Parent v. Woonsocket Housing Authority, 9829
| Decision Date | 17 June 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 9829,9829 |
| Citation | 143 A.2d 146,87 R.I. 444 |
| Parties | Guillaume L. PARENT v. The WOONSOCKET HOUSING AUTHORITY. Ex. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Laurent C. Bilodeau, Woonsocket, for plaintiff.
Omer A. Sutherland, Woonsocket, for defendant.
This action in assumpsit was brought to recover damages for an alleged breach of a contract of employment. The case was heard in the superior court by a justice thereof, sitting without a jury, who rendered a decision for the plaintiff in the amount of $6,701.30. The case is before this court on the defendant's exception thereto.
The material facts in the case are not in dispute. The plaintiff is an attorney at law who has been admitted to practice before all the courts of this state. The defendant is the housing authority of the city of Woonsocket, which was established on March 8, 1940 under the provisions of an enabling act, then general laws 1938, chapter 344, as amended, and now G.L.1956, chap. 45-25. The housing authority, hereafter sometimes called the authority, is comprised of five members each of whom is appointed by the mayor for a term of five years. The terms of office are staggered so that an appointment of a new member takes place annually.
At a meeting of the authority held on February 11, 1953 the members thereof by a unanimous vote adopted a resolution to employ plaintiff as its legal adviser. At the same meeting they unanimously voted that the chairman be 'authorized as Chairman of said Authority to sign Contracts for a period of 5 years' between the authority and plaintiff. The plaintiff subsequently prepared a written contract which was executed by him and the chairman of the authority. In the contract plaintiff agreed to perform 'all and necessary legal services * * * for a period of five years from the date of this agreement.' The defendant agreed to pay plaintiff for such services according to the fees allowable for legal expenses as set out in its budget and as approved by the public housing authority. The plaintiff thereafter and until May 18, 1954 performed such legal services as were required of him by the authority. At that time the housing authority, the membership of which had partially changed, terminated plaintiff's employment. It is conceded that plaintiff had received as compensation for services rendered to that date the amount of $2,041.67.
The defendant contends among other things that the trial justice erred in deciding that the instant contract with plaintiff was valid and enforceable. It argues that such contract is one which defendant made in the exercise of a governmental function and that when exercising such function it is without power to bind the successor board by contract. The gist of this argument is that we should apply to defendant's contract the well-settled rule that legislative bodies and municipal agencies having legislative powers may not by contract impair or prevent a succeeding body or agency from exercising a legislative or governmental function.
The rule to which plaintiff makes reference is stated succinctly in the case of Commonwealth ex rel. Fortney v. Bartol, 342 Pa. 172, at page 175, 20 A.2d 313, at page 314, where the court said: 'In the performance of sovereign or governmental, as distinguished from business or proprietary, functions, no legislative body, or municipal board having legislative authority, can take action which will bind its successors * * *.' The question is whether this rule should be applied to appropriate contracts of defendant here. A housing authority is not a municipal department. Collins v. Selectmen of Brookline, 325 Mass. 562, 567, 91 NE2d 747. And in Johnson-Foster Co. v. D'Amore Construction Co., 314 Mass. 416, at page 419, 50 N.E.2d 89, at page 91, 148 A.L.R. 353, the court stated: 'But the housing authority was not itself a county, city or town, and it was not the agent or a department of the city of New Bedford.'
However, the services which these authorities render are impressed with a public character to such an extent that we think it is a matter of public policy that they be bound in some...
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Fuston, Petway & French, LLP v. Water Works Bd. of Birmingham
...legal advisor -- was not implicated.The Rhode Island Supreme Court addressed a similar question in Parent v. Woonsocket Housing Authority, 87 R.I. 444, 143 A.2d 146 (1958), in which a housing authority entered into a five-year contract with the plaintiff to be the legal advisor for the hous......
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...based on the disconnect between these activities and RISLA's governance. See id. Similarly, in Parent v. Woonsocket Housing Authority , 87 R.I. 444, 143 A.2d 146 (1958), the Court recognized that city housing authorities "have a dual nature which partakes of a public as well as a private ch......
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...626 (R.I.1988) (emphasis added); Vieira v. Jamestown Bridge Commission, 91 R.I. 350, 163 A.2d 18 (1960); Parent v. Woonsocket Housing Authority, 87 R.I. 444, 143 A.2d 146 (1958); see generally Casa DiMario, Inc. v. Richardson, 763 A.2d 607, 610 (R.I.2000) (citing Parent and noting that the ......
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