenues from the gas distribution system would be insufficient to pay interest and sinking funds on the revenue certificates and that the estimate of prospective earnings of the gas distribution system was based on fiction and not fact, for which is contended that there would be a moral and contingent obligation on the City of Fort Pierce to pay said revenue certificates from general tax funds.

Four questions are urged in support of appellant's contention but they all stem from the allegations relative to support of the revenue certificates by a vote of the freeholders and those with reference to pledge of other facilities to support them. We have considered each of them and found them to be without merit. The dependable evidence shows that the net revevenues from the gas system will be ample to pay interest and sinking fund on the revenue certificates as they mature, that there is no dependable support for the contention that the prospective net earnings of the gas distribution system are based on fiction rather than fact and that the record shows a complete negation of the contention that the physical properties of the gas distribution system are pledged to or will be required to support the revenue certificates.

Section 14, Ordinance of the City of Fort Pierce, authorizing issuance of the revenue certificates, provides 'Neither the bonds nor coupons shall be or constitute an indebtedness of...