## Facts

- Pennsylvania enacted a statute permitting the union of contiguous or nearby cities by annexing and consolidating the smaller city into the larger city upon approval by a majority of all votes cast in a joint election.
- The City of Pittsburgh petitioned a Pennsylvania court to begin annexing and consolidating the City of Allegheny under the statute.
- A state court found the petition proper, ordered a joint election, and later entered a decree annexing Allegheny to Pittsburgh after a combined majority voted for consolidation.
- Although Allegheny voters largely opposed consolidation, the overall combined vote across both municipalities favored union.
- Allegheny citizens, voters, property owners, and taxpayers challenged the consolidation, asserting it impaired contractual obligations and unconstitutionally deprived them of property.
- Pennsylvania appellate courts affirmed the decree and upheld the statute under state law.
- The challengers sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging violations of the Contract Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

## Issues

1. Whether the consolidation statute and annexation impaired a “contract” involving the City of Allegheny, in violation of the Contract Clause.
2. Whether the consolidation deprived the City of Allegheny or its residents of property without due process or amounted to an uncompensated taking, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Whether federal judicial review extends to the policy, fairness, or state-constitutional validity of a state law restructuring municipalities.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the judgment upholding the consolidation.
- The Court held the consolidation did not violate the Contract Clause because no protected contractual obligation prevented the State from altering or dissolving municipal arrangements.
- The Court held the consolidation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment because the State may restructure municipalities and reassign municipal property held for public purposes without federal due process or compensation requirements.
- The Court declined to review arguments about the wisdom, fairness, or state-constitutional conformity of the consolidation scheme, treating those as matters for state political and judicial institutions.

## Legal Principles

- Municipal corporations are political subdivisions of the State, created as governmental agencies, and remain subject to the State’s legislative control over existence, boundaries, and powers.
- A State may expand, contract, merge, or dissolve municipal entities, with or without local consent, subject primarily to constraints imposed by the state constitution and state law.
- The Contract Clause does not protect an asserted “contract” between a municipality and its residents that taxes will be used only for that municipality or that municipal status and boundaries will remain fixed.
- Reallocation of municipal property held for governmental purposes as part of a state-directed consolidation is not, by itself, a federal taking or deprivation of property without due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Federal courts do not sit to evaluate the policy, justice, or fairness of state legislation reorganizing local governments, nor to reexamine state-court determinations of state constitutional questions.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained Pennsylvania’s consolidation of Allegheny into Pittsburgh, holding that municipalities are subordinate state instrumentalities and that state-directed municipal merger and attendant tax and property consequences did not violate the Contract Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment.


Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161 (1907)