42 W. Va. 486 | W. Va. | 1896
Acting under its charter as amended by chapter 13, Acts 1889, the city of Parkersburg, through its council, paved a certain portion of its streets, and assessed two-thirds of the cost thereof against the abutting property owners; and also constructed a sewer, the whole cost of which was assessed to the abutting property owners in proportion to their frontage. The defendant was one of these property owners. Her assessment amounted to three hundred and nineteen dollars and fourteen cents for paving and fifty eight dollars and three cents for sewerage, which she refused to pay. The city thereupon, as authorized by its charter, brought suit to enforce the lien of such assessment against the defendant’s property. She demurred to the bill. The demurrer was overruled, and, the defendant not denying the same by answer, a decree was entered upon the bill as taken for confessed as to her. Prom this decree she appeals, and relies on two principal causes of error, to wit: (1) That the charter, in so far as it permits local assessments for improvements, is unconstitutional; (2) that the council failed to comply with the provisions of the charter in making the improvements.
It is a very late day in the history of our jurisprudence to insist that the doctine of local assessments for local improvements is inequitable or unconstitutional, for, as has
The Virginia court of appeals has fully sustained the constitutionality of local assessment statutes. City of Norfolk v. Ellis, 26 Gratt. 224; Langhorne v. Robinson, 20 Gratt. 661; Sands v. City of Richmond, 31 Gratt. 571; Davis v. City of Lynchburg, 84 Va. 861 (6 S. E. 230); Richmond & A. R. Co. v. City of Lynchburg, 81 Va. 473. Judge Richardson, in a lengthy opinion in the case of City of Norfolk v. Chamberlain, 89 Va. 196 (16 S. E. 730) while he admits the firm establishment of the doctrine, attempts to refute the same as founded on illogical principles and unsound conclusions from fallacious reasonings. But therein he makes apparent an evident lack of knowledge as to the practical workings of municipal and other taxation, for he would make all improvements by general, and not local, taxation. The same doctrine, carried out to its full extent, would require the state to levy a general tax to open up and keep in repair all public roads, instead of the plan now universally adopted, and being extended, to require each neighborhood to open and keep in repair its own roads. The very object of local assessments is to produce uniformity and equality in taxation; and, while exact equality and uniformity can not he attained, owing to the imperfection of man’s knowledge and experience, yet the doctrine of local assessment is the most equitable that has yet been devised by human ingenuity, and is far more just and satisfactory to individuals and the public, when rightly understood, than general taxation for the same purposes. In local assessments the expenditure goes directly to the improvement of the streets and betterment of the property in the assessed neighborhood, while in general assessments the money is expended on favored portions of the municipality, if not entirely dissipated or wasted before it reaches the improvement intended, far remote from the homes of the bulk of the taxpayers, who derive no benefit whatever from the improvement, but may be actually injured by it, as the property abutting thereon is made more desirable, and hence more valuable,
The position of the defendant that the allegations were not full enough to show that the plaintiff had complied with the requirements of the statute, is equally untenable. All that was required for the plaintiff to do was to allege that the work was done and the assessment made in pursuance of the statute, and it was not necessary to set out minutely every step taken by the officers of the municipality with regard to the work undertaken; but, if there was any necessary requirement omitted which operated injuriously to the defendant, she should have made this a matter of defense. The bill sufficiently alleges that the work was performed in accordance with the statute; that a true estimate thereof was made and assessed under plaintiff’s supervision against the property in controversy; that the defendant was the owner thereof, and liable for the payment of the assessment. This she admits by her demurrer, and legally confesses by her failure to answer. The remedy by bill in equity is a creature of the legislature, and is rather a concession to the taxpayer, as giving him a day in court to present any just defense he may have. There is apparently no good reason why the defendant should not pay the assessment, and the decree is therefore affirmed.