Bethlehem City Water Co. v. Bethlehem Borough

Citations

• 231 Pa. 454
• 80 A. 984
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 865

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Water companies — Boroughs—Implied contract — Water supply-. — “For use of inhabitants.”</p> <p>1. Where a water company erects its plant and proceeds to supply water to a particular territory in accordance with its chartered right, ánd thereafter, when a borough is erected out of a portion of the territory, continues to supply the inhabitants thereof with water and supplies the borough with water for fire protection at fixed rates, and, with the increase of the borough extends its mains and builds additional fire hydrants at the request of the borough, the water company cannot claim that by' virtue of any one of these acts, or all of them together, there was an implied contract between the water company and the borough to supply water to the borough, and that such contract had exhausted the power of the borough to supply water to its citizens by its own plant.</p> <p>2. It is only for the purpose of supplying water “for the use of the inhabitants” of a borough, and not for supplying water for municipal purposes, that a borough may adopt one of two methods which exhausts its municipal power and prevents it resorting to the other for a supply of water.</p> <p>. 3. It is settled doctrine that a municipal corporation, when exercising its function for the .general good, is not to be shorn of its power by mere implication and that the intention to restrict the exercise of its public powers must be manifest by words so clear as not to admit of two different or inconsistent meanings.</p>