National Life Insurance v. Mead

Citations

• 13 S.D. 37
• 48 L.R.A. 785
• 82 N.W. 78
• 1900 S.D. LEXIS 89

Syllabus

<p>1. Laws 1890, Chap. 37, Art. 5, § 1, providing that a city council shall have power to borrow money on the city’s credit for municipal purposes and issue bonds therefor, provided bonds shall not be issued except by authority of a majority vote of the electors in favor thereof, to be ascertained by an election, confers power on the council to issue bonds to fund the city’s floating indebtedness, where the electors have voted therefor.</p> <p>2. Certificates signed by the city mayor, auditor and attorney, stating' what steps had been taken preliminary to the issuance of certain bonds and as to the financial condition of the city, and used by the person who negotiated the bonds, are inadmissible in an action thereon to predicate an estoppel, as against the city, from asserting that the bonds were in excess of the limit of the city’s indebtedness, since the making of such a statement was not within the scope of the official duty of the officers making it.</p> <p>3. A municipal bond recited that it was one of the series issued pursuant to Laws 1890, Chap. 37, providing- that the municipality should not issue bonds creating indebtedness exceeding in the aggregate a certain por cent, of its assessed valuation. The act also provided that the city auditor should keep books, which should at all times show the amount of the indebtedness of the city. The amount of the taxable pi’operly is shown by the asssessment roll for the preceding year, which is an accessible public record. Held that, though the recitals of the bond are in legal effect a representation that the indebtedness incurred thereby did not exceed the debt limit, the city is not thereby estopped to show that such bonds did create an indebtedness in excess of the debt limit, since a purchaser is bound to take notice of the existing indebtedness and the assessed valuation.</p> <p>4. Bonds issued for the purpose of refunding existing indebtedness should not be considered in determining whether or not a city has rea