Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/181/324/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 05:59:31+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 181 › French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co.
Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269, considered and held not to be inconsistent with these views.
It may prevent confusion and relieve from repetition if we point out that some of our cases arose under the provisions of the Fifth and others under those of the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. While the language of those amendments is the same, yet, as they were engrafted upon the Constitution at different times and in widely different circumstances of our national life, it may be that questions may arise in which different constructions and applications of their provisions may be proper. Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 83 U. S. 77, 83 U. S. 80.
here inquire. We have so often decided that we cannot review and correct the errors and mistakes of the state tribunals on that subject that it is only necessary to refer to those decisions, without a restatement of the argument on which they rest. State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575; Kennard v. Louisiana, 92 U. S. 480; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97; Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U. S. 491; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22; National Bank v. Kimball, 103 U. S. 732."
Citing Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345.
"The publication of a notice of the proposed presentation of the petition is a sufficient notification to those interested in the question, and gives them an opportunity to be heard before the board. Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701; Lent v. Tillson, 140 U. S. 316; Paulsen v. Portland, 149 U. S. 30."
to fix such a district for itself, without any hearing as to benefits, for the purpose of assessing upon the lands within the district the cost of a local, public improvement. The legislature, when it fixes the district itself, is supposed to have made proper inquiry, and to have finally and conclusively determined the fact of benefits to the land included in the district, and the citizen has no constitutional right to any other or further hearing upon that question. The right which he thereafter has is to a hearing upon the question of what is termed the apportionment of the tax -- i.e., the amount of the tax which he is to pay. Paulsen v. Portland, 149 U. S. 30. But when, as in this case, the determination of the question of what lands shall be included in the district is only to be decided after a decision as to what lands described in the petition will be benefited, and the decision of that question is submitted to some tribunal (the board of supervisors in this case), the parties whose lands are thus included in the petition are entitled to a hearing upon the question of benefits, and to have the lands excluded if the judgment of the board be against their being benefited."
"Unless the legislature decide the question of benefits itself, the landowner has the right to be heard upon that question before his property can be taken. This, in substance, was determined by the decisions of this Court in Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 356, and Walston v. Nevin, 128 U. S. 578."
This subject has been recently considered by this Court in the case of Parsons v. District of Columbia, 170 U. S. 45, and where it was held, after a review of the authorities, that the enactment by Congress that assessments levied for laying water mains in the District of Columbia should be at the rate of $1.25 per linear foot front against all lots or land abutting on the street, road, or alley in which a water main shall be laid, was constitutional, and was conclusive alike of the necessity of the work and of its benefit as against abutting property.
This array of authority was confronted, in the courts below with the decision of this Court in the case of Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269, which was claimed to overrule our previous cases and to establish the principle that the cost of a local improvement cannot be assessed against abutting property according to frontage unless the law under which the improvement is made provides for a preliminary hearing as to the benefits to be derived by the property to be assessed.
That this decision did not go to the extent claimed by the plaintiff in error in this case is evident, because, in the opinion of the majority, it is expressly said that the decision was not inconsistent with our decisions in Parsons v. District of Columbia, 170 U. S. 45, 170 U. S. 56, and in Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345, 125 U. S. 357.
"When it shall be proposed to pave, repave, block, reblock, gravel, regravel, macadamize, or remacadamize any street, alley, avenue, public highway, or part thereof, and pay therefor in special tax bills, if the common council shall, by ordinance, find and declare that the resolution provided in section 2 of this article has been published as therein required, and that the resident owners of the city who own a majority in front feet of all the lands belonging to such residents fronting on the street, alley, avenue, public highway, or part thereof to be improved have not filed with the city clerk a remonstrance against the doing of such work or a petition for the making of such improvement with a different kind of material or in a different manner from that specified in such resolution, or that such petition was filed for the doing of the work as mentioned in said ordinance, such finding and declaration shall be conclusive for all purposes, and no special tax bill shall be held invalid or affected for the reason that such resolution was not published as therein required, or that a remonstrance or petition sufficiently signed was filed as therein required, or that such petition was not filed or was insufficiently signed."
"Undoubtedly abutting owners may be subjected to special assessments to meet the expenses of opening public highways in front of their property -- such assessments, according to well established principles, resting upon the ground that special burdens may be imposed for special or peculiar benefits accruing from public improvements. Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, 102 U. S. 703-704; Illinois Central Railroad v. Decatur, 147 U. S. 190, 147 U. S. 202; Bauman v. Ross, 167 U. S. 548, 167 U. S. 589, and authorities there cited. And, according to the weight of judicial authority, the legislature has a large discretion in defining the territory to be deemed specially benefited by a public improvement and which may be subjected to special assessment to meet the cost of such improvements. In Williams v. Eggleston, 170 U. S. 304, 170 U. S. 311, where the only question, as this Court stated, was as to the power of the legislature to cast the burden of a public improvement upon certain towns which had been judicially determined to be towns benefited by such improvement, it was said:"
Among the cases cited in support of the conclusions announced by the majority are: Mattingly v. District of Columbia, 97 U. S. 687, 97 U. S. 692; Kelly v. Pittsburgh, 104 U. S. 78; Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345; Paulsen v. Portland, 149 U. S. 30, 149 U. S. 40; Bauman v. Ross, 167 U. S. 548, and Parsons v. District of Columbia, 170 U. S. 45.
"that the statute of 1881 was unconstitutional and void because it was an attempt by the legislature to validate a void assessment without giving the owners of the lands assessed an opportunity to be heard upon the whole amount of the assessment."
"Another complaint urged is that the assessment exceeded the actual cost of the work, and this is supposed to be shown by the fact that the expense of putting down this particular main was less than the amount raised by the assessment. But this objection overlooks the fact that the laying of this main was part of the water system, and that the assessment prescribed was not merely to put down the pipes, but to raise a fund to keep the system in efficient repair. The moneys raised beyond the expense of laying the pipe are not paid into the general treasury of the District, but are set aside to maintain and repair the system."
"It is generally agreed that an assessment levied without regard to actual or probable benefits is unlawful as constituting an attempt to appropriate private property to public use."
the benefit; it is a plain case of appropriating private property to public uses without compensation."
"Whether it is competent for the legislature to declare that no part of the expense of a local improvement of a public nature shall be borne by a general tax, and that the whole of it shall be assessed upon the abutting property and other property in the vicinity of the improvements, thus for itself conclusively determining not only that such property is specially benefited, but that it is thus benefited to the extent of the cost of the improvement, and then to provide for the apportionment of the amount by an estimate to be made by designated boards or officers, or by frontage or superficial area, is a question upon which the courts are not agreed. Almost all of the earlier cases asserted that the legislative discretion in the apportionment of public burdens extended this far, and such legislation is still upheld in most of the states. But since the period when express provisions have been made in many of the state constitutions requiring uniformity and equality of taxation, several courts of great respectability, either by force of this requirement or in the spirit of it, and perceiving that special benefits actually received by each parcel of contributing property was the only principle upon which such assessments can justly rest, and that any other rule is unequal, oppressive, and arbitrary, have denied the unlimited scope of legislative discretion and power, and asserted what must upon principle be regarded as the just and reasonable doctrine, that the cost of a local improvement can be assessed upon particular property only to the extent that it is specially and peculiarly benefited, and since the excess beyond that is a benefit to the municipality at large, it must be borne by the general treasury."

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