Buchanan v. Litchfield/Opinion of the Court

by by John Marshall Harlan

United States Supreme Court

102 U.S. 278

Buchanan  v.  Litchfield

The first and most important of the certified questions involves the construction of the twelfth section of the ninth article of the Constitution of Illinois.

The words employed are too explicit to leave any doubt as to the object of the constitutional restriction upon municipal indebtedness. The purpose of its framers, beyond all question, was to withhold from the Legislative Department the power to confer upon municipal corporations authority to incur indebtedness in excess of a prescribed amount. The authority, therefore, conferred by the act of April 15, 1873, to incur indebtedness in the construction and maintenance of a system of water-works, could have been lawfully exercised by a city, incorporated town, or village, only when its liabilities, increased by any proposed new indebtedness, would be within the constitutional limit. No legislation could confer upon a municipal corporation authority to contract indebtedness which the Constitution expressly declared it should not be allowed in incur. Law et al. v. The People ex rel., 87 Ill. 385; Fuller v. City of Chicago, 89 id. 282.

It was proved that the debt of the city of Litchfield on and before the 1st of January, 1874, exclusive of the water bonds, was $70,000.

If, therefore, it appears, by evidence, of which the city may rightfully avail itself, as against a bona fide holder for value of the coupons in suit, that the bonds, issued Jan. 1, 1974, created an indebtedness in excess of the amount to which municipal indebtedness is restricted by the Constitution, there would seem to be no escape from the conclusion that the bonds are void for the want of legal authority to issue them at the time they were issued.

To the evidence upon which the city relied as showing such want of authority, objections were interposed by the plaintiff, who insisted that it was not admissible against him, as a bona fide holder of the coupons in suit.

That evidence was made the basis of important findings of fact. Introduced for the purpose of showing the value of taxable property within the limits of the city, and the extent of her indebtedness, when these water bonds were issued, it is not, in our opinion, liable to any serious objection. It seemed to be the best proof upon those subjects that the law furnished.

In determining whether the constitutional limit of indebtedness has been exceeded by a municipal corporation, an inquiry would always be necessary as to the amount of taxable property within its boundaries. Such inquiry would be solved, not by information derived from individual officers of the municipality, but only in the mode prescribed in the Constitution; that is, by reference to the last assessment for State and county taxes for the year preceding the issuing of the bonds. That test was applied in this case. Had there been, under or by competent legal authority, an assessment for that year of taxable property within the city, separately from all other property in the county or township to which the city belonged, such assessment would undoubtedly have been controlling. But there was no such official assessment, in fact, or required by law. There were, however, official assessments for State and county taxes for 1873, embracing all taxable property within the county and townships of which the city formed a part, and from which, in connection with the map of the city, could be readily ascertained the location and taxable value of all property within the corporate limits of the city for that year. The purchaser of the bonds was certainly bound to take notice not only of the constitutional limitation upon municipal indebtedness, but of such facts as the authorized official assessments disclosed concerning the valuation of taxable property within the city for the year 1973.

But in what way was the purchaser to ascertain the extent of the city's indebtedness existing at the time the bonds in question were issued? The extent of that indebtedness was a fact peculiarly within the knowledge of the constituted authorities of the city. It was necessarily left, both by the Constitution and the statute of 1873, to their examination and determination, under the constitutional injunction, however, that no municipal corportion should exceed the prescribed amount of indebtedness. It was, nevertheless, a fact which, so far as we are advised by the record, could not at all times and absolutely, or with reasonable certainty, be ascertained from any official documents to which the public had access. A like difficulty, perhaps, would arise in the case of any municipal corporation, possessing the general power of raising money, by taxation and otherwise, to carry on local government. Its liabilities might frequently vary in their aggregate amount, and at particular periods might be of different kinds, some fixed and absolute, while others would be contingent upon events thereafter to happen. These considerations were, doubtless, present in the minds as wll of those who framed the Constitution as of those who passed the statute of 1873.

As, therefore, neither the Constitution nor the statute prescribed any rule or test by which persons contracting with municipal corporations should ascertain the extent of their 'existing indebtedness,' it would seem that if the bonds in question had contained recitals which, upon any fair construction, amounted to a representation upon the part of the constituted authorities of the city that the requirements of the Constitution were met,-that is, that the city's indebtedness, increased by the amount of the bonds in question, was within the constitutional limit,-then the city, under the decisions of this court, might have been estopped from disputing the truth of such representations as against a bona fide holder of its bonds. The case might then, perhaps, have been brought within the rule announced by this ourt in Town of Coloma v. Eaves (92 U.S. 484), in which case we said, and now repeat, that 'where legislative authority has been given to a municipality, or to its officers, to subscribe for the stock of a railroad company, and to issue municipal bonds in payment, but only on some precedent condition, such as a popular vote favoring the subscription, and where it may be gathered from the legislative enactment that the officers of the municipality were invested with power to decide whether the condition precedent has been complied with, their recital that it has been, made on the bonds issued by them and held by a bona fide purchaser, is conclusive of the fact, and binding upon the municipality; for the recital is itself a decision of the fact by the appointed tribunal.' So, in the more recent case of Orleans v. Pratt (99 id. 676), it was said that 'where the bonds on their face recite the circumstances which bring them within the power, the corporation is estopped to deny the truth of the recital.'

The cases cited by counsel for the plaintiff do not assert any different doctrines, as will be seen from an examination of those chiefly relied upon. In Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall (21 How. 539), which was a case of municipal subscription of stock in a railroad company, the statute upon which the subscription there purported to rest made the existence of certain facts essential to the exercise of authority to make the subscription and issue bonds therefor. The bonds, upon their face, however, recited that they were issued in pursuance of the statute, which prescribed the conditions precedent to any subscription, and, therefore, the court said, they imported a compliance with the law under which they were issued. It was, consequently, ruled that the purchaser was not bound to look further for evidence of a compliance with the condition annexed to the grant of the power.

In Kenicott v. Supervisors (16 Wall. 452), the rule was thus stated: 'If an election or other fact is required to authorize the issue of the bonds of a municipal corporation, and if the result of that election, or the existence of that fact, is by law to be ascertained and declared by any judge, officer, or tribunal, and that judge, officer, or tribunal, on behalf of the corporation, executes or issues the bonds, with a recital that the election has been held or that the fact exists or has taken place, this will be sufficient evidence of the fact of all bona fide holders of the bonds.'

In County of Moultrie v. Savings Bank (92 U.S. 631), the validity of the bonds there in suit was questioned, upon the ground that certain precedent conditions imposed by statute had not been complied with. The bonds, however, recited their issue to be 'in conformity to the provisions' of the statute which gave the authority to issue them. So, in Marcy v. Township of Oswego (id. 637), where the statute authorizing a municipal subscription, with the sanction of three-fifths of the voters interested, and the issue of bonds in payment thereof, required particular facts to exist and certain acts to be performed before the right to make the subscription and to issue bonds in discharge thereof could be exercised. The statute contained, amongst other things, a proviso to the effect that the amount of bonds sold by the township should not exceed such a sum as would require a levy of more than one per cent per annum on the taxable property of the township to pay the yearly interest. It appeared that the statute had not, in some of these respects, been complied with; that is, that the conditions had not been performed which the statute required before any subscription should be made or bonds issued. But, adhering to the rule announced in Town of Coloma v. Eaves, the defence was overruled in favor of a bona fide holder for value, because of the recital in the bonds that their issue was 'by virtue of, and in accordance with,' the statute, and 'in pursuance of, and in accordance with, the vote of three-fifths of the legal voters of the township.'

Returning to the case in hand, it will be observed that the bonds issued by the city of Litchfield contain no recital whatever of the circumstances which, under the Constitution of the State, must have existed before the city could legally incur the indebtedness for which the bonds were issued. They purport, it is true, to be issued under the authority of the act of April 15, 1873, and in pursuance of the ordinance of the city based upon that statute. But that statute does not expressly restrict the exercise of the power to erect and maintain a system of water-works to cases in which the aggregate indebtedness of the city was within the limit which the Constitution declared no municipal corporation should exceed. Nor does the city ordinance recite or state, even in general terms, that the proposed indebtedness was incurred in pursuance of or in accordance with the Constitution of the State, or under the circumstances which permitted the issue of the bonds. Consequently, a recital that the bonds were issued under the authority of the statute, and in pursuance of the city ordinance, did not necessarily import a compliance with the Constituion. Had the bonds made the additional recital that they were issued in accordance with the Constitution, or had the ordinance stated, in any form, that the proposed indebtedness was within the constitutional limit, or had the statute restricted the exercise of the authority therein conferred to those municipal corporations whose indebtedness did not, at the time, exceed the constitutional limit, there would have been ground for holding that the city could not, as against the plaintiff, dispute the fair inference to be drawn, from such recital or statement, as to the extent of its existing indebtedness.

Any different conclusion from that indicated would extend the doctrines of this court upon the subject of municipal bonds farther than would be consistent with reason and sound policy, and farther than we are now willing to go. The present action cannot be maintained, unless we should hold that the mere fact that the bonds were issued, without any recitals of the circumstances bringing them within the limit fixed by the Constitution, was, in itself, conclusive proof, in favor of a bona fide holder, that the circumstances existed which authorized them to be issued. We cannot so hold.

Our attention is called by counsel to the exceeding hardship of this case upon those whose money, it is alleged, has supplied the city of Litchfield with a system of water-works, the benefits of which are daily enjoyed by its inhabitants. The defence is characterized as fraudulent and dishonest. Waiving all considerations of the case, in its moral aspects, it is only necessary to say that the settled principles of law cannot, with safety to the public, be disregarded in order to remedy the hardships of special cases.

Whether the city is under a legal obligation to make restitution of the money, obtained without authority of law, that is, to refund to the proper party or parties such sums as were actually received by its authorized agents or officers upon the sale of the bonds, is not a question arising in the present action, which is only for the recovery of the stipulated interest upon such bonds. Upon this point it is not proper at this time, or in this form of action, to express an opinion.

What we have said constitutes a sufficient answer to all of the questions certified to us, and requires an affirmance of the judgment.

Judgment affirmed.

Notes