42 Minn. 395 | Minn. | 1890
1. Upon appellant’s first assignment of error, we need but to say that the court below found as a fact that the defendant township made, executed, and delivered the bonds with the attached interest coupons herein involved, and such finding is conclusive here, in the absence of the testimony offered and received upon the trial.
2. The second assignment raises the question as to whether these bonds and coupons are valid in the hands of innocent and bona fide purchasers for value, as against the defendant. This question must be answered in the affirmative, and was practically settled in Harrington v. Town of Plainview, 27 Minn. 224, (6 N. W. Rep. 777;) Town of Plainview v. Winona & St. Peter R. Co., 36 Minn. 505, 512, (32 N. W. Rep. 745.) The authority and power of the township supervisors to execute and deliver these bonds by virtue of the provisions of Sp. Laws 1883, c. 135, § 1, (amended by Sp. Laws, 1885, c. 111, so as to include the county of Clay,) had they been presented with a petition bearing the signatures of two-thirds of the legal voters of the defendant township, stands undisputed. The claim is that in respect to the petition the statute was not complied with; that the one actually presented, and upon which the town authorities proceeded, did not bear the requisite number of signatures; and that this irregularity or defect .vitiates the bonds and coupons, wherever they may be found. It is obvious that by the legislative act referred to the township supervisors were created a tribunal to examine and determine whether or not the requisite two-thirds in number of the legal voters had affixed their signatures to the petition. It was their duty to ascertain and decide as to this condition precedent to a proper exercise of their authority to issue the bonds. The last register poll-list was made prima facie evidence of the total number of voters in the township; but the fact itself might be ascertained otherwise. The board of supervisors did decide this question, and thereupon issued the bonds. In each was a statement that it was issued in pursuance of the special act before cited, coupled with a recital and certificate that “all acts, conditions, and things required to be done precedent to and in the issuing of said bond have been properly done,
Order affirmed.