State ex rel. Weaver v. City of Knoxville
Decision Date | 09 June 1945 |
Citation | 188 S.W.2d 329,182 Tenn. 510 |
Parties | STATE ex rel. WEAVER et al. v. CITY OF KNOXVILLE et al. |
Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from Chancery Court, Knox County; A. E. Mitchell, Chancellor.
Mandamus by the State, on the relation of N. B. Weaver and others against the City of Knoxville and others to compel the city council to reconsider its action in authorizing a bond issue for the purchase of a gas company, or to submit the matter to a referendum. The chancellor dismissed the bill on demurrer and relators appealed, and the City filed certain assignments of error.
Affirmed.
Wayne Parkey and James P. Brown, both of Knoxville, for defendant.
Proceeding under Chapter 33 of the Acts of the First Extra Session of 1935, amended by Chapter 230 of the Acts of 1937, the City Council of Knoxville passed a resolution authorizing the purchase of the properties of the Knoxville Gas Company and an issue of $450,000 of bonds to pay for the same. This is a mandamus suit brought to compel the council to reconsider this action or to submit the matter to a vote of the citizens under referendum provisions of the city charter. The chancellor dismissed the bill on demurrer and the relators have appealed to this Court.
The first assignment of error questions the ruling of the chancellor that mandamus does not lie to compel the reconsideration of such action by a city council. If, as the chancellor held, the relators are entitled to no relief herein, the availability of the remedy they sought to employ is not material.
The second assignment of error makes the point that relators are entitled under the city charter to have this transaction submitted to a referendum before it is put through. The third assignment advances the proposition that the purchase of the gas plant and the issuance of the bonds is an undertaking that, under its charter, the city can only accomplish by an ordinance passed by the council on two readings at two meetings--not by a resolution at one meeting as was here attempted.
If these contentions might formerly have prevailed, we think the chancellor properly held that the charter provisions upon which they rest were superseded by the act of 1935 as will presently appear. His honor observed that the resolution authorizing the purchase of the properties and the issue of bonds was in entire conformity with the provisions of the act of 1935 and the amendatory act of 1937. Relators do not challenge this as a finding of fact, but they say these statutes are invalid.
We doubt that the charter provisions on which assignments of error 2 and 3 are based are applicable to the bond issue here involved. Those charter provisions seem to relate to bonds which are general obligations of the city, supported by taxes. As to the bonds here to be issued, Section 9 of the Act of 1935 says:
If there is any conflict between the statutes incorporating the City of Knoxville and the act of 1935, the provisions of the latter act (1935) prevail. It has long been settled in Tennessee that a municipal charter is subject to repeal or amendment at the will of the legislature. Two recent decisions of this Court, referring to earlier cases, are Bell v. Town of Pulaski, 182 Tenn. 136, 184 S.W.2d 384, and Corporation of Sevierville v. King, 182 Tenn. 143, 184 S.W.2d 381. See also Hill v. Roberts, 142 Tenn. 215, 217 S.W. 826, and cases cited to the effect that the legislature may itself act directly for a municipality or authorize such an entity to exercise its delegated powers in such manner as the legislature thinks best.
This brings us to the consideration of the constitutionality of Chapter 33 of the Acts of the First Extra Session of 1935 and of Chapter 230 of the Acts of 1937. All relators' other assignments of error are confined to this question.
The caption of the Act of 1935 is in these words:
'An Act providing for the acquisition, purchase, construction, reconstruction, improvement, betterment, extension, operation and maintenance of revenue-producing public works by any incorporated city or town; authorizing and regulating the issuance of revenue bonds for financing such public works; and providing for the payment of such bonds and the rights of holders thereof.'
The first sentence in Section 5 runs thus:
'That the construction, acquisition, reconstruction, improvements, betterment or extension of any public works may be authorized under this Act and bonds may be authorized to be issued under this Act to provide funds for such purpose or purposes by resolution or resolutions of the governing body which may be adopted at the same meeting at which they are introduced by a majority of all the members thereof then in office and shall take effect immediately upon adoption.'
Section 18 is in these words:
The argument is that there is no reference either in the title or body of the Act of 1935 to the sections of the charter of Knoxville relating to ordinances and referendum of which sections it is said the Act of 1935 effects a repeal. The statute is thus said to transgress so much of Section 17 of Article 2 of the Constitution as provides: 'All acts which repeal, revive or amend former laws, shall recite in their caption or otherwise, the title or substance of the law repealed, revived or amended.'
The Act of 1935, neither in caption nor body, purports to repeal nor amend any previous law. It does not even...
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