63 Minn. 43 | Minn. | 1895
Tbe charter of tbe city of Stillwater does not require that tbe assessment made for paying tbe expense of grading streets shall be made upon tbe basis of an equal sum per front foot upon each lot or parcel, measuring along tbe line of such improvement, but tbe provisions in tbe charter are full and broad enough to authorize such a method of assessment, and it also authorizes tbe making of an assessment generally upon all of tbe property benefited by tbe improvement. In either case tbe assessment must include all of tbe property benefited by such improvement, and if, as in this case, tbe method of assessment adopted was one of frontage, it must be deemed to have included tbe entire property so benefited.
At tbe time of tbe assessment Mary H. Bromley was tbe owner in fee of the south part of lot 12, tbe whole of lots 13 and 14, and tbe north half of lot 15, in block 29, in tbe city of Stillwater, and she resided upon said lot 14, as her homestead; tbe other lots adjoining and being appurtenant to said lot 14, all thereof constituting one property. There is a street in said city of Stillwater known as. “South Broadway,” which extends in a northerly and southerly di
The city, however, did in 1889 and 1890 cause a part of the work to be done in the making .of such improvement. The plaintiff’s premises are situate north of, and not far from, a street in said city known as “Pine Street”; and the city did not at any time make any improvement on that portion of the street known as “South Broadway,” which is situate north of said Pine street, and no part of said South Broadway so situate has in any manner been graded by said defendant, although it was included in the general undertaking of said city to grade and make such improvement, as hereinbefore stated, for which improvement so to be made she paid her money. Possibly she has a cause of action against the city for its neglect and refusal to make the contemplated improvement, and, conceding this to be so, yet the judgment must be reversed because of the erroneous measure of damages adopted by the trial court, in allowing her the total sum paid by her as benefits.
Tf the law expressly provided that the assessment for the contemplated improvement should be assessed exclusively upon property fronting on the improvement, and she had paid her assessment accordingly, and the city had neglected or refused to grade and im
It nowhere appears what it would cost to grade the street in front of the plaintiff’s property, — whether one dollar, or the total amount which she paid. Suppose it would actually cost one-half, or any sum less than the sum assessed against her property and paid by her, to grade the street according to the plan and general undertaking; could she recover back the difference between such actual cost and the sum assessed against her property, as the amount the property
Judgment reversed.