35 Kan. 557 | Kan. | 1886
The opinion of the. court was delivered by
In the district court, this cause came up on appeal from the board of county commissioners of Wyandotte county in disallowing the claim of the Kansas City Bridge and Iron Company for the sum of $980 expended upon the River-view bridge — a bridge across the Kansas river between the cities of Wyandotte and Kansas City, in this state. The Riverview bridge connects the two public thoroughfares in Wyandotte county—Sixth street, in Kansas City, on the east, and a county road on the west. The learned judge who tried this case decided against the allowance of the claim, for the following reasons: First, that as the Kansas City Bridge and Iron Company is a Missouri corporation, it had no power to enter into a written contract to construct a bridge in this state; second, that as the Riverview bridge connects the two cities of Wyandotte and Kansas City, the authority to build the bridge did not reside in the board of county commissioners of Wyandotte county, but solely in the cities of Wyandotte and Kansas City; third, that the board of county commissioners did not publish as required by law, notice of the intention to build the bridge; therefore that the order of the board making the appropriation for the bridge is void, and that the contract subsequently made is also void. That a corporation created in a foreign state may transact its business in this state, if not repugnant to or prejudicial to our laws, is too well settled to need comment. (Land Grant Rly. Co. v. Comm’rs of Coffey Co., 6 Kas. 245; O’Brien v. Wetherell, 14 id. 616.)
“A corporation is clothed everywhere with the character given by its charter, and the capacity of corporations to make contracts beyond the states of their creation and the exercise of that capacity, is supported by uniform,- universal and long-continued practice.” (A. T. & S. F. Rld. Co. v. Fletcher, ante, p. 236; Bank of Augusta v. Earl, 13 Pet. 519.)
Although the county built but a portion of the bridge, it is á free and public one, and connects two public thoroughfares of the county. (The State v. Lawrence Bridge Co., 22 Kas. 438; Goodhill v. Town of Beloit, 21 Wis. 637; Williams v. Inhabitants of Cummington, 18 Pick. 312.)
The statute requiring notice of the -intention to . build the bridge before an appropriation is( made therefor, reads as follows :
“ It shall be unlawful for any board of county commissioners to make an appropriation for building any bridge, unless notice of the intention to build such bridge has first been published in the official paper of the county at least thirty days prior to the time fixed for a regular meeting of the board, which notice shall specify the place whére such bridge is proposed to be built, and the estimated cost of the same, and no appropriation for building any bridge shall be made except at a regular meeting of the board.” (Laws of 1876, ch. 64, §2; Comp. Laws of 1879, ch. 25, §396.)