Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/96/97.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 23:15:34+00:00

Document:
and set aside the entire assessment, with leave to the plaintiffs to present a new tableau.
The legislation of Lquisiana, under which the judgment below was rendered, deprives the plaintiff in error of her property without due process of law. The jurisdiction of this court is, therefore, established. Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 244; Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 ; Munn v. Illinois, 94 id. 113; People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 44; Cooley, Taxation, 486, 487.
The assessment was made before any work had been done. [96 U.S. 97, 99] The only ground, however, on which special assessments are imposed is that the property assessed is benefited. Wright v. Boston, 9 Cush. 232, 241; Schinly v. Commonwealth, 30 Pa. 29, 57; Sharp v. Speir, 4 Hill, 82; Matter of Opening Streets, 20 La. Ann. 497; Reeves v. Treasurer Wood County, 8 Ohio St. 338.
1. It is said that the legislature had no right to organize a [96 U.S. 97, 100] private corporation to do the work, and, by statute, to fix the price at which the work should be done.
The section was the subject of very full and mature consideration in Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36. In those cases, an act of the Louisiana legislature, which had granted to a corporation created for the purpose the exclusive right to erect and maintain a building for the slaughter of live animals within the city, was assailed as being in conflict with this section. The right of the State to use a private corporation and confer upon it the necessary powers to carry into effect sanitary regulations [96 U.S. 97, 101] was affirmed, and the decision is applicable to a similar objection in the case now before us. The argument of counsel and the opinion of the court in those cases were mainly directed to that part of the section which related to the privileges and immunities of citizens; and, as the court said in the opinion, the argument was not much pressed, that the statute deprived the butchers of their property without due process of law. The court held that the provision was inapplicable to the case.
It must be confessed, however, that the constitutional meaning or value of the phrase 'due process of law,' remains to-day without that satisfactory precision of definition which judicial decisions have given to nearly all the other guarantees of personal [96 U.S. 97, 102] rights found in the constitutions of the several States and of the United States.
It is not a little remarkable, that while this provision has been in the Constitution of the United States, as a restraint upon the authority of the Federal government, for nearly a century, and while, during all that time, the manner in which the powers of that government have been exercised has been watched with jealousy, and subjected to the most rigid criticism in all its branches, this special limitation upon its powers has rarely been invoked [96 U.S. 97, 104] in the judicial forum or the more enlarged theatre of public discussion. But while it has been a part of the Constitution, as a restraint upon the power of the States, only a very few years, the docket of this court is crowded with cases in which we are asked to hold that State courts and State legislatures have deprived their own citizens of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. There is here abundant evidence that there exists some strange misconception of the scope of this provision as found in the fourteenth amendment. In fact, it would seem, from the character of many of the cases before us, and the arguments made in them, that the clause under consideration is looked upon as a means of bringing to the test of the decision of this court the abstract opinions of every unsuccessful litigant in a State court of the justice of the decision against him, and of the merits of the legislation on which such a decision may be founded. If, therefore, it were possible to define what it is for a State to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, in terms which would cover every exercise of power thus forbidden to the State, and exclude those which are not, no more useful construction could be furnished by this or any other court to any part of the fundamental law.
That whenever by the laws of a State, or by State authority, a tax, assessment, servitude, or other burden is imposed upon property for the public use, whether it be for the whole [96 U.S. 97, 105] State or of some more limited portion of the community, and those laws provide for a mode of confirming or contesting the charge thus imposed, in the ordinary courts of justice, with such notice to the person, or such proceeding in regard to the property as is appropriate to the nature of the case, the judgment in such proceedings cannot be said to deprive the owner of his property without due process of law, however obnoxious it may be to other objections.
It may violate some provision of the State Constitution against unequal taxation; but the Federal Constitution imposes no restraints on the States in that regard. If private property be taken for public uses without just compensation, it must be remembered that, when the fourteenth amendment was adopted, the provision on that subject, in immediate juxtaposition in the fifth amendment with the one we are construing, was left out, and this was taken. It may possibly violate some of those principles of general constitutional law, of which we could take jurisdiction if we were sitting in review of a Circuit Court of the United States, as we were in Loan Association v. Topeka (20 Wall. 655). But however this may be, or under whatever other clause of the Federal Constitution we may review the case, it is not possible to hold that a party has, without due process of law, been deprived of his property, when, as regards the issues affecting it, he has, by the laws of the State, a fair trial in a court of justice, according to the modes of proceeding applicable to such a case. This was clearly stated by this court, speaking by the Chief Justice, in Kennard v. Morgan ( 92 U.S. 480 ), and in substance, repeated at the present term, in McMillan v. Anderson (95 id: 37).
This proposition covers the present case. Before the assessment could be collected, or become effectual, the statute required that the tableau of assessments should be filed in the proper District Court of the State; that personal service of notice, with reasonable time to object, should be served on all owners who were known and within reach of process, and due advertisement made as to those who were unknown, or could not be found. This was complied with; and the party complaining here appeared, and had a full and fair hearing in the court of the first instance, and afterwards in the Supreme Court. If this be not [96 U.S. 97, 106] due process of law, then the words can have no definite meaning as used in the Constitution.
And lastly, and most strongly, it is urged that the court rendered a personal judgment against the owner for the amount of the tax, while it also made it a charge upon the land. It is urged with force,-and some highly respectable authorities are cited to support the proposition,-that while for such improvements as this a part, or even the whole, of a man's property connected with the improvement may be taken, no personal liability can be imposed on him in regard to it. If this were a proposition coming before us sitting in a State court, or, perhaps, in a circuit court of the United States, we might be called upon to decide it; but we are unable to see that any of the provisions of the Federal Constitution authorizes us to reverse the judgment of a State court on that question. It is not one which is involved in the phrase 'due process of law,' and none other is called to our attention in the present case.
It seems to me that private property may be taken by a State without due process of law in other ways than by mere direct enactment, or the want of a judicial proceeding. If a State, by a its laws, should authorize private property to be taken for public use without compensation (except to prevent its falling into the hands of an enemy, or to prevent the spread of a conflagration, or, in virtue of some other imminent necessity, where the property itself is the cause of the public detriment), I think it would be depriving a man of his property without due process of law. The exceptions noted imply that the nature and cause of the taking are proper to be considered. The distress-warrant issued in the case of Murray's Lessee et al. v. Hoboken Land and Improvement Co. (18 How. 272) was sustained, because it was in consonance with the usage of the English government and our State governments in collecting balances due from public accountants, and hence was 'due process of law.' But the court in that case expressly holds that 'it is manifest that it was not left to the legislative power to enact any process which might be devised. The article is a restraint on the legislative, as well as on the executive and judicial, power of the government, and cannot be so construed as to leave Congress free to make any process 'due process of law' by its mere will.' p. 276. I think, therefore, we are entitled, under the fourteenth amendment, not only to see that there is some process of law, but 'due process of law,' provided by the State law when a citizen is deprived of his property; and that, in judging what is 'due process of law,' respect must be had to the cause and object of the taking, whether under the taxing power, the power of eminent domain, or the power of assessment for local improvements, or none of these: and if found to be suitable or admissible in the special case, it will be adjudged to be 'due process of law;' but if found to be arbitrary, oppressive, and unjust, it may be declared to be not 'due process of law.' Such an examination may be made without interfering with that large discretion [96 U.S. 97, 108] which every legislative power has of making wide modifications in the forms of procedure in each case, according as the laws, habits, customs, and preferences of the people of the particular State may require.

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