Hunter v. City of Louisville
| Decision Date | 27 March 1925 |
| Citation | 208 Ky. 326 |
| Parties | Hunter v. City of Louisville, et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
1. Evidence — Court Takes Notice that Municipal Bonds Cannot be Sold Advantageously Unless Negotiable. — The court knows, as a matter of current commercial custom, that an issue of municipal bonds, aggregating $5,000.000.00, cannot be sold advantageously unless the bonds are negotiable.
2. Municipal Corporations — Municipalities May Exercise Powers Necessarily Implied. — Municipalities may exercise, not only the powers expressly granted to them by statute, but such as are necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to the powers so expressly granted, and those essential to the accomplishment of the things which they are expressly authorized to do.
3. Municipal Corporations — Authority to Issue Bonds Embraces Power to Make Bonds Negotiable. — Legislative authority to issue interest-bearing bonds generally embraces power to make bonds negotiable.
4. Municipal Corporations — Statute Held to Authorize Negotiable Bonds for Sewerage System. — Acts 1920, c. 86, authorizing city of Louisville to issue bonds for sewerage system, held to authorize the city to issue and sell negotiable bonds.
5. Municipal Corporations — Statute Authorizing Bonds Held to Dispense with Necessity of Specification in Ordinances of Disposition of Proceeds. — Specific provisions of statute (Acts 1920, c. 86, section 12), authorizing issuance of municipal bonds for sewerage system, held to dispense with necessity of specification in ordinance of disposition of proceeds of sale of bonds, the depositaries therefor, terms of interest, and manner of withdrawing them.
6. Municipal Corporations — Submission of Issuance of Sewerage Bonds Held Not to Require Submission of Indebtedness in Excess of Annual Income. — In submitting question of issuing municipal bonds for sewerage purposes, under Acts 1920, c. 86, submission of question whether city should become indebted in excess of income and revenue for year was not necessary under Constitution, section 157.
Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court
EMMET R. FIELD for appellant.
WILLIAM T. BASKETT for appellees.
Affirming.
Appellant, a citizen and taxpayer of the city of Louisville, instituted this action against the city, its mayor and its commissioners of sewerage, wherein he seeks to enjoin them from issuing and selling $5,000,000.00 of sewerage bonds the city was authorized to issue under an enabling act passed by the 1920 General Assembly, being chapter 86 of the Acts of that year.
A demurrer to his petition was sustained, and he declining to plead further, his petition was dismissed, and he prosecutes this appeal.
The petition refers to the act of the General Assembly and sets forth at length the provisions of an ordinance of the city of Louisville passed in conformity to the act, which ordinance provided for the holding of an election at the regular November election, 1924, in the city upon the question whether or not the city should become indebted in the sum of $5,000,000.00 by issuing its bonds for that amount to be used as authorized in the act of the General Assembly to construct additions to and make more perfect the city's system of sewerage. It is alleged that notice of the holding of the election was given in the manner required by the ordinance, and that at the election the identical question prescribed in the ordinance was submitted to the voters of the city, and printed on each and every ballot used at the election, and that there were cast on that question 61,753 votes and of this number 43,854 were cast in the affirmative and in favor of the issuance of the bonds, and 17,899 were cast in the negative and against their issue, and that such result of the election had been duly certified.
It is then alleged that the said ordinance was invalid for three reasons, to-wit:
1. Because the ordinance passed by the general council transcends and contravenes the provisions of the enabling act in that the ordinance provides for the issuance of negotiable bonds, while the enabling act does not empower or authorize the city to issue bonds of that character, but only authorizes the issuance of "bonds" without the requirement of negotiability.
2. Because the ordinance fails to specify to whose credit the proceeds of the bonds, when they shall have been sold, shall go, and fails to specify in what depositaries, if any, their proceeds shall be placed, and fails to specify in what manner or upon what terms as to interest, if any, the proceeds shall be deposited, and fails to specify in what manner said funds shall be withdrawn from deposit, and because of such failures in the ordinance there is no sufficient compliance with the authority conferred by the enabling act.
3. Because neither the notice of election nor the question submitted to the voters submitted to them whether the city should exceed its current income for the fiscal...
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