## Facts

- A Wilmington taxpayer sued members of the Wilmington City Council seeking a writ of mandamus requiring enactment of a budget ordinance consistent with the City’s Home Rule Charter.
- The Charter required Council to adopt an annual operating budget ordinance by May 31 for the fiscal year beginning July 1 and to make lump-sum appropriations by specified expenditure classes (including “materials, supplies and equipment”).
- Council passed a budget ordinance that included a $310,564 appropriation in the “materials, supplies and equipment” category.
- The complaint alleged Council actually expected to spend only about $49,510 for that category and intended the remainder to function as a concealed contingency fund for later reallocations, allegedly for partisan political advantage.
- Before passage, the City Solicitor advised Council it lacked authority under the Charter to create a contingency fund not recommended by the Mayor.
- The Mayor vetoed the contested appropriation on legality grounds, but Council overrode the veto and enacted the ordinance.
- Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings; for that motion, the court assumed the complaint’s allegations were true.

## Issues

1. Whether mandamus may compel a city council to amend or re-enact a budget ordinance alleged to violate a home rule charter by disguising an unauthorized contingency fund within an appropriation category.
2. Whether allegations that council members misclassified appropriations to gain partisan advantage constitute “fraud or bad faith” sufficient to justify judicial interference with a legislative budget ordinance.

## Decision

- The court granted defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings and denied mandamus relief.
- Mandamus would not lie to control Council’s legislative discretion in making budget appropriations under the Charter.
- Accepting the allegations as true, the complaint did not plead fraud or bad faith at a level that permitted invalidation of the ordinance or judicial compulsion of different budget legislation.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus compels performance of a ministerial duty; it does not direct how a legislative body exercises discretionary, policy-based authority, including budgeting.
- Courts generally will not interfere with municipal ordinances or fiscal legislation absent clear, provable fraud or bad faith.
- Allegations of political motivation or pursuit of partisan advantage, without more, are insufficient to establish legal fraud or bad faith warranting judicial intervention in municipal budgeting.
- Disregarding legal advice or overriding an executive veto, by itself, does not convert a legislative budget decision into an act subject to control by mandamus.

## Conclusion

The court refused to use mandamus to police the Council’s internal budgeting judgments where the ordinance facially satisfied the Charter’s budget framework and the taxpayer’s allegations, even if true, did not establish actionable fraud or bad faith justifying judicial intrusion into municipal legislative discretion.


Krahmer v. McClafferty, 288 A.2d 678 (Del. Super. Ct. 1972)