Section 95. The decided weight of authority sustains the rule that, where by law or charter of the municipal corporation, the method and mode of entering into contracts is prescribed, such method and mode must be strictly followed by the corporation, else no liability is incurred. For example, if the charter requires that certain contracts must be authorized by a vote of the taxpayers, a contract entered into without such authorization is void.4

"The act of incorporation is to become an enabling act; it gives them all the power they possess; it enables them to contract, and when it prescribes to them a mode of contracting, they must observe that mode, or the instrument no more creates a contract than if the body had never been incorporated."5

3 Argenteni vs. San Francisco, 16 Cala., 255.

4 Niles Water Works vs. Niles, 59 Mich., 311.

Modern decisions have established the law to be, that the contracts of municipal corporations need not be under seal unless the charter so requires, and it is further held that, a municipal corporation may be bound by an ordinance or by a resolution of the common council.6

In the absence of statutory or law restrictions, a municipal corporation may contract by parol through its duly authorized agents.7