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The statute makes it discretionary with the trial judge, and we do not think the discretion was abused.

For the errors above noted the judgment of the court below must be

Reversed, with costs of this Court, and a new trial granted.
The other Justices concurred.

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ENOS PUTNAM V. CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS AND THE ELECTRIC
LIGHT & POWER COMPANY.

Injunction by tax-payers to restrain enforcement of municipal contracts-
Street lighting-Current liabilities of citizens.

1. Owners of taxable property can maintain a bill to enjoin the municipality in which it lies from executing a contract if its effect would be to increase their burdens by way of taxation to an amount sufficient to bring the case within the jurisdiction of equity.

2. Complainants may properly join in an injunction bill where their griev ance, though not joint, is common, and the cause thereof and the relief they seek is the same.

3. Courts cannot stand between the public and their regularly elected authorities unless the latter exceed their powers; so long as they do not, the people must bear the consequences of their folly or choose wiser representatives; the discretion necessarily vested in a public functionary cannot be reviewed.

4. Equity cannot interfere with municipal contracts on the ground merely that they are impolitic or unwise, but it may if they violate the municipal charter.

5. Charter provisions empowering the common council to regulate the lighting of public lamps and to employ a suitable person to superintend them do not confine the management of the lighting apparatus, or of any part of it, to the city government, nor exclude the use of gas or electricity controlled from a central point. Such provisions are neither exhaustive nor imperative.

6. Charter provisions prohibiting the creation of municipal liabilities in any one year exceeding the amount to be raised by tax and providing that payments on a municipal contract shall be made from sums raised by tax for the year for which such contract is made, have the

effect of forbidding the creation of future responsibility for annual current expenses.

7. Towers for electric lights are not "local improvements" any more than lamp-posts are, so long, at least, as the system of lighting is not owned by the municipality.

Appeal from the Superior Court of Grand Rapids. (Parrish, J.) October 30.-November 4.

INJUNCTION bill. Defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Smiley & Earle for complainants, as to the right of a taxpayer to file the bill in this case, cited Curtenius v. Hoyt 37 Mich. 583; Callam v. City of Saginaw 50 Mich. 7; Dill. Mun. Corp. $$ 914, 921; High on Inj. (2d ed.) §§1298–1300; Crampton v. Zabriskie 101 U. S. 601.

J. W. Ransom for the defendant City of Grand Rapids, and Blair, Kingsley & Kleinhans for defendant Electric Light Company. Individuals cannot maintain a bill to restrain the lawful authorities of a muncipality from taking action, on the ground merely that it is in excess of corporate power: Miller v. Grandy 13 Mich. 548; People v. Regents 4 Mich. 98; People v. State Prison Inspectors id. 187; Davis v. Mayor 14 N. Y. 506; Doolittle v. Broome County Supervisors 18 N. Y. 155; Roosevelt v. Draper 23 N. Y. 318; Hale v. Cushman 6 Met. 425; legislative discretion is not to be interfered with by courts: Torrent v. Muskegon 47 Mich. 115; Baker v. Boston 12 Pick. 184; Moses v. Risdon 46 Ia. 251; and a municipality may therefore make contracts running for a series of years: Indianapolis v. Ind. Gas Co. 66 Ind. 396; Lord v. Oconto 47 Wis. 386; Gale v. Kalamazoo 23 Mich. 344; Richmond Gas Co. v. Middletown 59 N. Y. 233; Western Sav. Fund Society v. Philadelphia 31 Penn. St. 183, 189; Langdon v. Mayor 93 N. Y. 130; Weston v. Syracuse 17 N. Y. 110; Grant v. Davenport 36 Ia. 396; Valparaiso v. Gardner 97 Ind. 1; East St. Louis v. Gas Co. 98 Ill. 429; Quincy v. Bull 106 Ill. 337; Vincennes v. Callender 86 Ind. 484; Neb. City v. Gas Co. 9 Neb. 339.

CAMPBELL, J. The complainants, who are tax-payers in Grand Rapids, filed their bill to prevent the execution of a contract whereby the city was to make an arrangement with the Electric Light Company to have twenty-five towers put up

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in various places and electric lights furnished for five years in the times and manner specified, at twenty-six thousand dollars a year, at the end of which period all the fixed property was to belong to the city, if desired.

The resolutions which authorized this were returned unapproved by the mayor to the common council, and passed over his veto, which was put on the ground of impolicy in making what he considered an experiment. It is not claimed that there is anything illegal in the amount of the appropri ation, if otherwise lawful. The chief ground of objection. is the creation of an undertaking extending over more than one year. The injunction was granted.

A preliminary objection was made by defendants, on the ground that complainants could not be allowed as private citizens to interfere with a matter of public concern. There are certainly many cases in which they could not legally represent the public and could have no private footing as complainants. But in the present case they appear as owners of taxable property each of whose burdens will probably exceed the sum required to give equity jurisdiction, if the contract stands. This private grievance has been heretofore considered sufficient to authorize them to interfere on their own account, and while their grievance is not joint, it is a common one for the redress of which, if grantable at all, there is no serious objection to their making common cause. Their allegations of the amount of their respective interests are not controverted, and bring them within the statute.

Some part of the bill is taken up with complaints of the impropriety of the arrangement proposed, and various objec tions are pointed out. These considerations have nothing to do with the legal aspect of the case. The question before us is one of power and not of wisdom, and we are bound to decide it on strictly legal grounds. If the charter would be violated by the proposed contract, the illegality involves such a grievance as may be dealt with in a court of equity, and the injunetion must stand. If not, then the bill cannot be maintained.

Counsel for complainant did not on the argument dwell much upon such parts of the case as rest on assertions of the

impropriety of the contract as unwarranted by the true policy of the city. It is alleged to be more expensive than other modes of lighting, and in other ways impolitic and not desirable. But we find no charges of dishonest or fraudu lent conduct.

courts.

There has been an idea in some places, as apparent from reported cases, that courts of equity can always stand between citizens and municipal authorities, to shield them from abuses and extravagant action. This is not one of the functions of It is one of the incidents of popular government that the people must bear the consequences of the mistakes of their representatives. No court can save them from this experience. It is one of the means of teaching the necessity of choosing proper servants, and being vigilant to obtain reform from abuses. The discretion which is necessarily vested in public functionaries cannot be reviewed by any one else. If they go beyond the range of the discretion given them, and mischief happens or is likely to happen, a case arises for the interference of judicial authority to keep them. within the lines bounding their agency. But their mistakes. within those lines are beyond legal redress. Whether the present case authorizes it depends upon the effect of the city charter.

Although our legislation on municipal subjects has been unstable, yet every city charter is enacted and intended for permanence, and in view of both extended bounds and growing population. It usually leaves a wide range of discretion in the choice of ways and means of promoting public as well as private convenience. It does not require the community to be deprived of the comfort and convenience of new inventions and improvements, and it usually does not restrict it to any fixed ways. There have been many changes in methods of paving, lighting, building and furnishing water supplies and other needs of civilization. Many of these changes are experimental, and they are not all useful. But such as they are, they are made because they commend themselves to public confidence, or are supposed to do so, and unless restricted by some legal provision a large choice is given to the

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corporation. The present controversy relates to a new method of lighting which has been allowed by the Legislature to be managed by corporations, and to have rights of occupancy in streets and other places, to place its lights and the apparatus for furnishing them the means of illumination by the necessary wires and fixtures. How. Stat. § 4191. The law has placed it on as favorable a footing as gas or oil lighting, and permitted the companies to contract with cities for easements and for public lighting. It is not claimed that the city of Grand Rapids cannot contract on some terms for electric lighting. The only claim tangibly presented by the bill is whether it can be done for more than one year, and whether it can be done without giving the management of the public lights to public officers.

The provisions of the charter in regard to the latter branch of the subject are found in subdivisions 25 and 36 of the 10th section of title 3, and section 11 of the same title. These, so far as they relate to this matter, are as follows: Twenty-fifth. To regulate the lighting of the streets and alleys, and the protection and safety of the public lamps, and to employ a suitable person to superintend the same, to prescribe his duties, and fix the compensation therefor.

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Thirty-sixth. To provide for and regulate the lighting of public lamps and the erection of lamps and lamp-posts and suitable hitching-posts; to prohibit all practices, amusements and doings in said streets, having a tendency to frighten teams and horses, or dangerous to life or property; to remove or cause to be removed therefrom all wells and structures that may be liable to fall therein, so as to endanger life or property.

Section 11. The common council may by ordinance or otherwise ascertain, establish and settle the boundaries of all streets and alleys in said city, and prevent and remove all encumbrances and encroachments thereon, and exercise all other powers conferred upon them by this act in relation to highways, common or other schools, the prevention of fires, the levying of taxes, the supplying of the city with gas and water, and all other subjects of municipal regulation not herein expressly provided."

It is difficult to see how any of these provisions can be held to confine the city to such methods of lighting as would

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