Smyrk v. Sharp
Smyrk v. Sharp
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
By the Act of 1892,'chapter 138, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore were authorized to issue the stock of the city to an amount not exceeding six million dollars, for
With this condition of affairs the present appellees, Messrs. Sharp, Francke and Danaker, owners of certain property on Saratoga street; Messrs. Wright, Flaggs and Meikle, owners of parcels of ground on Patterson avenue, and Benjamin B. Porter, the owner of a lot on McCulloh street, obtained an injunction against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, Ferdinand C. Latrobe, Mayor, and Alfred E. Smyrk, City Commissioner, to prohibit them from proceeding under an ordinance passed Feby. 27, 1893, to repave certain portions of Franklin street until the legal effect and priorities of certain other ordinances providing for repaving Saratoga and McCulloh streets and Patterson avenue were determined. That case was before this Court at its last April term. The important questions raised were-, whether the ordinances relied on by the plaintiffs, as the latest declaration of the legislative will, repealed the Franklin
When the April term of this Court was about to adjourn we said: “ We hold that the Mayor of Baltimore City has no authority to select which of the sixteen streets mentioned in the several ordinances referred to in the bill shall be first paved, or to designate the order in which they shall be paved. We further hold that neither the Circuit Court nor this Court has such authority. But inasmuch as confessedly there are not sufficient funds in the city treasury to pay for all the work, it is the duty of the City Council to declare how, and in what order, the money available for this paving shall be expended. On the face of the bill, therefore, the injunction ought to be sustained until the City Council shall determine in what order the streets shall be paved. An opinion will hereafter be filed in behalf of this Court,” and the order granting the injunction was affirmed.
Before our conclusions in that case had been announced, as above stated, the order from which this appeal was taken was passed directing the issue of a writ of mandamus at the instance of.these appellees to the City Commissioner, commanding him to comply with the terms of the ordinance passed to repave Saratoga street, from Fremont street to Carrollton avenue, or so much thereof as the surplus ascertained to have been derived from ordinance No. 42, approved March 16, 1893, and No. 102, approved May 1st, 1893, shall be found by him to cover the cost of, etc.
The opinion not yet having been filed, further argument was heard in behalf of the appellees in this case, but the main points were practically the same as those previously urged.
For the purposes of this opinion it will be conceded that the Saratoga street ordinance took effect in the fall of 1894, and it was proven that there is no unexecuted ordinance,
It is contended on the part of the appellees that the ordinance to repave Saratoga street must prevail over unexecuted ordinances passed prior to it, as it is the latest declaration of the legislative will. The general principle relied on by them that “ where there are two Acts on the same subject the rule is to give effect to both if possible, but if the two are repugnant in any of their provisions, the latter Act, without any repealing clause, operates to the extent of the repugnancy as a repeal of the first” is too well established to admit of question. But is it applicable to a case of this character ? If the Constitution of Maryland prohibited the Legislature from appropriating more than some fixed sum, say one hundred thousand dollars per annum, to reformatory and other institutions, and the Legislature passed Acts appropriating the whole amount to five institutions, and then subsequently appropriated ten thousand dollars to another, could it be said that the latter pro tanto repealed the former ? Might it not more properly be declared a nullity, on the ground that the amount authorized had already been appropriated ? Then again, these ordinances cannot strictly be said to be on the same subject. Each provides for repaving a separate street, or part of a street, from the others. It is true that they all look to the same general source for the money, but they simply appropriate — set apart — certain amounts for the respective streets. It is impossible for the Court to say, under such circumstances, that the City Council intended to give the last ordinance priority over the others, merely because it is the last appropriation of money. If we were to be governed by the order in which they were passed, it would probably seem more reasonable to assume that the members of the Council intended to give the first preference, for they might be presumed to have first provided for those streets that in their opinion most needed the improvements and were most pressing. They probably supposed that there would be sufficient balances from the
But it is urged with great force that the provision made for Saratoga street was special — was a particular appropriation of a part of this fund and therefore the Court should give effect to it. It is true that ordinance provides that the cost of the work contemplated is to be taken out of the unexpended balances of moneys appropriated for carrying out the provisions of ordinances No. 42, approved March 6th, 1893, and No. 102, approved May 1st, 1893. But when this ordinance was passed the City Council had already made appropriations out of the fund set apart for repaving the streets largely in excess of that sum. Ordinance No. 42 appropriated the sum of sixty-two thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to defray the costs of the paving of the street therein named, and No. 102 appro
The City Council could undoubtedly repeal this or any other of the unexecuted ordinances passed by them. This case is not similar to that of Pumphrey v. Mayor, etc., of Baltimore, 47 Md. 145. There an Act of the Legislature had been passed which “ directed and required ” the city to take charge of the bridge in question, whilst here it is in the discretion of the City Council to determine which streets shall be improved. They are necessarily better able to determine which streets are in most need of these improvements than the Court. If it was their intention to repave Saratoga street to the exclusion of the others, they can yet say so by a proper ordinance, but they, not the Court, must determine which streets must be improved with the unexpended balances on hand.
Most of what we have said above is applicable to the injunction case as well as this, and we need only add, what
The mandamus should have been refused and the judgment will therefore be reversed without procedendo.
Judgment reversed, without procedendo, with costs to the appellant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- ALFRED E. SMYRK, City Commissioner v. JOHN E. SHARP and Others
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Municipal Ordinances for Repaving Streets, Appropriating a Larger Sum of Money than Available — Priority between Ordinances — Repeal by Implication. An ordinance of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore appropriated $1,600,000 for repaving such streets in said city as might be designated by ordinance. After the ratification of this ordinance by popular vote, a number of ordinances were passed from time to time for the repaving of the different streets named in them, the cost of which amounted to a larger sum of money than was available under the original appropriation. The last ordinance passed directed that S. street should be paved out of certain balances unexpended under former appropriations. At that time the cost of paving the streets directed to be paved by prior unexecuted ordinances would be $650,000, and there only remained available $132,000 of the amount originally authorized to be expended. Petitioners applied for a mandamus directing the City Commissioner to pave S. street from the unexpended balances mentioned in the ordinance concerning that street. Held, that the later ordinances directing certain streets to be paved did not operate as a repeal by implication of the prior ordinances on account of the insufficiency of the amount available; that neither the Court nor the municipal officers had power to designate which streets should be paved, but that it was the duty of the City Council to declare how and in what manner the money available for repaving should be expended.