Case ID: ny_19/html/0116-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Johnson, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Brewster et al v. City of Syracuse, Ley et al.
    
    The title of a private act sufficiently expresses its subject within art. 3, § 16, of the Constitution, by the words “An act for the relief of J. L.” It need not indicate the steps by which such relief is to be effected, e. g., the assessment and collection of a tax by a municipal corporation.
    The persons assessed to pay for a street sewer in a city, have no relation of contract with the parties constructing it, under an employment by the corporation, though the assent of a majority of the persons to be assessed is a necessary condition to the undertaking of the work.
    The Legislature has the power to authorize the levy of a tax for the purpose of paying to one who has constructed a municipal improvement, an addition to the contract price, which the corporation was forbidden to pay, by its charter.
    Appeal from the Supreme Court. The question came up on demurrer. The complaint made this case. The plaintiffs are persons assessed to raise $600 for the construction of a sewer in Syracusa The defendants, James Ley and William Ley, had constructed the sewer, under a contract with the city of Syracuse, and had been paid the full price stipulated in the contract. Afterwards, and on the 14th February, 1857, a law was passed (ch. 14 of 1857), entitled “An act for the relief of James Ley & Son,” by which the common council of Syracuse was empowered to assess and collect, in the same manner as the expenses of constructing the sewer were by law authorized to be assessed and collected, the sum of $600, and to pay it over to Ley & Son, for the construction of such sewer, in addition to the contract price. The city was, by its charter, prohibited from paying any compensation above the contract price, and could only do so in virtue of such special act. The prayer was that the act be declared unconstitutional, and for injunction restraining the city and its officers from proceeding, as they were doing, to collect the $600. The defendants demurred, had judgment, dismissing the complaint, which being, on appeal, affirmed at general term in the fifth district, the plaintiffs appealed to this court. The cause was submitted on printed arguments.
    
      William J. Hough, for the appellants.
    
      Sheldon & Brown, for the respondents.
   Johnson, Ch. J.

The first objection made to the constitutionality of the law, the validity of which is involved in the judgment appealed from (Laws 1857, ch. 14), is that it embraces more than one subject, and that its subject is not expressed in its title. The Constitution (art. 8, § 16), provides that no private or local bill, which may be passed by the Legislature, shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in its title. The title of the act is, “ An act for the relief of James Ley & Son.” The substance of the act is that power is conferred on the common council of Syracuse to assess, collect and pay to James Ley & Son, contractors for the construction of a sewer in that city, $600 in addition to the contract price. This constitutes but a single subject. The whole provision is framed to produce a single result, the relief of James Ley & Son. The different steps by which this relief is to be brought about are not distinct subjects, but are minor parts of the one general subject. This general subject is expressed in the title. The degree of particularity with which the title of an act is to express its subject, is not defined in the Constitution, and rests in the discretion of the Legislature. (Sun Mutual Insurance Company v. New York, 4 Seld., 241.) An abstract of the law is not required in the title, and its actual subject is, in this law, clearly and appropriately expressed.

The other objections to the law, founded on the position that it impairs the obligation of the contract under which the sewer was constructed,- and disturbs vested rights, may be disposed of together. There was, in law, no contract between the constructors of the sewer and the persons assessed to pay for it. The sewer was constructed under authority conferred by the Legislature upon the city of Syracuse, and the expense was imposed on that part of the citizens interested in the improvement, by virtue of the discretionary power of the Legislature to impose the public burdens on those who, in its judgment, in justice ought to bear them. The nature of this power was fully examined in The People v. The Mayor of Brooklyn (4 Comst., 419), and it was declared to be a part of the legitimate exercise of the State’s power of taxation, to ascertain, subject to no judicial review, the public burdens to be borne and the persons or classes of persons who were to bear them. It would, therefore, have been within the clear authority of the Legislature, to have authorized the city government of Syracuse, without the consent of any person ' specially interested, .to construct this sewer, and to assess, by way of tax, the expenses on such persons as ought, in the judgment of the Legislature, to bear that burden; and it does not at all follow from the fact that the charter of Syracuse required, as a preliminary to the action of the common council, that the consent of a majority of the property owners to be benefited should first be obtained, that the contract entered into by the city with the constructors of the sewer is to be deemed a contract between the property owners and the constructors. The property owners were not in any sense parties to the contract. Their consent to the building of the sewer, though a necessary condition to the exercise of the power actually conferred by the Legislature on the city government, was not at all necessary to the complete authority of the Legislature over the whole subject. The taxation of the individuals interested in regard to this sewer stands on the same footing as all other taxation by authority of the Legislature.

It is. urged that Ley & Son had no unsatisfied legal claim in respect to the sewer, and that, therefore, the Legislature had no authority to tax, or authorize taxation, for its payment. To this position, the case of The Town of Guilford v. The Supervisors of Chenango County (3 Kern., 143), is an answer. It was there adjudged that the fact that a claim was not such a one as the law recognized as of legal obligation formed no objection to the validity of a law imposing a tax and directing its payment. In that case, the question whether the claim should be paid, had once been, by legislative authority, submitted-to a popular vote, and had been rejected; but even this was held to be no answer to a subsequent law directing its levy by taxation and its payment to the claimant.

It is further suggested, that a provision of a city charter cannot be altered by a law enacted merely with the ordinary forms of legislation. We are not referred "to any provision of the present Constitution from which this consequence is thought to be deducible, nor are we aware of any which affirms or sustains any such general position.

Ho complaint is made that this act has not been passed by such vote as was constitutionally requisite; but the case is rested upon the points, that the title of the act was defective, and that the Legislature did not possess the power to pass the law.

The judgment should be affirmed.

All the judges concurring,

Judgment affirmed.