Smith v. Mayor & Common Council

The facts are fully reported in the opinion:

On the eighth day of April last, the Mayor and Common Council of the City of Sacramento, passed an Ordinance appropriating $5,000 for the purpose of employing Alpheus Felch to contest before the Supreme Court of the United States the claims of John A. ■ Sutter to land within the corporate limits of said City, and the Mayor was authorized to draw Ms warrant for the same upon the Contingent Fund. There being no money in that fund to meet the payment of this warrant, the Mayor and Common Council ordered $5,000 to be transferred from the Debt and Interest acid Sinking Funds for. that purpose. The plaintiff, in Ms.complaint, charges fraud and collusion between certain parties of the defendants in procuring the passage of *71 the ordinance. Ho proof, however, was adduced to support the charge, but the same was abandoned at the hearing.

The first question involved is, the power of the Mayor and Common Council to make the appropriation referred to; in other words, whether they have the right to appropriate money and employ counsel to attend to cases pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the City is interested ? It is…