Case ID: ohio-law-abs_2/html/0228-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ROBINSON, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 245
    No. 18181
    The City of Cleveland et al v. John R. Edwards.
    Error to the Court of Appeals of Cuyahoga County.
    1157. TAXATION — Levying taxes an act of sovereignty — Real estate acquired by a municipality — Reasonable value only, to be paid— Covenant to exempt land, its value, both ultra vires and against public policy.
    Published Only in Ohio Law Abstract
   ROBINSON, J.

1. The levying of a tax, whether general' or special, is an act of sovereignty, which the sovereign may not barter away.

2. A municipality in acquiring real estate for public purposes is not authorized to pay therefor more than its reasonable value. A covenant perpetually exempting real estate, other than acquired, from special assessments for all purposes, is a covenant running with the land, the reasonable value of which is un-ascertainable, and, therefore, affords no criterion whereby the value of the' consideration can be weighed against the reasonable value of the real estate acquired, and for that reason is ultra vires.

3. The exemption of certain real estate from special assessments necessarily results either in increasing the burden upon other real estate specially benefited or in depriving such other real estate of the benefit of needed improvements, thereby causing an unequal distribution of the burdens and benefits of government, and is both ultra vires and against public policy.

Judgment reversed.

Marshall, C. J., Jones, Matthias, Day and Allen, JJ., concur.