Town of Boca Raton v. Raulerson
| Decision Date | 23 February 1933 |
| Citation | 146 So. 576,108 Fla. 376 |
| Parties | TOWN OF BOCA RATON v. RAULERSON. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Palm Beach County; C. E. Chillingworth Judge.
Action by the Town of Boca Raton against B. B. Raulerson. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.
Reversed and remanded.
COUNSEL Metcalf, Hiatt & Finch, of West Palm Beach, for plaintiff in error.
Homer T. Amis, of West Palm Beach, and John H. Adams, of Delray Beach, for defendant in error.
This court is asked to review a final judgment entered in favor of the defendant in an action brought to recover money paid to B. B. Raulerson by the town of Boca Raton for real estate on which was constructed a town hall. The declaration consisted of nine counts, the first seven of which were common counts including one for money had and received, and the remaining two, special counts. In the special counts it was alleged briefly, that while the defendant was serving as commissioner of the town, he sold, or caused to be sold, to it, certain described property for $47,500, by conveying the same through an agent, the distinction between the two being that in the former plaintiff claimed the return of the full amount of the purchase price, and in the latter claimed the difference between the amount paid B. B. Raulerson for the property and the cost of it to him, which it is alleged was $7,500.
The lower court sustained a demurrer to the eighth count of the declaration, and this ruling is assigned as error. The case was tried on the remaining counts of the declaration and the pleas of general issue. It seems logical to dispose of the question of the propriety of the court's ruling on the eighth count of the declaration, before considering any other of the assignments of error, some seventy in number.
Since the enactment of chapter 4020 of the Laws of Florida, Acts of 1891, transactions of the character described in the last two counts of the declaration have been prohibited, and, although this court has passed on one phase of dealing by a public officer with himself as an individual, the precise problem before us seems not to have been settled. An interesting decision is the one in Lainhart v. Burr, 49 Fla 315, 38 So. 711, 714, concerning a sale of supplies to a county by a firm in which a county commissioner was interested, but that case and the one here are not analogous, because the statute prohibiting the purchase of materials by a board or council from a firm in which one of the members of the board or council was interested had not, at the time of the decision, been enacted. From our review of the authorities we are convinced that such transactions fall into two classes; namely, (1) those which are illegal because against public policy, such as the one litigated in Lainhart v. Burr, and (2) those which are void because prohibited by statute, like the one involved in the instant case. The court's decision in Lainhart v. Burr was that under the first class all moneys should be accounted for if the transaction were fraudulent, or if the supplies furnished were not necessary or beneficial, otherwise that the moneys should be accounted for in excess of the actual cost which should not exceed the reasonable market value. In either event, of course, profit from the transaction is eliminated.
The distinction between the two kinds of dealings, those opposed to public policy and those in violation of a penal statute was, we think, recognized in Lainhart v. Burr, supra, as we said in Robert G. Lassiter & Co. v. Taylor, 99 Fla. 819, 128 So. 14, 18, 69 A. L. R. 689. In the former the court said: 'Many authorities hold that, if a transaction like the ones in question is prohibited under a criminal statute prescribing a penalty, there can be no recovery of any sum whatever by the party who furnishes goods in violation of the statute, even though the other party has used them; while others hold that even in such a case the party may recover what they are...
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LW Constr. of Charleston, LLC v. United States, 14-960C
...original investment, while, if not discovered, they would reap a profit for their perfidy."Id. at 340 (quoting Town of Boca Raton v. Raulerson, 146 So. 576, 577 (Fla. 1933)). Similarly, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in J.E.T.S., Inc. v. United States, 838 F.2d 1......
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Jaylene, Inc. v. Steuer ex rel. Paradise
...causa non oritur actio" to explain the law's reluctance to enforce contracts in violation of public policy. Town of Boca Raton v. Raulerson, 108 Fla. 376, 146 So. 576, 577 (1933). Translated, the maxim means "`from an immoral consideration an action does not arise,'" which "expresses the pr......
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State v. Griffin
...etc., Co. v. Continental Cas. Co., 335 So.2d 649 (S.C.Ala.); Coco v. State, 62 So.2d 892, 896 (S.C.Fla.); Town of Boca Raton v. Raulerson, 108 Fla. 376, 146 So. 576, 577; State v. Morgan, 282 S.C. 409, 319 S.E.2d 335(7). Appellee makes no assertion and the record does not establish that, af......
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Gables Ins. Recovery, Inc. v. Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp., s. 3D15-2320 & 3D16-87
...excess of certain usury and loansharking limits).Citizens' reliance on the 1933 Florida Supreme Court case of Town of Boca Raton v. Raulerson, 108 Fla. 376, 146 So. 576, 577 (1933), for the "undoubted rule" ("where a statute pronounces a penalty for an act, a contract founded upon such act ......
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Civil forfeiture as a remedy for corruption in public and private contracting in New York.
...Heese v. Wenke, 73 N.W.2d 223 (Neb. 1955), Beakley v. City of Bremerton, 105 P.2d 40 (Wash. 1940), and Town of Boca Raton v. Raulerson, 146 So. 576, 577 (Fla. 1933). See also United States v. Miss. Valley Generating Co., 364 U.S. 520, 564-65 (1961) (holding that federal contract was unenfor......