Western Paint & Chemical Co. v. Board of Com'rs of Garfield County
| Decision Date | 31 January 1933 |
| Docket Number | 23012. |
| Parties | WESTERN PAINT & CHEMICAL CO. v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF GARFIELD COUNTY. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. The statutes provide for a board of county commissioners, provide for the time and place of the meetings of such board, how the board shall transact business, and the record that shall be kept of its transactions. Under those statutes, a county can be bound upon a contract by the board of county commissioners only where the action taken by the board of county commissioners was in a session of the board of county commissioners.
2. Whoever deals with a municipality does so with notice of the limitations on it or its agents' powers. All are presumed to know the law, and those who contract with it or furnish it supplies so do with reference to the law, and if they go beyond the limitations imposed, they do so at their peril.
3. The plaintiff is not entitled to recover on a claim or contract against the county, unless it can be shown that the contract rests upon some express or implied provision of the law, and it is not sufficient to show that the services performed or the material furnished were beneficial to the county.
4. A trial court is authorized to render a judgment against a county when the evidence presented to the trial court shows a liability or when the pleadings in the case show a liability and there is no evidence to the contrary; but a trial court is not authorized to render a judgment against a county merely because a board of county commissioners sees fit to confess judgment when the issues made by the pleadings present a question of liability and when the evidence shows that there is no liability.
Appeal from District Court, Garfield County; J. W. Bird, Judge.
Action by the Board of County Commissioners of Garfield County against the Western Paint & Chemical Company. Judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
McKeever Elam, Stewart & McKeever, of Enid, for plaintiff in error.
Dave Bucher, Co. Atty., A. L. Zinser, Asst. Co. Atty., and Simons McKnight, Simons, Mitchell & McKnight, all of Enid, for defendant in error.
For convenience, the plaintiff in error, Western Paint & Chemical Company, will be referred to in this decision as the paint company, and the board of county commissioners of Garfield county, Okl., the defendant in error, will be referred to herein as the board.
The record shows that the paint company, on the 30th day of September, 1929, commenced an action in the district court of Garfield county against the board to recover the sum of $12,274.75 on ninety-six causes of action based on claims for scaling and painting bridges during the fiscal year commencing July 1 1926. The board filed an answer therein denying that it had ever contracted with the paint company for any labor or material. Judgment was rendered against the paint company. A motion for new trial was overruled and the time to make and serve a case-made was extended to the 1st day of October, 1930. On the 6th day of October, 1930, there was filed in that court an instrument in writing which, by its terms, was directed to the county attorney of Garfield county, authorizing and directing him to allow the paint company to recover and authorizing and directing him to confess a judgment in favor of the paint company "* * * for the cost of material used in painting bridges and the amount of money actually paid by the plaintiff to the laborers in applying said paints on all the bridges so painted, save and except two bridges which were painted by the plaintiff located on the Garfield County and Noble County lines, which did not belong to Garfield County, and also deducting the cost of painting of the one bridge which was upon an abandoned road." The county attorney was therein directed "* * * that said Journal Entry of Judgment shall in no event exceed sixty-six and two thirds per cent of (66 2/3 %) the amount sued upon, less the amount claimed sued upon for the bridges above designated." Therein it was recited: "This compromise is authorized, ordered and directed by the undersigned County Commissioners of Garfield County, Oklahoma, for the reason that the County in fact received the material and work sued for, and that the present litigation now involves a technical question as to the manner in which the contracts were let, and for the further reason that we feel that Garfield County doesn't want to take any property or anything of anyone for nothing, although from a technical standpoint they may be able to do so, and we feel that the best interests of the County are being served by authorizing and directing you to make this settlement." That instrument was dated October 6, 1930. We quote the signatures thereto, as follows:
Those signatures were not attested by the county clerk, and the seal of the county was not affixed thereto. On October 13, 1930, the county attorney of the Garfield county and the manager of the paint company presented to the trial court for the signature of the trial judge a form of journal entry of judgment, which was signed by the trial judge and filed in that court on that date. That journal entry of judgment recited the rendition of the judgment against the paint company on the 10th day of April, 1930, the filing of a supersedeas bond, the extension of time to make and serve a case-made; that: "Whereas, the said Board of County Commissioners of Garfield County, Oklahoma, on the 6th day of October, 1930, authorized the County Attorney of said County, in writing, to settle and compromise said cause and make appearance for said Board and confess said judgment in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $7,771.95, with interest at the rate of six per centum per annum from November 1, 1926, until paid, said compromise and confession being $4,502.80, less than the amount prayed for in plaintiff's petition." That the parties appeared by their respective attorneys, and that the county attorney confessed judgment in favor of the paint company in the amount of $7,771.95, with interest at the rate of 6 per centum per annum from the 1st day of November, 1926, and it rendered judgment in favor of the paint company against the board for that amount. The judgment of April 10, 1930, against the paint company was not modified, vacated, or set aside, in terms.
On April 11, 1931, a succeeding county attorney commenced an action in the name of the board against the paint company to set aside the judgment rendered on October 13, 1930, on the ground that that judgment was unauthorized and void. It was therein contended that the purported order and...
To continue reading
Request your trial