Turney v. Town of Bridgeport

• Decision Date: 05 December 1887
• Parties: TURNEY v. TOWN OF BRIDGEPORT.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

12 A. 520

55 Conn. 412

TURNEY

v. TOWN OF BRIDGEPORT.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 5, 1887.

Appeal from superior court, Fairfield county; FENN, Judge.

Action by George Turney to recover $35,000 for work done and materials furnished in the erection of a school-house for defendant town. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff for $2,180, and he apppealed, on the ground of error in the rulings and charge of the court. Defendant also appealed, on the ground that plaintiff had already received more than he was entitled to.

G. Stoddard and D. Davenport, for plaintiff. R. E. Be Forest, J. A. Joyce, and A. B. Beers, for defendant.

STODDARD, J. The town of Bridgeport, at a special town meeting, held February 16, 1880, voted "that J. S. Hanover, Nathaniel Wheeler, E. W. Marsh, and George C. Waldo be, and they are hereby, appointed agents of the town to obtain plans, specifications, and estimates for the building of a public school-house, and, when the same shall have been approved by the school and building committee, to contract for the erection thereof, on the site selected by the town, at a cost not to exceed the sum of $55,000, and that the town appropriate said sum to defray the expenses of erecting the same." By this resolution of the town, the appropriation to build the school-house was restricted to the sum of $55,000, and the power of the committee to expend money was limited to that sum named in the vote.

In Connecticut towns are territorial subdivisions of the state, created at the will of the legislature, for the more convenient administration of local, public, and governmental affairs. They have no powers except those conferred by express enactment, or necessarily implied, to carry into effect the object and purposes of their being. Agents of towns have no general authority. Their powers are measured and limited by the express language in which authority is given, or by the implication necessary to enable them to perform some duty cast upon them by express language. Persons dealing with towns through the medium of committees and other agents of towns must, at their peril, take notice of the scope and measure of the powers of such committees and agents. Towns are quasi corporations, and in their characteristic qualities radically differ from trading and commercial corporations as to liability arising from acts of agents. And in some essentials towns differ from ordinary municipal corporations, whose chartered powers are conferred at the request of the inhabitants, and to effectuate in some degree and to some extent purposes not public or governmental. Public duties and obligations are cast upon towns by the legislative power, without reference to the will of the inhabitants of the town. Every inhabitant of the town is a member of the quasi corporation, and his individual property may be levied upon to satisfy executions against the town. Webster v. Harwinton, 32 Conn. 131; White v. Stamford, 37 Conn. 586; Ladd v. Franklin, Id. 65, 66; State v. Fyler, 48 Conn. 158; East Hartford v. Bank, 49 Conn. 553.

The plaintiff contracted with the committee named by a written contract, wherein the resolution of the town was recited in full; and he contracted to build and finish the school-house according to certain plans and specifications, except the heating, ventilation, and plumbing, for the sum of $42,250. The plaintiff either knew as matter of fact the amount of the contract price for the part of the work excepted in his bid, or at least was put upon inquiry, and could easily have ascertained the amount, and must be treated as contracting with reference to the actual contract expense of such excepted parts of the work. The plaintiff has recovered a verdict for substantially all the difference between the contract prices and the amount appropriated, and is in nowise damaged by the claimed erroneous rulings, unless he has a right to recover of the town beyond the amount so appropriated. He places his right to recover a sum above the sum appropriated upon two general theories: First, that the committee in question, or the board of education, or both bodies acting in reference to the matter, have made another and different contract with him, by which they promised, and bound the town, to pay a sum above the $55,000 for the construction of the school-house, and that, acting under that new and different contract, he has expended about $26,500 above his original contract price; and, second, that the town, by its action, has...