CITY OF MACON v. WALKER; et vice versa

Supreme Court of Georgia1949-01-11No. Nos. 16451, 16452

204 Ga. 810

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court reversed the trial court's judgment on the main bill of exceptions and affirmed on the cross-bill. The 1947 enabling act was properly declared unconstitutional and void due to the enrolled bill's failure to include notice and supporting documentation, and the Mayor and Council of Macon lacked implied charter power to enact a pension ordinance for all city employees.

The City of Macon sought to enforce a 1947 state enabling act that authorized the city to establish a retirement and pension program for all municipal employees. However, the parties stipulated that while the proposed legislation was properly advertised before introduction to the General Assembly, the enrolled bill itself contained no reference to the advertisement or supporting documentation. Under established precedent requiring strict compliance with constitutional notice requirements, the court found the enabling act unconstitutional and void. The city argued alternatively that Macon's charter granted the Mayor and Council implied power to create such a pension system under the general-welfare clause, even without valid state authorization. The court rejected this argument, holding that municipal corporations can exercise only powers expressly granted or necessarily implied from express grants. Because the state legislature had previously addressed employee pensions in limited, specific contexts—expressly authorizing retirement benefits only for fire and police department members and water commission employees—the general-welfare clause could not be read to grant broader implied authority. The legislature's selective grants demonstrated that it had intentionally restricted the city's pension authority to those designated classes.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Compliance with constitutional notice and advertisement requirements for special legislation
Whether municipal implied powers can expand beyond express charter grants
Application of expressio unius exclusio alterius when legislature grants specific powers in limited contexts

Procedural posture

The trial court declared the 1947 enabling act unconstitutional but held the city possessed implied charter power to enact the retirement ordinance, and the city appealed.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

Candler, Justice.

(After stating the foregoing facts.) It. was stipulated by the parties, “That notice of the intention to. apply for passage of an act of the General Assembly (Ga. L. 1947, p. 1258) was properly advertised in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Constitution of 1945, and a copy of such advertised intention, together with the affidavit of the publisher was attached to H. B. 438, which eventuated in passage of the enrolled bill No. 337. However, the bill as enrolled made no reference to advertisement and no copy of the advertisement or affidavit of the publisher or affidavit of the author was attached to such enrolled copy.” Under the ruling of this court in Smith v. McMichael 203 Ga. 74 (45 S. E. 2d, 431); Cox v. Hapeville, 203 Ga. 263 (47 S. E. 2d, 122); Smith v. Augusta, 203 Ga. 511 (47 S. E. 2d, 582); Bergman v. Dutton, 203 Ga. 672 (48 S. E. 2d, 101); Nickles v. County Board of Education of Richmond County, 203 Ga. 755 (48 S. E. 2d, 546), the trial court properly declared the act to be unconstitutional and void. The request to overrule these decisions is denied.

The defendant Walker contends, and the trial judge held, that the Mayor and Council of the City of Macon had sufficient implied charter power to enact the retirement and pension ordinance here in question even if the enabling act of 1947 (Ga. L. 1947, p. 1258) is unconstitutional. To this, however, we do not agree. It is elementary that the powers which a city government may lawfully exercise must be derived from its charter or the general laws of this State. Mayor &c. of Savannah v. Wilson, 49 Ga. 477; Atlanta Ry. and Power Co. v. Atlanta Rapid Transit Co., 113 Ga. 481 (39 S. E. 12). And it is equally well settled that all municipal charters are strictly construed, and that powers which are not expressly, or by necessary implication, conferred upon the corporation can not be exercised by it. Lofton v. Collins, 117 Ga. 434, 438 (43 S. E. 708, 61 L. R. A. 150); Walker v. McNelly, 121 Ga. 114 (48 S. E. 718); Town of McIntyre v. Baldwin, 61 Ga. App. 489 (6 S. E. 2d, 372). This court in the Lofton case said: “A grant of power to a municipal ■corporation must be strictly construed, and such a corporation ■can exercise no powers except such as are expressly given or are necessarily implied from express grants of other powers.” And further respecting the powers which may be exercised by a municipal corporation, Judge Dillon in his valuable work on Municipal Corporations has this to say: “It is a general and undis puted proposition of law that a municipal corporation possesses and can exercise the following powers and no others: First, those granted in express words; second, those necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to powers expressly granted; third, those essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation — not simply convenient, but indispensable. Any fair, reasonable doubt concerning the existence of power is resolved by the courts against the corporation, and the power is denied.” I Dillon Mun. Corp. (4th ed.), § 89. Also Mr. Cooley, another eminent author,- says: “The general disposition of the courts in this country has been to confine municipalities within the limits that a strict construction of the grants of power in their charters will assign to them; thus applying substantially the same rule that is applicable to the charters of private corporations. The reasonable presumption is that the State has granted in clear and unmistakable terms all that it has designed to grant at all.” Cooley’s Const. Lim. (7th ed.), pp. 271-272. That it may be fairly implied from the powers expressly granted in the general-welfare clause of the city’s charter that the General Assembly intended to give to the Mayor and Council of Macon power to retire and pension all employees of the city is the position taken by the defendant Walker. Such a contention, however, might be more tenable if it were not for other express provisions on the subject of retirement and pensions found elsewhere in the city’s charter. But respecting this, an examination of the charter as a whole discloses that the General Assembly has several times dealt with the proposition of granting power to the city to retire and pension its employees, with the result that power has been expressly conferred upon the city to retire and pension certain designated employees, namely, the members of its fire and police departments and the employees of its Board of Water Commissioners. By an act in 1927 (Ga. L. 1927, p. 1283), which has been three times amended (Ga. L. 1937, p. 1981; Ga. L. 1939, p. 1149; Ga. L. 1943, p. 1430), the Mayor and Council have express charter authority to retire and pension those employees of the fire and police departments who have performed service for the city, in either department, for a period of 25 years; and by the act of 1943 (Ga. L. 1943, p. 1430) a retirement and pension system for the employees of the Board of Water Commissioners was expressly authorized. The State having gone into this field and made its survey respecting the advisability of granting power to the city government to retire and pension its employees, the natural and reasonable presumption is that the General Assembly has granted in express terms to this municipal corporation all the power it has designed to grant on the subject; and this being our view of the case, it is unnecessary to enter into any extended discussion of the implied powers which have been actually conferred by the city’s general-welfare clause. The maxim, “Expressio unius exclusio alterius,” is the rule of construction which should be applied in the present case, and when applied we must and do hold that the State has, by its express grant of power to the city to retire and pension a limited class or group of its employees, by implication excluded from it the power to retire and pension those of another class or group. Standard Oil Co. v. State Revenue Commissioner, 179 Ga. 371, 375 (176 S. E. 1). See generally 35 O. J. S. p. 283; 43 C. J. 197; 59 C. J. 984; McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, Yol. I, p. 1028, § 370.

Nor can it be said that the powers granted to the city under its general-welfare clause had the effect of enlarging upon the specific grants of power, since it was expressly stated in the charter that the general grant of powers should be construed to be in aid of those powers specifically granted. (Ga. L. 1927,, p. 1301, § 20).

It was therefore error for the trial court to hold that the Mayor and Council had implied power to enact the ordinance here involved.

Judgment reversed on the main bill of exceptions; and affirmed on the cross-bill.

All the Justices concur.