Penn Iron Co. v. City of Lancaster

Citations

• 25 Pa. Super. 478
• 1904 Pa. Super. LEXIS 97

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Supply of water to citizens — Contracts.</p> <p>While it is no part of the ordinary and necessary duties of a municipal corporation to supply its citizens with gas and water, it is nevertheless true that it may lawfully do so. Such contracts are not made by a municipal corporation by virtue of its powers of legal sovereignty, but in its capacity of a private corporation. The supply of gas and water may be accomplished through the agency of individual or private corporations, and in many instances it is accomplished by such means. If the power is granted to a borough or city, it is a special private franchise and may be for the emolument and advantage of the city and for the public good, but when such a corporation engages in things not public in their nature, it acts as a private individual, no longer legislates, but contracts, and is as much bound by its engagements as a natural person.</p> <p>Where an iron company has been paying for a long series of years to a municipality a water rent of a fixed amount, the municipality cannot after having accepted a semiannual payment of rent, and without notice to the iron company, and without opportunity to the iron company to appeal to the water committee as provided by ordinance, introduce a water meter, and charge for the second half year a greatly increased rent.</p> <p>Equity — Equity jurisdiction — Remedy at law — Discretion of court.</p> <p>A court of equity may take upon itself to say whether the common-law remedy is under all the circumstances and in view of the conduct of the parties, sufficient for the purpose of complete justice, or whether the intervention of chancery may not for that purpose be required and beneficially applied.</p> <p>An open threat by the authorities of a municipality to close down an establishment employing over 400 men by arbitrarily cutting off its water supply, presents a case free from all difficulty as to the jurisdiction of a court of equity to interfere by injunctio