State ex rel. Hays v. Steunenberg

• Decision Date: 08 June 1896
• Citation: 5 Idaho 1,45 P. 462
• Parties: STATE EX REL. HAYS v. STEUNENBERG
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

45 P. 462

5 Idaho 1

STATE EX REL. HAYS v. STEUNENBERG

Supreme Court of Idaho

June 8, 1896

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-MUNICIPAL CORPORATION.-Under the provisions of section 1 article 12, of the constitution of Idaho, the legislature may pass general laws for the incorporation, organization, and classification of cities and towns in proportion to the population, and such general laws may be altered, amended or repealed by general laws.

SAME-How TOWNS MAY INCORPORATE.-The latter part of said section points out a means by which towns that were incorporated prior to the adoption of the constitution may become organized under such general laws. Under that provision the inhabitants of a town may express their intention to and become organized as a city of the second class by complying with the provisions of an act entitled "An act to provide for the organization government, and powers of cities and villages." (See Sess. Laws 1893, p. 97.)

(Syllabus by the court.)

APPEAL from District Court, Canyon County.

Reversed, with instructions.

John C Rice, for Appellants.

Municipal corporations are the creatures of the state, agencies of the state, over which the power of the legislature is supreme and transcendent; the state has power to amend their charters, enlarge or diminish their powers, change their boundaries, or abolish them altogether. Limitation upon legislative power must be found in the constitution of the state alone. (Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 228; 1 Dillon on Municipal Corporations, sec. 54; Wright v. Kelley, 4 Idaho 624, 43 P. 565; Meriwether v. Garret, 102 U.S. 472.) The charter of a municipal corporation is in no sense a contract between the state and the corporation. (1 Dillon on Municipal Corporations, sec. 54.) Under our system of government, the state legislature is intrusted with the general authority to make laws, subject only to constitutional limitations. (Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 104.) It is with great reluctance that courts will declare an act of the legislature unconstitutional. ( Commissioners of Cherokee Co. v. State, 36 Kan. 337, 13 P. 558.) In this case there are special reasons why the court should hesitate to declare the statute in question void. The law has been in operation more than three years unquestioned. Many cities and towns in the state, as Caldwell has done, have revised their ordinances, and shaped themselves so as to conform to this law. In doing so they have followed the advice of this court in the case of Hampton v. Dilley, 3 Idaho 427, 31 P. 807. Nowhere in our constitution is there any express provision in conflict with the law. (Const., art. 12, sec. 1.) The state loses the right to question legality of corporate existence by long acquiescence in its exercise of corporate franchises, and by its own recognition of such corporation by dealing with its officers as such officers. (Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 310, and cases cited; 1 Dillon on Municipal Corporations, sec. 43, and cases cited in note.)

George M. Parsons, Attorney General, for Respondent.

No brief found on file.

SULLIVAN, J. Morgan, C. J., and Huston, J., concur.

OPINION

SULLIVAN, J.

This action is brought by the state to test the validity of the incorporation of the city of Caldwell, Canyon county, and to oust the defendants from exercising certain official functions as officers of said city. The complaint alleges the board of county commissioners duly incorporated the town of Caldwell on the fifteenth day of January, 1890, under and by virtue of the provisions of title 13, page 289, of the Revised Statutes of Idaho; that a regular municipal election was held in said town on April 4, 1892, and officers of said town elected; that on the ninth day of March, 1893, the trustees elected as aforesaid divided the said town of Caldwell into three wards, under the provisions of an act of the legislature approved March 4, 1893, and thereafter gave due and legal notice of an election to be held for the election of the necessary officers of a city of the second class as specified in said act of the legislature, and that officers were duly elected and entered upon their respective duties; that another city election was held on the second day of April, 1895, in conformity with the provisions of said act, and certain officers were then elected to supersede certain officers theretofore elected as aforesaid, and duly entered upon their duties as such officers; that the question of becoming organized as a city of the second class was never submitted to the electors of said town of Caldwell--and demands judgment that defendants are not entitled to said offices, and that they be ousted therefrom, and that the trustees, police magistrate and treasurer, who were acting as officers of said town at the time of the election of city officers first above mentioned, and who at that time were superseded by the officers so elected, be declared to be entitled to such offices and put in possession of the same, and that said city of Caldwell be declared to have no existence as a city. A demurrer to the complaint was interposed on the ground that it did not state a cause of action, and overruled by the court. The defendants refused to answer, and judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiff. This appeal is from the judgment.

The question for determination is, By what means can a town having the requisite population, which had been incorporated under the general laws of Idaho prior to the adoption of the constitution and the admission of Idaho as a state, organize as a city of...