Madison v. Harbor Board

Fowler, J., delivered the opinion of' the Court. John H, Madison, the appellant, filed a petition in the Superior Court of Baltimore City for a writ of mandamus to compel the Harbor Board of that city to award to him a certain contract for dredging, and to forbid it from doing any thing in pursuance of a contract alleged to have been erroneously awarded to the Baltimore Dredging Company. Much was said, and so'me authorities were cited, in reference to a case where public officers are guilty of fraud in the exercise of their public functions. But this is not such case.

No fraud is imputed to the members of the Harbor Board, and the charge, in the petition is that said contract was not awarded to the petitioner, although he was the lowest bidder, and in all other respects was eligible under the provisions of the ordinance. This petition was answered by the Mayor and City Council, and certain individuals who constituted the Harbor Board. The petitioner filed three replications to this answer, and the defendants demurred to them. The Court below sustained the demurrer, and without stating at large the facts set forth in these various pleadings, we will proceed to consider briefly the one controlling and simple question raised by the demurrer, and which was most fully argued by counsel at bar, namely, whether the Commissioners of the Harbor Board are clothed with such a degree of official discretion in selecting bidders ³⁹⁷ as to place them beyond the control of Courts by mandamus.

The ordinance under which the Harbor Board acts and from which it derives its authority to select bidders for work in the harbor is Ordinance 44 of 1886, and the language used by it is, that the contract shall be "awarded to the lowest responsible bidder, provided the said bidder be * * * * bona fide engaged in the business of dredging.” We think it clear that a Board such as the one in question, with duties such as are imposed upon it by ordinance, must have a large degree of discretion in the exercise of its important functions. It would not occur to the ordinary mind that it was ever contemplated by the framers of the City ordinance from which the Board derives its powers and authority that it was not the tribunal which was finally to determine whether any particular person was an eligible bidder under the provisions of the ordinance. For if it were in the power of bidders for contracts to do municipal work to appeal from the decision of the Board without any allegation, or even suggestion of fraud, the Harbor Board would cease to be of any use, and all the questions it was intended to decide would be referred to the Courts. It is of much more importance that a public contract, like the one in question, should be promptly awarded and speedily executed with due regard to economy, than that any particular bidder should get the contract, State, ex rel. &c. vs. Board of Education, &c., 24 Wis., 683 ; Commonwealth vs. Mitchell, 82 Pa.

St., 343, and therefore it has been held by the great weight of authority that the public work shall not be delayed by