190 Ind. 105 | Ind. | 1921
— The appellant city brought this action in the circuit court, seeking to set aside and vacate an order of the Public Service Commission of Indiana commanding the appellant city to pay an increased rental for each hydrant from which to draw water for use in extinguishing fires, and seeking to mandate the appellee Washington Water, Light and Power Company to furnish water to the city at the rates stipulated in an ordinance under which the predecessors of said company had been given the right to lay water mains in the streets of said city.
The complaint alleged that on June 26, 1888, the appellant city enacted an ordinance conferring upon certain individuals and their assigns the privilege to build and maintain a system of water works within the city of Washington, by which the city agreed to use the water from ninety hydrants, to be located at points selected by the city, exclusively for the purpose of extinguishing fires, and to pay as rental the sum of $8,000 per year for such hydrants, during a term of twenty-five years, with the further provision that if the city should fail to purchase the water works at the expiration of said term, the contract should continue in force during another twenty-five years. The ordinance also fixed the rates at which water should be furnished to the general public, which rates were not increased by the order sought to be vacated, but the appellant concedes that the state has power to increase those rates, and has expressly waived all questions which might arise as to any increase of charges to consumers other than the city, by action of the Public Service Commission. The complaint alleged that after the ordinance was enacted, the Washington Water Company was incorporated, and all the rights of said individuals were duly assigned to said company, and that on July 10, 1888, it duly accepted the terms of said ordinance in
The only error that is properly assigned is that the trial court erred in overruling appellant’s motion for
The only other question presented by the propositions or points in appellant’s brief, and the argument which follows them, is the question whether the order increasing the rate to be paid by the city for hydrants was void, as impairing the obligation of a contract in violation of the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Indiana.
the mere fact that the legislature has not yet
made any regulations which prevent the contract from being valid at the time it is made will not enable the parties, by their private contract, to curtail or limit the future exercise of such power of the legislature, but that the contract will be deemed to have been made subject to whatever future regulations may be imposed by law.