37 Vt. 40 | Vt. | 1864
Lead Opinion
This is an action on book account, and it comes to this court upon exceptions taken by the defendant to the judgment of the county court in favor of the plaintiff on the auditor’s report.
The first question insisted upon by the defendant is a denial of its legal existence as a corporation. No question in respect to the defendant’s legal existence was raised by plea, and we think that, after a judgment to account, it is too late to make any objection to further proceedings in the suit on this ground. The auditor is not the proper tribunal to try the question whether there is such a corporation as the defendant in existence. His duties are to “ hear, examine, and adjust the accounts between the parties and, if the defendant would deny its alleged .corporate existence, the question
We think that the auditor properly rejected the proof offered in respect to tbe adjournment of the meeting held on the 5th of January, 1857, because the effect of the testimony would be to add to and alter the record of the proceedings of that meeting, and the fact sought to be established by the testimony would/if proved, have no bearing on any question properly before him on the hearing.
The inhabitants of any fire district are authorized, at any legal meeting, to vote a tax on the graud list of the persons and property within the district for the purpose of protecting the property within the district from damage or destruction by fire. Acts of 1854, No. 7, § 6 ; (G-. S., p. 122, § 171.) This authority to raise money by taxation is plenary and unrestricted. The purchase of engines, hose, and other fire apparatus is one of the chief objects sought to be attained in the organization of fire districts; and the statute has left the powers of the district wholly unlimited in this respect, but it has provided that the prudential committee of the district shall not have power in any case to bind the district for the payment of any greater sum of money than shall have been already voted or collected. (Acts of .1860, No. 26, § 2.) This is a limitation merely on the discretionary power or authority of the prudential committee, but it is no .limitation on the powers of the district as a corporation.
The section of the act of 1860 in relation to the duties of the prudential committee provides, among other things, that they shall have power to make all needful .contracts, and expend the moneys of the
We think that the third article in the warning for the meeting of the district which was held on the first Monday of January, 1862, was sufficiently definite and certain to support the votes of the district at that meeting in respect to procuring apparatus for extinguishing fires, and the appointment of an agent to purchase the same. Dix et al, v. School District No. 2 in Wilmington, 22 Vt. 309 ; Moore v. Beattie, 33 Vt. 219, The appointment of a committee of three persons to “be advisory with the agent” did not limit the power expressly conferred upon the agent, and we think that the terms of the vote under which ■ that committee was appointed very strongly imply that the duties of this committee were intended to be, in respect to the agent, advisory only. The agent was appointed by the vote of
Judgment of the county court for the plaintiffs aflirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissented, on the ground that the agent exceeded his authority, and that the exact extent of his authority was known to the plaintiffs at the time of giving them the order for the fire engine and the other articles which are charged in their account against the district.