285 Mass. 1 | Mass. | 1933
This is an action of contract to recover a balance alleged to be due- of the price of thirty typewriters furnished to the school department of the defendant. The case is submitted upon a statement of agreed facts containing the following and other recitals: On or about October 20, 1921, the plaintiff received an order from the school department for thirty Remington typewriters to be used only for school purposes, the price to be $70 each, it being agreed that a credit be allowed for the return of six old typewriters by the defendant to the plaintiff of $10 each, making the total amount payable $2,040 less a payment in cash by the defendant to the plaintiff of $1,058, leaving a balance due of $982; this sum with interest thereon the plaintiff seeks to recover in this action. It was a term of the order that the typewriters were not to be paid for until after January 1, 1922. At the time the order was placed sufficient funds had not been appropriated by the city council to pay for these typewriters. On April 1, 1925, the school committee issued an order for the exchange of twenty-two used Remington typewriters for twenty-two new ones of the same make. All the used typewriters so exchanged were part of the order of October 20, 1921, and they had been in the schools since that date. The agreed price for the new typewriters was $70 each, and the plaintiff made an allowance of $35 on each used typewriter exchanged. The defendant paid the plaintiff $770, and there was $770 due the plaintiff on the exchange. At that time there was more than sufficient funds in the text book and supply account to meet the balance of this account.
The city charter of the defendant (St. 1914, c. 687, § 38) provides, in part, as follows: “No sum appropriated for a specific purpose shall be expended for any other purpose; and no expenditure shall be made or liability incurred by
We are of opinion that the warrant above referred to did not constitute an appropriation. An appropriation required action on the part of the city council, which does not appear. If it be assumed that the city council with the approval of the mayor, after the year 1921, attempted to make an appropriation for the purpose of paying the claim of the plaintiff, such action was unauthorized and illegal. No authority in law was vested in it to make an appropriation after the year 1921 for the payment of an indebtedness incurred during that year. It was said in Parkhurst v. Revere, 263 Mass. 364, at page 370: “However, the provisions of G. L. c. 44 entitled ‘Municipal Finance,’ were intended to place municipal expenditures upon a strict budget basis. The school committee is required by § 49 of St. 1914, c. 687, to submit in January of each year an estimate of the amount of money necessary for the proper maintenance of the schools during the succeeding financial year; it is thus required to plan for its expenditures in advance. Obviously the legislative purpose cannot be accomplished if any department is allowed to make expenditures which were not included in the estimate submitted by it.” It is provided by St. 1914, c. 687, § 21, that “The council shall appropriate annually, before the first day of March, in accordance with the provisions of section twenty of chapter seven hundred and nineteen of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and thirteen, and amendments thereof, the amount necessary to meet the expenditures of the city for the current financial year.” The purchase of the typewriters in 1921 was in the nature of a current expenditure for that year and could be paid for only out of the tax levy for that year. It was said by this court in Flood v. Hodges, 231 Mass. 252, at page 256, in referring to St. 1913, c. 719, called the municipal indebtedness act (G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 44), and which was amended by St. 1915, c. 138, § 1: “It is an act of broad application, and all provisions of general and special laws inconsistent therewith, save in respects not here material, are repealed.
Judgment for the defendant.