Day v. Ryan

Citations

• 245 Pa. 154
• 91 A. 633
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 850

Syllabus

<p>Public officers — Giiy solicitor of Philadelphia — Duty to prepare contracts — Discretionary duty — Mandamus—Act of June 1, 1885, P. L. 87 — City contractors — Standing to -maintain, mandamus. ■</p> <p>1. By the terms of the Act of June 1, 1885, P. L. 37, the city solicitor of Philadelphia is elected hy the people to be the legal adviser and to act as attorney and counsel for the city and all its departments and officers. As regards contracts with the city, it is his duty to prepare them in his office and endorse' on each his approval of the form thereof, before the same shall take effect. The duty to prepare and approve contracts and the duty of being the city’s legal adviser are not inconsistent, but coexistent, and the city solicitor must perform both. If, in his opinion, there is good legal reason for not approving a contract, he must so advise the city and his failure to do so would be negligence or worse.</p> <p>2. Contractors to whom a contract to perform city work has been awarded, but with whom no contract in writing has been made with the city, have no standing to maintain mandamus against the city solicitor to require him to prepare a contract for execution by the mayor. Such proceeding, in the last analysis, amounts to an endeavor to obligate the city by a contract, which the contractors have not been able to obtain.</p> <p>3. The executive officers of the City of Philadelphia, being ready to enter into a contract with architects for the erection of a building constituting one of a series which together would constitute a municipal hospital, requested the city solicitor to prepare a contract for executon with said architects to whom the contract had been awarded. The city solicitor refused to prepare the contract, in view of the fact that there was a previously existing contract which appeared to be inconsistent with the new contract, and which might render the city responsible for more than one architect’s fee. The architects filed a petition for man