Page:Pitcock v. State.pdf/5

Rh at length upon the minutes of said board, and the plaintiff could not other than rely upon said representations and promises, and for this reason it accepted the same;" that, "in reliance upon said representations and promises of the board and believing that the State would carry out its contract with it in all respects, it was induced to make the large expenditures hereinbefore stated, which were absolutely necessary in order to prepare the proper facilities for making it profitable to the plaintiff to use the amount of labor due it under said contract, and which it fully expected would eventually be furnished to it;" that the said members of the Board of Commissioners, pretending to act as the Board of Penitentiary Commissioners, had on the 14th day of January, 1909, made and were about to enforce a resolution in substance declaring said contract to be at an end and directing the superintendent of the Penitentiary to withdraw all convicts from the premises and works of the plaintiff and place them on the State farm or within the walls of the Penitentiary.

It is further alleged in the complaint "that the Board had no authority in law to make said pretended order, and that the same is null and void; that the said board had no authority to take the said convicts from the plaintiff until the balance of the convict labor due to the plaintiff, as aforesaid, has been furnished to the plaintiff in full; that the said resolution was passed, not because of any default on the part of the plaintiff in carrying out the terms of said contract, and not because the board does not acknowledge the violation of said contract on its part as herein alleged, but solely on the ground that the board pretends to possess the arbitrary power of withholding said labor from the plaintiff on the theory that the State is not amenable to any legal proceeding against it, and that the members of the board can shield themselves by this protection in favor of the State."

The prayer of the complaint is as follows: "Premises considered, the plaintiff prays that a temporary restraining order be made, restraining the defendants, and each of them, from taking any action looking to the withdrawal of the convicts now in its possession, and particularly from taking from plaintiff's brick works any of the men now engaged in labor therein, and requiring said Board of Penitentiary Commissioners, and the