Troy Water Co. v. Borough of Troy
| Decision Date | 11 October 1901 |
| Docket Number | 55 |
| Citation | 200 Pa. 453,50 A. 259 |
| Parties | Troy Water Company v. Troy Borough, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued March 14, 1900
Appeal, No. 55, Jan. T., 1900, by defendants, from decree of C.P. Bradford Co., Sept. T. 1896, No. 1, on bill in equity in case of Troy Water Company and Eli B. Parsons v. The Borough of Troy, Liston Bliss, Burgess, L. H. Oliver, George O Holcomb, H. S. Leonard, M. E. Bailey, L. J. Ballard, A. B. McKean, W. B. Gernert, Charles N. Grohs, S.W. Pomeroy, Brainard Bowen and M. J. McNulty, Council. Affirmed.
Bill in equity for an injunction.
From the record it appeared that prior to 1896, the Troy Water Company had supplied the borough of Troy with water under a contract with the borough made many years before. In 1896 the borough began to supply householders from its own cistern and pipes. This suit was then brought.
OLMSTEAD, P.J., filed an opinion which was in part as follows:
A borough cannot erect waterworks of its own after having induced, by its action, a private company to pipe its streets and furnish water to the citizens of the borough, and that brings us to the determination of the more difficult question in the case, to wit: under the facts of the case as we have found them, could the borough of Troy legally establish a waterworks of its own? I think it could not. Before the plaintiff company expended money in the construction of its works to furnish water for the public, the borough council passed a resolution granting them the right to enter the borough and pipe the streets, regulating the grades, etc. This resolution was entirely inconsistent with a reserved purpose on the part of the borough authorities to render the investment of the plaintiff company entirely worthless, as soon as it was completed by the erection of a waterworks of their own. If such a purpose was contemplated, the grant should have been refused, and the borough could have erected such waterworks as they saw fit, and all the subsequent trouble including this action, would not have been.
The passage of the resolution was a relinquishment to the plaintiff of the powers previously vested in the borough of building works of their own. When the borough permitted the plaintiff to lay its pipes in the streets, what other understanding of their action could the plaintiff have than that they relinquished the rights vested in them to erect waterworks, to the plaintiff? Surely, the plaintiffs would not have been so foolish as to expend money under the resolution, if they understood that their investment could at any time have been rendered valueless by the action of the borough.
Previous to all this, and before the incorporation of the plaintiff, the borough had purchased a fire engine and constructed three underground cisterns. Water was pumped by the engine upon fires from those cisterns, while no contract was made between the borough and the plaintiff at the time of the adoption of the above resolution, yet some after contracts were entered into between the borough and the plaintiff, by the terms of which the plaintiff was to extend its lines to these cisterns and thus furnish water for fire purposes. These constructions were made, and water furnished to the cisterns, and a consideration paid by the borough.
In many of the reported cases, the contract to furnish water for fire purposes was entered into previous to, or at the time of, the passage of the resolution permitting the entry by the water company, but I do not understand the decided cases to be based upon the idea of an estoppel, or upon the sufficiency of the consideration for the contract. They are decided upon the ground that the permission to another to enter and lay pipes is an exercise of the right given to the municipal corporation to furnish water itself. The municipal corporation may exercise the right itself, or it may grant the right to another; and having granted the right to another, it certainly would be legally inequitable to permit it to destroy the investment made upon the faith of its grant.
The court entered a decree against the borough.
Error assigned amongst others was the decree of the court.
The opinion of the learned judge of the court below, which is very concise and clear, disposes of every point at issue in this case. We are of opinion that the decree should be affirmed. We, therefore, affirm the decree and sustain the bill, at cost of the appellants.
William Maxwell and I. McPherson, of McPherson & Angle, with them Rockwell & Mitchell, for appellant.
H. C. McCormick, with him Morgan & Morse, J. T. McCollom and David J. Fanning, for appellee.
Before McCOLLUM, C. J., MITCHELL, DEAN, FELL and BROWN, JJ.
This was a suit in equity by the Troy Water Company, against the borough of Troy, to restrain it from inaugurating a new system of water supply to the borough, independent of the Troy Water...
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