Spidell et al. v. Johnson et al. money to defray the cost of the improvement, instituted separate suits to enjoin the auditor, treasurer, and board of commissioners of Ripley county from placing the several amounts assessed against their respective tracts of land on the tax duplicate, and to declare the assessments void. The proceedings to enjoin the officers were sustained in the court below, and several judgments were rendered restraining the auditor and treasurer, according to the prayer of the complaint. In one of the cases in which judgment was so rendered, an appeal was taken to this court, and the judgment was reversed. White v. Fleming, 114 Ind. 560. In the other cases no appeals were taken, and the judgments remain in full force. The bondholders were not parties to those proceedings, and had no notice of their having been instituted. It is charged in the complaint that some of the land owners, whose lands were assessed, have paid part of the amounts assessed into the treasury of the county, but that others refuse to pay anything, and that the officers of the county refuse to place, or continue, the assessments on the tax duplicate, or to collect the assessments, or to apply any of the money received by the county to the payment of the bonds. held by the plaintiffs below, which are now due and remain unpaid. It is also charged that the county has, through its board of commissioners and officers, appropriated about $8,000 of the money received from the sale of the bonds to the use of the county. The relief prayed is that the board of commissioners and officers of the county be compelled to account for all moneys received from the sale of bonds and from assessments, and that they be required to apply the amount applicable to that purpose which remains in the general fund of the treasury, to the payment of the bonds and the interest coupons thereon. There is also a prayer that the judgments. enjoining the officers from collecting the assessments on the land benefited be declared void as to the plaintiffs, and that the officers of the county be required to proceed to place the Spidell et al. v. Johnson et al. amounts assessed on the tax duplicate, and that a sufficient amount be collected from the assessments to pay any deficiency that may remain in order to satisfy the bonds and interest coupons due thereon, after applying to that purpose what may be found due from the county. The facts stated in the complaint invoke the chancery jurisdiction of the court for an accounting by the officers and commissioners of Ripley county with the appellants, in respect to an alleged fund which the latter claimed should in equity be applied to the payment of the bonds held by them. The proceedings for the construction of the public enterprise in question having resulted in fixing a lien on the lands adjudged to be benefited by the construction of the free turnpike, the lien thus fixed stood as a security for the payment of the bonds which were issued for the purpose of obtaining the money with which to carry forward the work. Bonds such as those in question are not the obligations of the county. Strieb v. Cox, 111 Ind. 299. The lien fixed by statute upon the lands benefited constitutes a security for the benefit of the bondholders. Unless the proceedings which resulted in creating the lien which constituted the sole security for the bondholders was absolutely void, the security thereby afforded could not be destroyed, impaired or rendered unavailing without affording an opportunity to those interested to be heard. There is po pretence that the proceedings were void. The judgments restraining the officers of Ripley county from enforcing the assessments having, as it were, cast a cloud upon the security of the bondholders, they had the right to appeal to a court of equity to protect their property. Besides, some of the land-owners having paid in part, and others having paid nothing, and the whole matter having fallen into a state of confusion, a court of law was not adequate to the task of unraveling the "tangled skein," and it was therefore peculiarly a subject for the chancery side of the court, to account with the county and its officers, to reinstate the lien of the as Spidell et al. v. Johnson et al. sessments so far as the judgments theretofore rendered had embarrassed the officers of the county in collecting what might be needed to pay off the bonds and interest. The rule is, that where a court of chancery takes jurisdiction of a cause for any purpose, it retains it under its control for all purposes and administers complete relief as the justice of the case may require. Faught v. Faught, 98 Ind. 470 (472). When a chancery court acquires jurisdiction for any purpose, it will, as a general rule, proceed to determine the whole cause, although in so doing it may decide questions which standing alone would furnish no basis of equitable jurisdiction. Bispham Equity, section 37. It is quite true that the county can not be held for any part of the cost of constructing a free turnpike, nor can it be made accountable for any loss resulting from the errors or neglect of its officers. Board, etc., v. Fullen, 111 Ind. 410. The complaint, however, does not seek to hold the county liable for the conduct of its officers. It only seeks an accounting with the county and its officers for the money which is alleged to have gone into the general fund of the county, and which in equity and good conscience should be applied to the payment of the bonds. Let there be an account taken with the county and its officers, and if it is found that the facts stated in the complaint are true, then the money covered into the general fund of the county belonging to the free turnpike fund should be made available for the purpose of paying the bonds issued in order to obtain money with which to construct the work. Vigo Tp. v. Board, etc., 111 Ind. 170. So if it be found true, as is alleged, that a valid lien had attached for the security of the appellants which has been obscured or impaired by a judgment, or by judgments to which the bondholders were not parties, the officers whose duty it is to collect the assessments should be ordered to proceed as the statute requires to place the amount assessed upon the lands benefited upon The Board of Comm'rs of Gibson Co. v. The Cincinnati Steam Heating Co. the tax duplicate to the end that those who have not paid may be required to pay according to law. The court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the complaint. Judgment reversed, with costs. BERKSHIRE, C., J., did not participate in the decision of this cause. Filed Nov. 20, 1890; petition for a rehearing overruled May 12, 1391. No. 13,861. THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF GIBSON COUNTY v. THE CINCINNATI STEAM HEATING COMPANY. STATUTE OF FRAUDS.-Building Contract.-Agreement Between Owner and Sub-Contractor.-Collateral Contract.-Where the owner of property undertakes to pay for work and materials to be subsequently done and furnished by a sub-contractor in order to secure the completion of a building where the principal contractor has failed to carry on the work, the promise is an original one, and not within the statute of frauds, and is enforceable. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS.-Erection of Court-House.-Minor Changes Without Plans or Specifications.-- Power of Commissioners to Make.--Presumptions.— Under section 4243, R S. 1881, requiring plans and specifications for the construction of public buildings to be prepared and filed before advertising for proposals, a board of county commissioners may make a change in a matter of detail, such as the heating or lighting of a courthouse, in process of erection, without requiring plans and specifications of the proposed change to be filed, and without advertising for proposals for the same. No important general change in the plan of the building can be thus made, only changes in matters of detail. It must be presumed that the board of commissioners neither violated the law, nor acted in bad faith in ordering changes in a matter of detail, and in the absence of countervailing facts, it must be also presumed that the changes were of such minor importance and so necessary that it was not only the right of the board to order them made, but that it was its duty to cause thefu to be made. The Board of Comm'rs of Gibson Co. v. The Cincinnati Steam Heating Co. From the Knox Circuit Court. L. C. Embree, for appellant. M. W. Fields and J. W. Ewing, for appellee. ELLIOTT, J.-On the 25th day of September, 1883, the board of commissioners of Gibson county entered into a contract with Joseph G. Miller for the erection of a courthouse. The plans and specifications were adopted at a meeting of the board on the 7th day of August, 1883, and notices inviting proposals for building the court-house were published for more than six weeks prior to the time the contract was awarded. The notice was published in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of Gibson. Miller entered upon the work under the contract, and on the 29th day of December, 1884, made a contract with the appellee to furnish a steam heating apparatus and appliances for the court-house. The plans and specifications agreed upon by Miller and the appellee were different from those adopted in the first instance by the board of commissioners, but what the differences were does not appear. The appellee entered upon the work required by its contract and furnished labor and material. On the first day of April, 1885, it received from Miller, in part payment, three thousand dollars, and on the 20th day of June of that year there was owing from Miller to the appellee the sum of two thousand and two hundred dollars; this sum Miller failed to pay, although it had been due for more than two months. The architects, McDonald & Bro., refused to issue an estimate, and the appellee tendered to the board a bond conditioned as follows: "The condition of this obligation is such, whereas the said Cincinnati Steam Heating Company has a contract with one Joseph G. Miller, who is chief contractor for the erection of a court-house in Gibson county, Indiana, to place certain steam heating apparatus in said court-house, for which it is to receive the sum of $6,665 in installments VOL. 128.-16 |