62 Ind. App. 125 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1916
Appellee brought this action to recover compensation for services alleged to have been performed by him in preparing an index of the proceedings of the common council of appellant city for the year 1913. A trial by the court resulted in a judgment for appellee for $300. The evidence at the trial consisted of an agreed statement of facts. If such facts considered as evidence are not sufficient to sustain the decision, this cause must be reversed; otherwise affirmed.
In support of its appeal, the city states the following. proposition: “The common council of a city in this State has no power or authority to appropriate money to pay others for services which particular officials and employes of the city are to do by law, and an ordinance which appropriates money for such a purpose is invalid.” In support of such proposition appellant cites the following decisions which seem to sustain it: Mitchell v. Wiles (1877), 59 Ind. 364; City of Ft. Wayne v. Lehr (1882), 88 Ind. 62; Rothrock v. Carr (1876), 55 Ind. 334; Driftwood Co. v. Bartholomew Co. (1880), 72 Ind. 226. To such decisions the following may be added: City of Richmond v. Dickerson (1900), 155 Ind. 345, 58 N E. 260; State, ex rel. v. Goldthait (1908), 172 Ind. 210, 87 N. E. 133, 19 Ann. Cas. 737. Appellee fully concedes that said proposition is sound, and that if it was the duty of the city clerk to prepare such index, this cause must be reversed.
The minutes of the proceedings of the council are required to be entered and kept, and the papers and files pertaining to its business are required to be preserved, among other reasons, in order- that the city officials and the public may be readily advised respecting the transactions of that particular department of the city government. It would seem to follow that a requirement that a minute or journal of the proceedings be made a matter of record, and that such papers and files be placed in a certain custody, should reasonably be held to include a further or. incidental requirement that the work be done in such manner as to be effective. To be effective, the minutes, papers and files must be placed in such condition that the city. officials and the public may readily and conveniently acquire the desired information. We are advised by the agreed statement of facts that public necessity and convenience required the preparation of the index involved here. The city clerk is expressly charged with the duty of making and keeping an accurate minute of the proceedings of the council, and he is required also to perform all other duties incident to his office. When he has merely written up the proceedings of a meeting or of a number of meetings, something further remains to be done in order that such work may be effective. Public necessity and convenience require that his work be supplemented. We do not believe that the clerk
The judgment is reversed, with instructions to the court to sustain the motion for a new trial.
Note. — Reported in 112 N. E. 833. See under (1) 28 Cye 452.