55 P. 441 | Or. | 1898
delivered the opinion.
This is amaction brought by the County of Multnomah to recover the sum of $1,200, alleged to be due from the defendant, the City and Suburban Railway Company, for the use of Morrison Street Bridge, in the City of Portland, for the months of February and March, 1896. The facts out of which the controversy arose are as follows : The legislature of 1895 appointed a “Bridge Committee of the City of Portland,” with authority to procure for it, by purchase or condemnation, the Morrison Street Bridge, a structure owned by the Willamette Iron Bridge Company; the Stark Street Ferry, owned by private parties ; and the lease of the upper deck of what is known as the “Steel Bridge,” owned by the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, for the purpose of making them free for the use of the general public : Laws, 1895, p. 421. Section 15 of the act provides that “the bridge committee, in the name of said city, is hereby authorized, in case it can secure the said Morrison Street Bridge, or the upper deck of the said Steel Bridge, or the Stark Street Ferry, by agreement, and finds it necessary so to do in order to effect the agreement of purchase or lease, as the case may be, to enter into such contracts as it may deem just with any line or lines of street railway operated or to be operated over and across the said bridges or the said ferry.” It is further provided that after the bridges and ferry shall be so acquired, and are ready for use, the possession and control thereof shall be transferred and delivered to the County Court of Multnomah County, which shall thereafter maintain and operate the same,
"Waiving all questions of procedure, the real controversy between the parties to this litigation is whether the bridge committee had power to make the contract with the defendant company referred to ; and this depends upon the construction to be given to section 15 of the act creating and defining the duties of such committee. The language of the section is undoubtedly broad enough to authorize such a contract, for it gives to the committee power, if it can secure the bridge by agreement, and finds it necessary in order to effect such agreement, “to enter into such contracts as it may deem just with any line, or lines of street railway operated, or to be operated, over and across the said bridge.” But the contention for the plaintiff is that the purpose of the section was to enable the bridge committee, if it could agree with the owner of the bridge for its purchase, to deal
Abeirmed.