State ex rel. Board of Sanitary Com'rs of City of Terre Haute v. Superior Court of Vigo County No. Two
| Decision Date | 11 October 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. T,No. 30975,T,30975 |
| Parties | STATE of Indiana On the Relation Of the BOARD OF SANITARY COMMISSIONERS OF the CITY OF TERRE HAUTE, Indiana, Raymond Harris, President, Olis Jamison, Member, Donald Smith, Secretary, the City of Terre Haute, Relators, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF VIGO COUNTY NO. TWO, Charles K. McCrory, as Judge of the Superior Court of Vigo Countywo, Respondents. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
The relators ask this Court to issue a writ of prohibition against the respondent court to restrain it from entertaining an action brought for an injunction against the relators to prevent them from perfecting a bond issue and offering the bonds for sale on April 12, 1966. The plaintiffs in the court below brought the the injunction suit on April 11, 1966 to enjoin the sale.
The relators were unable to sell and deliver the bonds because of the cloud cast on the validity of the bond issue by the refusal of counsel for a bonding house to approve such issue by reason of such pending suit for an injunction. It is contended that the problem to be dealt with here is the 'midnight injunction'; that the plaintiffs in the suit below had adequate administrative remedies, but instead chose to wait until the day before the bonds were offered for sale to bring the action to enjoin such sale. It is argued that this is a misuse of judicial process and we in this Court should prohibit such harassment. We, of course, cannot accept the disputed contention of the relators that the suit for injunction in the trial court is pure harassment and has no merit. If the relators have facts sufficient to support this contention, the remedy is still in the trial court by asking relief through equitable remedies to prevent harassment. There is legal authority for the granting of such remedies. King v. City of Bloomington (1959), 239 Ind. 548, 159 N.E.2d 563; Jones v. Town of Sunman (1962), 243 Ind. 70, 181 N.E.2d 777.
We are fully conscious of the relator's situation. Bond counsel will not approve the bond issue with the pending suit for injunction. Interest rates are changing from day to day. Any delay by reason of legal action creates a situation beyond the control of the relators in attempting to finance the proposed project. In this case the plaintiffs in the injunction suit did not ask for a restraining order or temporary injunction which would hold up the sale of the bonds the next day. They merely asked for an injunction upon final judgment and trial. It was therefore possible for the bonds to be sold without any interference by any court order except for the fact that counsel for the bonding house would not approve the issue with the suit for an injunction pending.
Burns' Ind.Stat.Anno. § 48--4217 (1946 Repl.) provides as follows:
'* * * No suit to question the validity of said bonds so issued for said sanitary district or to prevent their issue shall be instituted after the date set for the sale of said bonds, and all said bonds, from and after said date, shall be incontestible for any cause whatsoever.'
It seems to us that had the bonds been sold, the issue under the pending injunction suit would have been moot--a fait accompli. The filing of another cause of action after the date of sale of the bonds, or even the amending of the complaint and thereby creating another cause of action, such as one for a declaratory judgment as to the validity of the bond issue, in our opinion would come within the meaning of the statute.
Not all the answers to difficult problems or situations may be found in the courts of law. The legislative branch of the government has its responsibility to solve these predicaments in the first place. It may be some legislation is needed to protect bond purchasers of governmental units under conditions such as the relators claim exist here. It may be that some period of time--thirty days or more prior to the sale date of the bonds--should be fixed, barring any lawsuits thereon. Such limitations, however, are not the subject-matter for consideration by a court of law, but arise after hearings and investigations before legislative committees. On the pretext offered here, this Court cannot arbitrarily bar the filing of lawsuits or the continuation of the same because the party being sued thinks the lawsuit is unfair, a hardship, or without merit. Those are issues that have to be tried in the trial court, including the issue of harassment. We cannot arbitrarily--by issuing a writ of prohibition--take from a party or a taxpayer the long-established right to question the action of public officials in borrowing funds and spending such public funds.
We take up now the legal issue before us: Whether or not we may step into a lawsuit pending in a trial court and issue a writ of prohibition to prevent the court from considering such lawsuit on its merits. The law permits persons claiming to be aggrieved to come into the trial court and ask for injunction or other equitable remedies against administrative action where no statutory or administrative procedure provides for a final judicial review or appeal. We have announced such principle a number of times. This covers also a situation in which a purported statute sets up an administrative procedure and also administrative remedies on appeal, yet the aggrieved parties contend that the statute itself is unconstitutional.
'We have held that where the legislature has failed to provide for a statutory remedy of appeal sufficiently broad, the courts nevertheless will grant such a judicial review, since each litigant is entitled to an appeal.' Mann v. City of Terre Haute et al. (1960), 240 Ind. 245, 249, 163 N.E.2d 577, 579; Public Service Comm. et al. v. City of Indianapolis (1955), 235 Ind. 70, 131 N.E.2d 308.
On the other hand, we also agree with relators' contention that if there is an adequate administrative remedy and procedure for a review of appeal fixed by them, an aggrieved party may not ask the court to interfere by injunction, but must...
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