Rand, Collector v. Marshall

• Decision Date: 16 January 1911
• Parties: RAND, Collector v. MARSHALL
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

78 A. 790

84 Vt. 161

RAND, Collector

v. MARSHALL

Supreme Court of Vermont. Caledonia.

Jan. 16, 1911.

Exceptions from Caledonia County Court; Zed S. Stanton, Judge.

Action by V. W. Rand as Collector of the Village of Hardwick against W. W. Marshall. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff brings exceptions. Reversed and remanded.

Argued before ROWELL, C. J., and HASELTON, WATSON, MUNSON, and POWERS, JJ.

B. E. Bullard and M. G. Morse, for plaintiff.

Walter A. Dutton, for defendant.

MUNSON, J. The plaintiff sues as collector of the village of Hardwick to recover of the defendant by trustee process an amount due the village for electric lights used by the defendant's tenants, and excepts to the direction of a verdict for the defendant. The defendant questions the authority of the village to supply its inhabitants with electric lights, the construction claimed for the provision relating to owners, the constitutionality of the provision if construed as claimed, and the regularity of the proceedings. The amended charter of the village authorizes it to establish rates or rents to be paid by the users of electric lights, and provides that such rates or rents shall be chargeable to, and may be collected of, the owners of the property supplied with such lights, unless otherwise agreed by the commissioners and the owners, and that the same shall be a lien and charge upon the buildings, lots, and other property so supplied, and may be collected in the same manner as any tax assessed by the village. Acts 1898, No. 192, § 5. Section 4 of the same act provides that the trustees of the village shall assess the rates and provide for their collection, and a later act provides that when the rates become due the trustees shall make or cause to be made an account or bill thereof, giving the names of the several payers and the amounts due from each, and deliver the same to the treasurer of the village. Acts 1902, No. 220, § 5.

A municipality cannot furnish lights for private use unless specially authorized. Swanton Village v. Highgate, 81 Vt. 152, 69 Atl. 667, 16 L. R. A. (N. S.) 867. But we think a provision may be sufficiently explicit without containing words of direct authorization. This charter premises that the charges for electric lighting are to provide an income for paying the interest on and ultimately extinguishing the debt incurred in providing the electric plant. This necessarily implies a sale of lights to users other than the village. Moreover, in providing for the control of rates, the village is authorized to "extend them to any description of property or use." No argument against the construction claimed by the village can be drawn from the express authorization to sell lights to persons outside the corporate limits, for this authority was not conferred until four years after the other provisions went into effect. We think the village is authorized to furnish electric lights for private use.

The defendant contends that the provision making the rates chargeable to and collectible from the owner of the property supplied and a lien upon the property was intended to charge the owner and the property only when the lights were supplied to such owner in person. It seems clear that more than this was intended; for if nothing more was intended the clause giving the...