Times Publishing Co. v. City of Everett

Citations

• 9 Wash. 518
• 37 P. 695
• 1894 Wash. LEXIS 352

Syllabus

<p>MUNICIPAL CORPORATION — CONTRACTS — AWARD TO HIGHEST BIDDER— INJUNCTION BY COMPETITOR AND TAXPAYER — PLEADING — MANDAMUS.</p> <p>Although the complaint in an action may be an attempt to improperly join a cause of action for mandamus and one for injunction, yet a demurrer for misjoinder will not lie, provided the complaint, which is not separated into separate counts or causes of action, but is a continuous statement of facts, states a good cause of action for the injunction and shows no grounds for relief by mandamus.</p> <p>A municipal corporation cannot be compelled by mandamus to enter into a contract with one who shows himself to have been the lowest bidder in response to a call for bids for doing the city advertising.</p> <p>Where, through fraud or manifest error not within the discretion confided to the agents of a municipal corporation, they are proceeding to make a contract which will illegally cast upon taxpayers a substantially larger burden of expense than is necessary, the courts will interfere by injunction for the purpose of restricting their action within legal bounds.</p> <p>Although, under a statute requiring a contract for city advertising to be let to the lowest bidder, there may be some discretion of a judicial character reposed in the city council for determining what is the lowest and best bid, yet, in order to prevent interference by injunction, the city council should judicially find the facts which in its judgment render the apparently lowest bid not the lowest and best in fact.</p> <p>The fact that the plaintiff, in an action to enjoin the letting of a contract for the city printing, has ulterior motives in prosecuting the suit, beyond his direct interest in the controversy as a taxpayer, will not necessarily disqualify him as plaintiff.</p>