after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
The Supreme Court of Minnesota held that the charter of the gas company did not impose on the city the obligation to pay the interest on the cost of constructing the lamps not used. Construing the whole charter, the court decided that, as it provided for contracts between the parties from time to time for the supply of lights, the sole obligation imposed was that 'the‘interest on the cost of the construction of the lamps should be paid by the city only during the time it was agreed that the lamps should be used and not during the life of the charter. We *146 excerpt in tbe margin an extract from the opinion of the Supreme Court of Minnesota which more fully expresses thé reasoning by which the court sustained the construction of the contract which was expounded. 1
*147
Because the Supreme Court of Minnesota decided the controversy solely upon its appreciation of the meaning of the original contract, it does not necessarily follow that no Federal question is presented for decision. Where subsequent state legislation. is asserted to be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States because such legislation impairs the obligations of a contract, the power to determine whether there be such impairment imposes also on this'court the duty, when necessary, to ascertain whether there was a contract and'its import. And this, though it be in a given case, the state court has decided that there was no impairment either because the contract had never existed' or because from an interpretation of its provisions it was found that the obligations which it is asserted were impaired, never arose.
Houston & Texas Central Rd.
v. Texas,
It is no longer open to question that
“
a by-law or ordinance of a municipal corporation may be such an exercise of legislative power delegated by the legislature to the corporation as a political subdivision of the State, having all the force of law within the limits of the municipality, that it may properly be considered as a law, within the meaning of the article of the Constitution of the United States.”
New Orleans Waterworks Co.
v.
Louisiana Sugar Refining Company,
Ileferring to the ordinance in question from the provisions of which it is alone contended the impairment of the contract arose, it will be seen that only two subjects are therein referred to, the first, a command by the city to the gas company to “ forthwith remove the gas street lamp posts in that portion of the city now lighted by electric light under contract with the said company, which said lamps have been discontinued by order of the board of public works,'” and, second, a declarstion on the part of the municipal council of St. Paul of its intention not thereafter to pay the gas company interest on the cost of construction of the lamps so directed to be removed. If then there be any subsequent legislation impairing the obligation of the contract, it must arise from one or both of the' provisions just referred to. Now, it is apparent that the command'given by the city to the gas company to remove the unused gas lamp posts from the streets in no way even tended to impair the obligation, • if any, resting on the city to pay interest on the cost of the construction of the lamp posts which were ordered to be removed, since in any event, if the contract imposed the obligation to make such payment, the duty of the city to do so was lept absolutely unaffected by the order to remove. That is to say, if the duty to pay was created by the contract, such obligation remained wholly untouched by the order of removal. This being true, it results that the order to remove the unused lamp posts *149 cannot be treated as an impairment of the obligations of the contract without saying that such obligations were destroyed, although they were absolutely unaffected by the act which it is asserted brought about the impairment. And it will become at once manifest from a consideration of the remaining provision of the ordinance that the same result must follow. ' The other provision in question created no new right or imposed no new duty substantially antagonistic to the obligations of the contract, but simply expressed the purpose of the city not in the future to pay the interest on the cost of construction of the lamp posts "which were ordered to be removed. That is to say, it was but a denial by the city of its obligation to pay, and a notice of its purpose to challenge in the future the existence of the duty to make such payment. This denial, whilst embodied in an ordinance, was no more efficacious than if it had been expressed in any other form, such as by way of answer filed on behalf of the city in a suit brought by the company against the city to enforce what it conceived to be its rights under the contract. When the substantial scope of this provision of the ordinance is thus clearly understood, it is seen that the contention here advanced of impairment of the obligations of the contract arising from this provision of the ordinance reduces itself at once to the proposition that wherever it is asserted on the one hand that a municipality is bound by a contract to perform a particular act and the municipality denies that it is liable under the contract to do so, thereby an impairment of the obligations of the contract arises in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Eut this amounts only to the contention that every case involving a controversy concerning a municipal contract is one of Federal cognizance, determinable ultimately in this court. Thus to reduce the proposition to its ultimate conception is to demonstrate its'error.
It is argued, however, that, as under the charter of the city of St. Paul the comptroller of the city was empowered to audit the claims of the gas company as a prerequisite to the appropriation by the city council of the necessary money to pay such claims, therefore the ordinance, to the extent that it deprived the comptroller of the power to. audit, divested him
*150
of an attribute which he could otherwise have exercised on behalf of the claim if he favored its payment, and hence the ordinance impaired the contract obligations. But it is not pretended that the effect of the auditing by the comptroller would have been to authorize the payment of the claim, or indeed that it was anything but advisory; since even after he had audited, the payment could not have been procured without the passage of an appropriation by the council for that purpose.' A large number of cases were cited in the argument at bar, under the assumption that they sustain the proposition that wherever, a mere denial of contract liability is made . by a municipality, such denial is an impairment of the obligations of the contract, since it is a refusal to comply with the contract and hence is a • disregard of the obligations which the contract created. We do not stop to refer to all these cases thus relied upon, becausé We think it results from the statement of the proposition that it is without foundation. However, we briefly advert to a few of the cases'to show how inapposite they are to the proposition which they are cited to maintain. Thus, in
Murray
v.
Charleston,
As it is apparent from the foregoing considerations that, even conceding the contract to be as contended for, no legislative act is shown to exist, from the enforcement of which an impairment of the obligations of the contract — within the purview of the Constitution — did or could result, it follows that the record involves solely an interpretation of the contract, and, therefore, presents no controversy within the jurisdiction of this court.
Dismissed for womb of jurisdiction.
Notes
“ It seems to us that it would be unreasonablé to hold that if at the inception of the fifty years which this charter was to run the city had ordered such street lamps to be erected, had used them ten years under a contract for lighting the streets which expired at the •end of that time, and then, on account of some such contingency, had ceased to light the streets with gas, the city would be bound to pay such compensation for maintaining and keeping in repair the street lamps, lamp posts, connecting pipes and meters for forty years more, and to permit them to incumber the streets for that length of time, although the city had not a particle of use for such street lamps during all of that time. Again, it would be unreasonable to hold that the city council might, under section 9, compel the gas company to erect street lamps, and then, after using them a month or a year, abandon the use of gas for street lighting purposes, and thereby avoid'all liability to pay any other compensation for the erection and use of- the street lamps than eight per cent per annum, during such use, on the cost of erecting the same.
“But we are of the opinion that section 9 does not give the council the right in its discretion to compel the erection of street lamps regardless of how long the city may use them, and without protecting the gas company by stipulating a length of time during which the city shall use them.
“ Section 9 provides that whenever the city ‘ by resolution of its board of aldermen directs lamps to be erected and lighted in the streets of the city,’ the gas company shall erect the same and keep them in repair; but, as we have seen, the city has no power under the charter to compel the streets to be lighted except by making for that purpose a contract voluntary as to both parties. When making such a contract the gas company can refuse to contract for lighting any street lamps except those already erected, and before the city can compel the erection of more lamps it must first make a contract for lighting them. In making such a contract, the gas company can protect itself, by insisting that such contract for lighting such new lamps shall cover a period of time of sufficient length that the eight per cent per annum to be paid .during that time will renumerate the gas company for erecting the lamps. We are of the opinion that under these circumstances the charter does not require the city to pay such compensation for street lamps which it is not under any contract to pay.
“ This, in our opinion, is the more reasonable and proper construction of the provision of the charter, and the one which should be adopted. We therefore'hold that the city is not liable for such compensation for street lamps., after if has ceased the'use of the same and abandoned the use of gas in lighting its streets.”