94 F. 409 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Missouri | 1899
This is a hill in equity to enjoin the enforcement and collection of special tax bills assessed against lots fronting on Commercial street in the city of Spriugiield, Mo. The
“That there is hereby levied and assessed a special tax against the lots _ and pieces of ground hereinafter described to pay for the construction of a brick pavement of Commercial street from the center of Boonville street to the center of Benton avenue, as provided by resolution No. 370, approved June 9, 1S98. The assessments herein charged being apportioned among the several lots and pieces of ground made liable therefor by the block, according to the front foot thereof, as fiollows.”
Tbe ordinance then set out a description of the lots thus assessed by the front foot, among which are tbe lots owned by tbe complainants severally. Tbe aggregate amount of this work is $12,657, and tax certificates- upon said assessment were issued to said Myrick by tbe city council against each of tbe owners of lots abutting on said street within tbe limits specified in said ordinance in proportion to tbe frontage of tbe lots. Tbe bill alleges that tbe city assumes and claims that tbe statute under which it was incorporated confers upon it authority to so levy and collect said taxes, and all other taxes for local improvements heretofore levied by it based upon tbe number of fgpnt feet abutting on such improvement, without limit as to tbe amount thereof, and without reference as to the value of tbe property, or tbe betterment, if any, conferred upon tbe owner of tbe property by tbe improvements, and that tbe same is not in conflict with tbe constitution of tbe United States or of tbe state of Missouri. Tbe bill alleges that while tbe city, in assessing said taxes, conformed to-tbe provisions of tbe law under which it attempted to act, yet said act is in conflict with tbe constitution of tbe United States, especially tbe fifth and fourteenth amendments thereof. It is also averred that a part of tbe lots so taxed are well improved and of much greater válue than others which have no improvement and are of but little comparative value. There are other averments contained in tbe bill which are not material to be recited. Tbe bill prays for a decree declaring tbe act of tbe legislature under which tbe proceedings were bad to be inoperative, for tbe reason that it is in conflict with tbe constitution of tbe United States and tbe amendments thereto, and that the tax' so assessed thereunder be declared void, and tbe collection thereof perpetually enjoined. Tbe bill is brought in behalf of tbe complainants and all other persons similarly affected -by the attempted exercise of tbe power claimed. The cause is beard on an-application for a temporary injunction. Tbe defendants have filed an answer to tbe bill, but not under oath.
I am unable to perceive why this case is not controlled by tbe ruling of tbe supreme court in Village of Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269, 19 Sup. Ct. 187. Tbe provision of the Ohio statute, on which that case depended, was similar, in legal effect, to tbe statute of
“For paving', macadamizing, curbing and guttering all streets, avenues and ■alleys, and repairing- same, and for doing all excavating and grading necessary for same, after said streets, avenues and alleys have first been brought to grade, * ® 13 the assessment shall be made for each block separately, on all lots and piece's of ground on either side of such street or avenue, the distance improved or to be improved, or on lots or pieces of ground abutting on such alley, in proportion to the front foot”
Section 1490 then declares that:
‘■The assessments made in pursuance of the second and third clauses of the second subdivision of the preceding section shall be known as special assessments for improvements, aud shall be levied and collected as a special tax, and a special tax bill shall Issue therefor, and be paid in the manner provided by ordinance. Said special tax may bear Interest after thirty days from the date of issue and presentation of same at the rate of ten por cent, per annum; and every such special tax bill shall be a lien against the lot of ground described in the same until, the same is paid.”
While it is true that the Ohio statute differs from the Missouri statute, in that, in addition to the mode of assessment by the front loot, it gave to the council the power to apportion the cost of such improvement upon the abutting lot owners in proportion to the benefits resulting from the improvement, or according to the value of the property assessed, yet the city of Norwood did not see fit to- pursue either of the last two methods. How this difference in the two statutes is to help the defendants is not apparent. It only shows that it was in the mind of the legislature of Ohio that the matter of apportionment of such burden could be predicated upon the basis of relative benefits bestowed upon the abutting property, or according to the relative value thereof; whereas the Missouri statute contains no such provision whatever respecting betterments, or the relaiive value of the property touched. On the contrary, the Missouri statute provides absolutely, independent of any consideration of benefits conferred upon the lot owner by the street improvement, and independent of any consideration of relative value of the property assessed, “that the assessment shall be made for each block separately on all lots and pieces of ground on either side of such street, the distance
“The property must bear its just burden to the whole work according to its frontage. Any other construction would be unequal and unlust, and contrary to the theory of supposed benefits which support and uphold these laws. Grading in front of a given piece of property may be a damage instead of a benefit, and it will not be presumed that the property holder should be obliged to páy for the whole work that causes his damage. The assessment should be made in the proportion which the whole frontage of any particular lot bears to the entire work.”
After thus recognizing the foundation of the rule of special assessments, it seems to. my mind to be irreconcilably contradictory tq say that the requirement is fully met by an apportionment based solely upon the frontage of the lots on the street, without any regard whatever to the fact of whether or not the particular lot is benefited at all by the work done throughout the length of the street improved, and without any regard to the fact of whether or not the benefit bestowed is equal, as between all the lots fronting on
The discussion in Barnes v. Dyer, 56 Vt. 469, cited in Village of Norwood Case, is quite pertinent to this contention of defendants. Under the act of the legislature under review in that case, the city council was authorized to assess the owners of abutting property for a street improvement “so much of the expense thereof as they shall deem just and equitable.” The statute further provided for —what the Missouri statute does not — notice, hearing, and appeal. The constitutionality of this act was successfully attacked by the property owner sought to be taxed under it. The court held' that the language “as they shall deem just and equitable” fixed no definite standard by which the rights of the taxpayer were to be protected,'as it was impossible from the terms employed to know upon what theory the council proceeded in determining what was equitable and just, whether it was in view of benefits bestowed, or upon the value of the land, or personal convenience to the owner, or of his ability to pay, or all combined. The court, after referring to Judge Dillon’s discussion of this question, said:
“The act in question makes no express allusion to the assessment on account of benefit; neither does it limit the assessment to the amount of benefit. Yet,*414 as we have seen, the right to assess at all depends solely on benefit, and nrast be proportioned to and limited "by it. An improvement might cost double the benefit to the land especially benefited.”
Further on the court said:
“The cases which have established the rule that the statute authorizing an assessment must fix the legal standard to which it shall be made to conform have not turned on the phraseology of constitutional provisions. It is everywhere treated as a general constitutional principle that no member of society shall be compelled to contribute more than his proportion. . Unless this is so, there is no protection against arbitrary injustice in the imposition of taxes. To secure this protection, courts have held that legislative enactments must set up a standard, fix a rule, to be conformed to as a guide in all eases, — a uniform, certain rule, so far as reasonably practicable, and not susceptible to different applications to different individuals of the class to which it applies. If the enactment fails in this regard, it is deemed fatally defective. The proposition is sound, because it is an adherence to the fundamental principles which in a constitutional government are designed to protect the individual against in-jtistice and oppression.” 1
A like ruling was made on a like statute in Bogert v. City of Elizabeth, 27 N. J. Eq. 568, cited by Mr. Justice Harlan. How much more so should it be held that the Missouri statute is obnoxious to the fundamental right of private property when it not only directs that the apportionment of such special tax shall be according to the front foot, but does not even limit the discretion of the governing council in making the assessment to any consideration of its equity or justice? Who can tell in this case by what consideration the council of Springfield distributed the cost of this work according to the 'front foot? Did they consider the relative benefits of each lot, or the value thereof, or the convenience of the owner, or his ability to pay, or all combined? Following the same thought, Mr. Justice Harlan (172 U. S. 281, 19 Sup. Ct. 191) said:
“It will not escape observation that, if the entire cost incurred by a municipal corporation in condemning land for the purpose of opening or extending a street can be assessed back upon the abutting property without inquiry in any form as to the special benefits received by the owner, the result will be more injurious to the owner than if he had been required in the first instance to open the street at his own cost without compensation in respect of the land taken for the street; for by opening the street at his own cost he might have at least saved the expense attending formal proceedings of condemnation.”
It is argued here in support of this assessment, as was done in Village of Norwood Case, that the court ought not to interfere by injunction, because the complainants did not show nor offer to show by proof that the amount of the assessment upon their property was in excess of the special benefits accruing to it by reason of the opening of the street; and the bill of complaint in this case is vigorously assailed because it does not in terms so aver. To this the court replied:
“This suggestion implies that, if the proof had showed an excess of cost incurred in opening the street over the specific benefits accruing to the abutting property, a decree might properly have been made, enjoining the assessment to the extent simply that such cost exceeded the benefits. We do not concur in this view. As the’pleadings show, the village proceeded upon the theory, justified by the words of the statute, that the entire cost incurred in opening the street, including the value of the property appropriated, could, when the assessment was by the front foot, be put upon the abutting property, irrespective of*415 special benefits. The assessment was by the front foot and for a specific sum representing such cost, and that sum could not have been reduced under the ordinance of the village, even if proof had been made that the costs and expenses assessed upon the abutting property exceeded the special benefits. The assessment was in itself an illegal one, because it rested up>on a basis that excluded any consideration ol' benefits. A decree enjoining the whole assessment was therefore the only appropriate one.”
It is to be conceded to the contention of defendants’ counsel that if, notwithstanding the statute in question makes no jiro vision either before or at the time or after the assessment of the special tax for a hearing or contest by the lot owner as to whether or not his property is benefited by the improvement as charged against his lot, yet, if when sued on the tax bill lie has the' right to defend thereto on the ground that his property received no benefit, and can in this manner have this right adjudicated, then the statute is not unconstitutional as to this assessment, as he would thus have his day in court to contest its validity in this respect. Because of some confusion in the language of the judge who wrote the opinion in the particular case, tills question is not free from some embarrassment, and to its consideration I have given careful attention, as I have no disposition to produce any conflict of opinion with the supreme court of the state touching so vital and important a question as this case presents, especially where its construction of the state statute is binding on the federal court.
In City of St. Louis v. Richeson, 76 Mo. 470, it would seem, on a casual reading, as if the court had sustained this contention of counsel; but, read in the light of the real question involved in that case, the decision does not go to the extent claimed for it. That was a condemnation proceeding, authorized by the chafter to be instituted before one of the circuit courts of St. Louis, directing, upon the filing of a petition, that a summons should issue, giving the defendant 10 days’ notice of the hearing of the petition. It further provided that, upon the court being satisfied that due notice liad been given, it should apjioint commissioners to assess damages which the owners of land may severally sustain by reason of such appropriation. The fifth section of the charter made it the duty of ihe commissioners to ascertain the actual value of the land proposed to be taken, without reference to the projected improvement and the actual damage done to the property thereby, and for the payment of such values and damages to assess against the city the amount of benefit to the public generally, and the balance against the owners of the property especially benefited by the improvement, in the opinion of the commissioners, to the amount that each lot of said owner shall be benefited by the improvement. It is further provided that the amounts to be paid by the owners of property especially benefited, as ascertained by the commissioners, should be a, lien on the property so charged. The act further provided that the report of the commissioners might be reviewed by the circuit court on exceptions filed, whereupon the court should make such order therein as right and justice might require, and might order a new appraisement upon good cause shown; that the hearing of such exceptions should be summary, etc. It further
“That the ordinance makes no provision for ascertaining the benefits to the public; but assesses the whole cost thereof equally upon each linear foot fronting on said avenue.”
Judge Norton, after reviewing the rulings oí the supreme court of the state touching this question, said:
“Having shown that the charter of the city confers upon it power to pave and reconstruct its streets, and to assess the cost of the work on the adjoining property, without binding it to any method of apportioning the cost, but leaving the municipal authorities free to adopt any method not forbidden by the constitution or general laws of,the state, it follows that they might adopt any method in apportioning the cost which the legislature could adopt.”
Further on he said:
“The liability of lots fronting on the street, the paving of which is authorized to be charged with the cost of the work according to their frontage, having been thus so repeatedly asserted, the question is no longer an open one in this state, and we are relieved of the necessity of examining authorities cited by counsel for plaintiff, condemning what is familiarly known as ‘the front-foot rule.’ While irregularities arising in the enforcement of the «rule in consequence of irregularities in the situation and depth of lots may afford a reason for an appeal to the legislative power of the state for their rectification, they would not justify the courts in invading the domain of the legislature.”
“It is not in the power of the courts to enforce any fancied scheme of equality seeming to them more just than the one adopted hy the legislature. The latter department o£ the government is wisely intrusted with the entire control of this subject, and, if practical injustice is done, the remedy is with the people.” Again: “It Is not whether the tax will produce perfect equality of burdens, nor whether the power may not be abused. We know too well that under any system of taxation these things may and do happen. They are evils not within the powers of the courts to remedy. It Is for the legislature to guard against them.”
This case was followed by that of Rutherford v. Hamilton, 97 Mo. 543, 11 S. W. 249, in which the defense was sought to be made that the act was unconstitutional, “because the cost of the sewer was apportioned by the city engineer against the property fronting on the improvement in proportion to the frontage of each lot, without considering the amount of actual benefits conferred by the sewer on each lot owner.” And it was held not only that the front-foot rule obtained in the state, but, in effect, that such an assessment was conclusive on the property owner as to the amount of benefit received. Again in Keith v. Bingham, 100 Mo. 300, 13 S. W. 683, it was held that “the fact that the street did not benefit but damage the property sought to be charged with the tax bill is no defense to an action on the latter.” As further proof that this is the opinion of the supreme court, in City of Nevada v. Eddy, 123 Mo. 546, 27 S. W. 471, Chief Justice Gantt (123 Mo. 562, 27 S. W. 475) said:
“The power, under section 1495, Rev. St. 1889, is in the municipality to determine the necessity of the improvement, subject to the protest of a majority of the resident adjoining owners, and to assess it on all lots and pieces of ground abutting on the improvement according to the front foot thereof. The owner without a building is taxed in the same proportion as one who owns a valuable building, or, mayhap, a palatial residence.”
Language could not more forcibly emphasize the fact, not only that the front-foot rule is arbitrary, regardless of the respective benefits to the property touched, but that it adndts of no contention that the party assessed is not benefited at all. But it is suggested that Judge Gantt in the later case of Bank v. Carswell, 126 Mo. 436, 29 S. W. 279, held that this mode of assessment was not conclusive on the property owner, and that he might make defense of no benefit to a suit on the tax bill. If this were so, it certainly would not be creditable to the consistency of the supreme court of the state, and would be a remarkable achievement of tergiversation. The assessment in that case was made, under the general statute (sections 1404-1447, c. 30, Rev. St. 1889), by a city of the second class, which provided that the assessment should be made on the basis of the “value of all the property to be charged with the cost thereof, exclusive of the improvements thereon, by the
“The only proper way to construe a legislative act is from the language used in the act, and upon proper occasion by a resort to a. history of the times when it was passed,” and, further, that “it is the duty of courts to ascertain the meaning of the legislature from the words used in the statute and the subject-matter to which it relates.”
This rule is always imperative where the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous. Sedg. St. & Const. Law, 194-251. In such case the statute must stand for a reason, and the courts are not at liberty to look outside of it for some specious meaning or import that may impart validity to it when assailed for its glaring violation of a constitutional right of the citizen. The chief justice in Bogert v. City of Elizabeth, supra, pertinently observed:
“This order [ordinance here] is so plain and definite that it is impossible by construction to contract it within constitutional bounds. Time is not a hint in the clause suggestive of the idea that the land on the line of the street is not to be burdened beyond the degree to which it is especially benefited.”
In the very nature of the power Imposing this special tax upon the abulting property there must be some method of ascertainment, and some time of determining, the question of fact as to whether or not one lot is subjected to an undue burden compared to that apportioned to the other lots alike situated. The whole burden of such tax cannot be placed upon a single lot on the ground that the whole is not greater than the betterment of such lot, unless the other lots on the street derive no benefit therefrom. The burden should be distributed ratably among the several lots in the relative proportion of the benefits‘received by them. This is so jusi and reasonable as to hardly require the support of authority. Dill. Mun. Corp. § 671, in discussing this rule says:
“The divided fcndoucy of later decisions is to hold that the legislative power is not, unlimited, and that these assessments must be apportioned by some rule capable of producing reasonable equality.” And further on: “That the special benefits actually received by each parcel of contributing property was [isj the only principie upon which such assessments can justly rest.”
In Tide-Wafer Co. v. Cosier, 18 N. J. Eq. 519, the court said:
“The rule must, at least, be one which it is legally possible may be just and equitable as between the parlies assessed.”
To the same effect in Bogert v. City of Elizabeth, supra, the court said:
“The sum of the expense is ordered to be put on certain designated property, without regard to tire proportion of benefit it has received from the improvement.”
And this was held to be fundamentally wrong.
Equality is equity. And the right of the owner of a lot to have this burden of special tax ratably distributed among the lots benefited does not depend alone upon the state constitution exacting equal taxation, but has “its foundation in those” elementary principles of equity and justice which lie at the root of the social com pact” (In re Canal Street, 11 Wend. 154-156), and he can therefore invoke for its security and protection the federal constitution,