168 Ind. 54 | Ind. | 1907
Suit by appellee for the foreclosure of a sewer assessment against certain real estate of appellant, situate in the city of Indianapolis. From .a decree in appellee’s favor appellant appeals, assigning error based on tbe overruling of her demurrer to tbe complaint and on the overruling of her motion for a new trial.
It appears from the evidence that on June 27, 1902, the board of public works passed a declaratory resolution for the building of a sewer in Indianapolis, extending in a southeasterly direction, along Northwestern avenue, from Thirty-second street to Twenty-fourth street, and extending thence west on said street about fifteen hundred feet, and from thence south to Hall creek, with a branch that intersected the main sewer at Twenty-fourth street. The resolution provided for an assessment upon the real estate in the assessment district and upon the city, if it should be benefited. A profile, specifications, plans, and a map were then on file. July 5, 1902, the engineer filed an estimate that the improvement would cost $61,800. The map showed a territory about forty-two hundred feet long and thirty-three hundred feet wide beneficially affected, aside from the territory affected by the branch. Within this territory was a tract of about forty acres belonging to appellant, which abutted on the main sewer. Notice was
it was lawful for the board, after the general hear-ing provided for by statute was had, to modify the resolution by adding a branch to the proposed work. We do not regard it as necessary, in view of the disposition which must be made of this case, to pass upon the sufficiency of the original notice to give jurisdiction over the person of appellant, or to determine whether the giving of such notice was essential to the validity of the proceedings.
the bounding of the district, and as to the benefits being equal to the estimated cost, are in the clearest degree mandatory. They, in many instances, constitute the only check which the taxpayer has against the exercise of arbitrary and oppressive power in those particulars. When a record is presented in which it appears that the board has utterly failed to obsei-ve these fundamental requirements, it must be affirmed that there is a want of power to fix an assessment. Miller v. City of Amsterdam (1896), 149 N. Y. 288, 43 N. E. 632. It is plain that such findings, where required to be made in writing, must be entered by the tribunal. Poillon v. Mayor, etc. (1900), 65 N. J. L. 538, 47 Atl. 439; John v. Connell (1902), 64 Neb. 233, 89 N. W. 806; Stebbins v. Kay (1890), 123 N. Y. 31, 25 N. E. 207. It was said in the latter case: “The legislature desired the commissioners to make a solemn declaration that they had done their duty. * * * We think that the property owner had the right to demand the certificate and the whole thereof, and it is no answer to say that an officer is presumed to have done his duty.”
being improved, may be denied an injunction to prevent the enforcement of the assessment, rest on entirely different grounds, since nothing but conscience, good faith, and reasonable diligence can call the powers of a court of equity into activity, and where these are wanting the court is passive and does nothing. Smith v. Clay (1766), Ambl. 645; Ryason v. Dunlen (1905), 164 Ind. 85. In the circumstances mentioned, the failure to make
in any event the evidence in this case did not warrant a decree of foreclosure.
Judgment reversed, with a direction to sustain appellant’s motion for a new trial.