139 Ark. 524 | Ark. | 1919
This case involves an attack on the validity of act No. 82 of the General Assembly of 1919, which was approved February 14, 1919. Section 1 of the statute, which declares its pupose, reads as follows :
“The purpose of this act is to secure the construction of a highway running from the city of-North Little Rock, Arkansas, through the counties of Pulaski, Lonoke, White, Jackson, and connection with the Alicia and Walnut Ridge Highway on the Lawrence County line at or near Alicia, thereby giving a through route to the Missouri line, over the Alicia and Walnut Ridge Highway to Walnut Ridge, thence over highway of Road Improvement District Number Two of Lawrence County to Randolph County line, thence over highway of Road Improvement District Number Three of Randolph County to Pocahontas, thence over highway of Pocahontas and Donathan to Missouri. To that end, there are hereby organized four improvement districts: One for Pulaski County, one for Lonoke County, one for White County and one for Jackson County. Said districts shall be entitled respectively, the Arkansas and Missouri Highway District in Pulaski County, the Arkansas and Missouri Highway District in Lonoke County, the Arkansas and Missouri Highway District in White County and the Arkansas and Missouri Highway District in Jackson County. Each of said districts shall be corporate bodies, with the right to sue and be sued, to have a corporate seal and to perform all the functions granted to them by this act. The limits of each district shall embrace all quarter sections of land, any portion of which is within five miles of the route as selected by the commissioners, whether the same be laid off in town or city lots or not. ’ ’
Other sections name the commissioners for each of the districts and provide for the construction of the improvement, the issuance of bonds and the assessment of benefits. The other provisions of the statute involved in the attack made in this case on its validity will be referred to later in the discussion.
It appears from the section copied above that the lawmakers intended in this single statute to create four separate road improvement districts in different counties with no relation to each other except an effort to attain uniformity in the route of the combined roads to be construeted under the provisions of the statute. Section 4 authorizes the commissioners of the respective districts, in connection with 'the State Highway Department to “proceed to select a highway across their respective counties and joining with the highway selected by the commissioners of the adjacent counties,” but that if “the commissioners of any two districts are unable to agree upon a meeting point of the respective highways, the State Highway Engineer shall fix the meeting point.” That section further provides that when the route may be selected the county court shall proceed to lay out the public roads pursuant to the general statutes on that subject.
Appellee owns lands in Jackson County within the limits of the district as laid out, and he instituted this action in the chancery court of Jackson County to restrain the commissioners of the Jackson County district from proceeding under the terms of the act to assess benefits and levy taxes thereon. Some of the attacks relate to the validity of the whole statute, and others are directed to the question of the validity of only that part of the statute which creates the Jackson County District.
We are of the opinon, however, that neither section 27 of Act No. 82, or Act No. 128 abolishing White County District created by Act No. 82, renders the former statute invalid so far as it creates the districts for the improvement of the roads in the other threé counties. The effect of act No. 82 as originally enacted was, as before stated, to provide for the construction of a road along a continuous route, but the lawmakers saw fit to express in section 27 the condition that the construction of the road in only one of the counties should be dependent upon the will of a majority of the land owners. An intention is clear that the force and validity of the statute with respect to the construction of the roads in the other counties should not depend upon the construction of the road in White County. There is a clearly expressed legislative purpose to build each of the roads, and a condition is attached to the construction of only one of them, which does not affect either one way or the other the force of the other parts of the statute creating the districts in Jackson, Lonoke and Pulaski counties. The new statute (act No. 128) does not affect the validity or force of any part of the old statute, except that part which relates to White County. It leaves the remainder of the statute in force.
The chancellor also decided that the statute was void because the limitation upon the assessment of benefits contained in section 22 “is unjust and inequitable, and not equal and uniform, as required by the Constitution of the State.” Section 22, as amended by the subsequently enacted statute approved March 13, 1919, reads as follows :
‘ ‘ The total assessed benefits shall not be collected in less than twenty years and one-twentieth of said assessed benefits shall not exceed an average of ten cents per acre per annum on the rural property nor an average of thirty cents per annum per lot of the dimensions of 50x140 feet on the property in cities of the first class and proportionately for larger or smaller lots or tracts of land, and an average of one-half that amount on lots or tracts of land in incorporated towns or cities of the second class. Provided this section shall not apply to any lands or cities located in the district known as ‘ Arkansas-Missouri Highway District in Jackson County.’ ”
We do not stop to consider what effect, if any, the enactment of this statute has upon the creation under the general statutes of Road Improvement District No. 2 of Jackson County, but we are called upon merely to consider the effect of the action of the commissioners of the Arkansas and Missouri Highway District in Jackson County in selecting a route through that county along which a road is being constructed by another public agency. It will be observed that section 1 of act No. 82 authorizes the commissioners of the district in each county to select the route, and that it declares that all lands situated within five miles of the route as selected shall be embraced within the district. Note in this connection that the boundaries run from the route selected, not necessarily the road actually constructed. The commissioners have selected the route along which the road from Newport to Tuckerman is proposed to be constructed through another agency, but the route remains as selected, and the boundaries embrace all lands within five miles of the route selected. The fact that the plans adopted by the commissioners do not contemplate a construction of the road along part of the route does not affect the boundaries of the district. It may affect very materially the question of the assessment of benefits, but that is a matter with which we are not concerned in determining the validity of the statute.
We do not know judicially the extent to which the lands within the five-mile limit along the route between Newport and Tuclcerman may be affected beneficially by the construction of the other portions of the road in addition to that portion of it which is to be constructed through another agency. Nor do we know judicially the boundaries of Road Improvement District No. 2. There may be such a thing legally as the overlapping of the boundaries of separate improvement districts if substantial benefits are derived from each district. Cumnock v. Alexander, ante p. 153. Those matters are taken into consideration merely in ascertaining benefits, and, as before stated, do not affect the validity of the creation of the district unless the fixing of boundaries of different districts is shown to be arbitrary and demonstrably erroneous.
These are the only points of attack made in the pleadings and briefs of counsel, and we do not enter upon consideration of any other phases of the statute. The conclusion reached is that the attack is not well founded, and that the chancery court was in error in declaring the statute to be void.
The decree is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with, this opinion.