Owensboro v. Owensboro Waterworks Co.

Citations

• 191 U.S. 358
• 24 S. Ct. 82
• 48 L. Ed. 217
• 1903 U.S. LEXIS 1456

Syllabus

<p>The power to regulate water rates is a governmental power continuing in its nature which, if it can be bargained away at all, can only be by words of positive grant and if any reasonable doubt exists in regard thereto it must be resolved in favor of the existence of the power.</p> <p>An ordinance of a city of Kentucky before it became a city of the third class giving a water company a right to make and enforce, as part of the conditions upon which it would supply consumers, all needful rules and regulations not inconsistent with the law must be construed as to the law, as it might be altered, and when the city becomes a city of the third class and thus has power under the general law to provide the city with water by contract or by works of its own and to make regulations for the management thereof and to fix prices to consumers, an ordinance subsequently enacted during the life of the franchise fixing the price of water is not void as against the water company under the impairment of contract clause of the constitution of the United States, and in the absence of other grounds the Circuit Court of the United States has no jurisdiction of a suit in equity to restrain the enforcement of such last enacted ordinance, no question of unreasonableness of the rates being involved.</p>