Universal Motor Co. v. Newton County

• Decision Date: 01 December 1930
• Docket Number: 29024
• Citation: 158 Miss. 873,130 So. 791
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: UNIVERSAL MOTOR CO. v. NEWTON COUNTY

130 So. 791

158 Miss. 873

UNIVERSAL MOTOR CO. v. NEWTON COUNTY

No. 29024

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 1, 1930

Division B

Suggestion of Error Overruled, January 12, 1931.

APPEAL from circuit court of Newton county, HON. D. M. ANDERSON Judge.

Suit by the Universal Motor Company against Newton county. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

On suggestion of error. Overruled.

For former opinion, see 130 So. 791.

Affirmed. Suggestion of error overruled.

J. C. Floyd and J. H. Currie, both of Meridian, for appellant.

If the county desired to avoid the contract by showing illegality or non-compliance with the statute, this should have been specially pleaded "nul tiel record."

Taylor v. Chickasaw County, 74 Miss. 23, 19 So. 834; 15 C. J. 560, sec. 258; San Juana County v. Tulley (Colo.), 67 P. 346; Miller v. Weld County (Colo.), 67 P. 347; Brown v. Board, 37 P. 503.

The order of purchase shows a written offer or bid on the part of the seller and a written acceptance thereof by the buyer. It was complete as a written contract and as such bound the board when it was entered on the minutes as it was entered.

Peoples Bank v. Attala County, 126 So. 192.

Whether or not there was competitive bidding, whether or not the competitive bidding statute applies to an exchange of specific property, whether or not the validating statute, Chapter 145, Laws 1928, applies, is immaterial to this appeal because these issues are not before this court, and cannot be considered for purposes of this appeal.

Breithaupt v. Dean, 144 Miss. 292, 109 So. 792; Pullman v. Kelly, 86 Miss. 87.

J. C. Floyd, of Meridian, for appellant.

The note sued on was delivered long prior to the passage of the validating act; in fact the note was past due before the act was passed; and by the validating act the proceedings authorizing its execution and delivery, and also the note, executed and delivered pursuant to such procedure, were both validated as past transaction.

Chapter 145, Laws 1928.

M. P. Foy, of Decatur, for appellee.

All boards of supervisors shall purchase their supplies for public work--upon competitive bids.

Laws 1914, ch. 206; Hem. Code 1927, sec. 7886; Code 1930, sec. 6064.

The note was not validated by chapter 145, section 1, page 201, Laws of 1928. A. This note was contracted and sold at less than par. B. This act was passed and approved April 16, 1928, and the note was due April 8, 1927. C. Nothing in the act shall be taken or construed to approve, any warrant, certificate of indebtedness, or other obligations issued in violation of chapter 326 of the laws of Mississippi, 1920.

Argued orally by J. C. Floyd, for appellant.

Griffith, J. Ethridge, P. J.

OPINION

Griffith, J.

Appellant delivered to appellee county certain road machinery to the value as alleged of six hundred dollars, and received therefor what would appear to be the promissory note of the county, dated April 8, 1926, and payable one year after date. Payment was refused by the county, and appellant instituted suit. Judgment was rendered by the circuit court in favor of the county, from which judgment comes this appeal.

In addition to several other defenses, the county relies upon the point that the alleged note was made for the purchase in question without competitive bids; and according to the record before us, this contention is correct in matter of fact. Against this, appellant says, first, that the transaction was an exchange of specific property, the county agreeing to pay the difference in cash. The offer by appellant was to "furnish one Trackson Full Crawler and assembly on Wehr grader now in use in exchange for the rubber tired wheels on same machine and the sum of six hundred dollars," and this offer was accepted by an entry on the minutes. So far as anything appears to the contrary in the record, this very thing could have been done on competitive bids. Moreover, no authority is cited by appellant that the exchange of property is not within the purpose and policy of our statutes, and while not deciding that question now, since it is not necessary under the facts of this case, we would say that in the obvious view, that to hold that exchanges are not within our competitive bidding statutes would allow exchanges of all worn or used implements, equipment, and machinery for new at enormous differences in public expenditures and would open the door to the grossest abuses, no such holding will be made, as we feel reasonably sure, until authority and highly persuasive authority is presented strongly upholding the contention.

As its second reliance, appellant contends that the transaction has been validated by chapter 145, Laws 1928, that chapter being the general curative or validation act passed at the 1928 legislative session. During the present generation, when for the first time the moral as well as the legal responsibility for legislation has passed in this state from the hands of minorities and into the control of the great body of the people, there has been manifested a sensitiveness towards any sort of suggestion that it should ever again be possible that any considerable public pecuniary obligation shall be disowned by legislative action, or the want thereof, on purely technical grounds. Consequently it has become the practice at almost every legislative session to enact curative statutes in broad terms to validate all proceedings had by...