21 Ga. App. 805 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1918
In 1915 the City of Rome advertised for bids for $75,000 of its bonds. The advertisement described the bonds and fixed the time at which bids would be received, and contained the following provision: “All bidders must accompany their bids with a certified check for five hundred ($500.00) dollars.”' Nothing was said about the purpose for which this certified check was required, nor was any notice given that the deposit would be forfeited in ease of failure to comply with the terms of the bid. The plaintiff, a corporation, made a bid for these bonds, accompanying the same with a certified check for $500, and the bid was accepted by the City of Rome on March 31, 1915. The bid, as accepted, contained the following provision, to wit: “We are to be. furnished with a full and complete certified copy of transcripts establishing the legality of the issue as a direct obligation of Rome, Georgia, satisfactory to our attorneys, prior to our acceptance and payment for the bonds.” After the acceptance of the bid the bonds were issued for delivery by the city authorities, signed by the mayor and clerk on April 1, 1915. Pending an investigation of the legality of the issue by Messrs. Caldwell, Masslich & Beed as attorneys for the bidder, the city government of Rome was superseded by a commission form of government, which took office on April 5, 1915. The brief of evidence contains the following: “Cross-examined for the plaintiff, the witness [Hugh McCrary, city clerk] testified that there was a good deal of correspondence with the plaintiff, and, for a month following the first of April, plaintiffs were asking for additional records, etc. Defendant introduced a large number of letters and telegrams from plaintiff and their attorneys, asking for various items of information, and making various objections to the issue of bonds, in none of which objections was there any point made requiring that the -bonds be signed by the city commissioners, who came into office on April 5, .1915, until May 12, 1915, when the point was raised in a letter from Caldwell, Masslich & Beed to the city attorney, Max Meyerhardt.” The record, however, in no wise' discloses what the correspondence here alluded to consisted of. It does not show what the various items of information thus called for related to, nor does it show the character or purport of'the .objections thus referred to. On May 12, 1915, the attorneys of the plaintiff addressed the following letter to the city attorney of Rome.: “Re
The defendant did not undertake to meet the objection thus made, but proceeded on the following day to forfeit the plaintiff’s bid, together with the $500 deposited with it. Suit was thereupon filed by the plaintiff (now defendant in error) against the City of Rome to recover this $500, and other items of damage. The latter • items were stricken on demurrer, leaving only the item of $500; and, after hearing the evidence, the court directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for the said.sum of $500, and interest. To this judgment the city excepted.
It is not necessary to add anything further to what is said in the headnotes.
Judgment affirmed.