White v. City of Meadville

Citations

• 177 Pa. 643
• 35 A. 695
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 1027

Syllabus

<p>Statutes — Interpretation of — Acts passed at the same session — Repeal.</p> <p>Statutes enacted at the same session of the legislature are within the reason of the rule governing the construction of statutes in pari materia, and should, if possible, receive a construction which will give effect to each. Each is supposed to speak the mind of the same legislature, and the words used in each should be qualified and restricted, if necessary, in their construction and effect, so as to give validity and effect to every other act passed at the same session.</p> <p>Municipal law — Cities of third class — Acts of May 23,1874, and April 29, 1874. .</p> <p>The act of May 23, 1874, P. L. 230, providing for the organization and government of cities of the third class, and authorizing such cities to erect and maintain waterworks, is not repugnant to, and does not repeal, the act of April 29, 1874, P. L. 73, relating to the organization of water companies for the purpose of supplying boroughs and cities with water.</p> <p>Municipalities — Waterworks—Legislative grant.</p> <p>A municipality has no implied power from the mere fact of its creation to engage in the business of supplying its citizens with water for pay. It cannot do so except by virtue of express legislative authority.</p> <p>Municipalities — Water companies — Waterworks—Acts of April 29, 1874, and May 23, 1874.</p> <p>Where a water company has been organized under the act of April 29, 1874, to supply a city with water, and the municipality has entered into a contract with the company, and permitted it to lay its pipes, the power having been once exercised to supply the city by contract through another creature of the same sovereign, the municipal function has passed from the city, and it cannot subsequently erect and maintain waterworks to supply its citizens with water iu the manner contemplated by the act of May 23, 1874. The legislature authorized the municipality to adopt either method, but there is no grant o