Horn v. Mayor of Baltimore

BbeNT, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This suit was instituted against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, to recover for damages done to a certain -lot of ground, belonging to the appellant, by reason of the grading of North avenue, which so intersected it as to impair, if not wholly destroy its value. The decision of this Court in Porter’s Case, ( 18 Md., 284 ,) relieves us from the necessity of examining the various laws and evidences cited in the argument for the purpose of ascertaining the power and authority of the appellees to grade the avenue in question. It was there held, that they had no siich authority under the law, and that the acts done by them in the direction and prosecution of the work were illegal and void.

The declaration also in this case avers, that the injury complained of was committed “ in the exercise of a pretended corporate power and authority to grade said avenue by its public officers and agents, but without any such authority,” so that the only question presented for our decision, is the liability of the appellees for damages resulting from an act done colore officii, but void because without authority and beyond the scope of their power. In determining this question, the relation which those who fill the offices of Mayor and City Council hold to the corporation, must be kept in view. The inhabitants of the city of Baltimore, incorporated under the name of “ the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore,” are authorized to select a Mayor and members of the City Council as the medium and organ ²²³ through which their corporate powers are to be exerted. These persons thus selected become the agents and representatives of the corporators.

As such they are entrusted with certain powers, which are specially defined and limited, and which can be exercised by them in the manner and form only prescribed by law. To the extent alone of these powers, can they bind their principal, and so long as they keep within them, the corporation is responsible for their acts. But whenever they transcend them, their acts, although done colore officii, and upon pretence of law, are no more binding upon the corporators than the acts of an agent in any other case can bind his principal, Avhen done beyond