Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/239/207/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 11:02:31+00:00

Document:
The Fourteenth Amendment does not interfere with the discretionary power of the states to raise necessary revenues by imposing taxes and assessments within their jurisdiction; nor are general taxing systems to be presumed to be lacking in due process of law because of inequalities or objections so long as arbitrary action is avoided.
A state may, without violating the Fourteenth Amendment, exercise its authority to assess property on account of special benefit resulting from an improvement already made.
An assessment for improvements already made and paid for is not an unconstitutional deprivation of property without due process of law because the amount when paid is to be used for other public purposes to which public funds are properly applicable.
according to area of the property, notice and hearing a to amount and extent of benefits are not required in the absence of abuse of power, in order to render such legislative action due process of law within the meaning of the federal Constitution. Spencer v.Merchant, 125 U. S. 345.
While constitutional protection against deprivation of property without due process of law is available to persons deprived of private rights by arbitrary state action, whether by legislative authority or otherwise, no such deprivation exists where, as in this case, there is no proof of disproportion between the assessment made and the benefit conferred showing arbitrary legislative action.
The Maryland Statutes of 1906 and 1908 providing for imposition of a special tax on property in Baltimore at a specified rate per square foot for a specified number of years for paving the streets of that city held not to be arbitrary and unconstitutional as depriving the owners of their property without due process of law.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality of a statute of Maryland and a tax levy thereunder on property in Baltimore for improving the paving of streets in that city, are stated in the opinion.
of ordinary macadam, and to include granite or Belgian blocks, vitrified brick or blocks, wood blocks, asphalt or concrete blocks, sheet asphalt, bitulithic bituminous macadam and bituminous concrete. Section 4 specifies the amount of the special tax to be as follows: on all property embraced in Class A, 15 cents per year per front foot or lineal foot adjoining or abutting upon the public highway; on all property embraced in Class B, 10 cents per year per front foot or lineal foot adjoining or abutting upon the public highway, and on all property embraced in Class C, 5 cents per year per front foot or lineal foot adjoining or abutting upon the public highway.
The bill recites that, under and by virtue of that act, Chapter 688 of the Acts of 1912, the General Assembly has attempted to levy and impose upon the property of the plaintiff and other property owners similarly situated taxes under the three classes mentioned, and that the Appeal Tax Court of Baltimore is proceeding now to list and classify for taxes the property so attempted to be levied upon by said act, and has classified said property of the plaintiff, designating it as belonging to Class A. The bill then sets forth various grounds upon which it is claimed the act is illegal, the one with which this Court is concerned being that it is in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
by the Court of Appeals in the case of Bond v. Baltimore, 118 Md. 159, and that the object and purpose of the Act of 1912 was to raise an additional fund of $5,000,000, to complete the plan adopted by the city for improved pavements throughout the city, and that this is to be done by a special paving tax upon property in the city specially benefited by improved paving as provided in the act.
Court has frequently affirmed that the general taxing systems of the state are not to be presumed lacking in due process of law because of inequalities or objections, so long as arbitrary action is avoided. It is not the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment to interfere with the discretionary power of the states to raise necessary revenues by imposing taxes and assessments upon property within their jurisdictions.
be a new assessment. Whatever the legislature could authorize if it were ordering an assessment for the first time it equally could authorize notwithstanding a previous invalid attempt to assess. The previous attempt left the city free"
"to take such steps as were within its power to take, either under existing statutes or under any authority that might thereafter be conferred upon it, to make a new assessment upon the plaintiff's abutting property"
The doctrine established by this case is that a subsequent assessment may be levied because of benefits conferred by the former action of the city in improving in front of the lots assessed. As said in the Kelleher case, "the benefit was there on the ground at the city expense." So far as any federal constitutional requirement is concerned, the state might exercise its authority to assess because of this special benefit, although that assessment was deferred for some time after the work was done at the public expense. And these considerations suggest the answer to another objection made in this connection -- that it is proposed to use the assessments for paving other streets within the city. It is true that the assessments are to go into the general fund provided for such general use. But we are unable to see how the constitutional rights of the complainant are violated, so long as there was as to it a benefit formerly conferred, and still existing, which the property had derived at the public expense. The fact that the city was authorized to use the assessment in creating a public fund, in aid of its scheme to pave other streets of the city, was a public purpose, and a legitimate one, for which funds of the city might be used.
"In the absence of any more specific constitutional restriction than the general prohibition against taking property without due process of law, the legislature of the state, having the power to fix the sum necessary to be levied for the expense of a public improvement, and to order it to be assessed, either like other taxes, upon property generally, or only upon the lands benefited by the improvement, is authorized to determine both the amount of the whole tax and the class of lands which will receive the benefit and should therefore bear the burden, although it may, if it sees fit, commit the ascertainment of either or both of these facts to the judgment of commissioners."
This case has been followed and approved in subsequent decisions in this Court. Parsons v. District of Columbia, 170 U. S. 45, 170 U. S. 50, 170 U. S. 56; French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 181 U. S. 324, 181 U. S. 343. In the latter case, the former cases in this Court were reviewed at length, and Spencer v.
Merchant quoted with approval; Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269, was commented upon and distinguished. French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co. supra, was followed and approved in a series of cases in the same volume: Wight v. Davidson, 181 U. S. 371; Tonawanda v. Lyon, 181 U. S. 389; Webster v. Fargo, 181 U. S. 394; Cass Farm Co. v. Detroit, 181 U. S. 396; Detroit v. Parker, 181 U. S. 399; Wormley v. District of Columbia, 181 U. S. 402; Shumate v. Heman, 181 U. S. 402; Farrell v. West Chicago Park, 181 U. S. 404. French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co. supra, was referred to with approval in Hibben v. Smith, 191 U. S. 310, 191 U. S. 326. See also Louis. & Nash. R. Co. v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 197 U. S. 430; Martin v. District of Columbia, 205 U. S. 135.
Norwood v. Baker, supra, is much relied upon by the plaintiff in error, and while this Court has shown no disposition to overrule that case when limited to the decision actually made by the Court, much that is said in it must be read in connection with the subsequent cases in this Court already referred to. In Norwood v. Baker, a portion of a person's property located in a village of Ohio was condemned for street purposes, and the entire cost of opening the street, including the amount paid for the strip condemned, with the costs and expenses of condemnation, was assessed upon the abutting property owner whose land was condemned. This, it was said in French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co. supra, was an abuse of the law and an act of confiscation, and not a valid exercise of the taxing power. Taking the decisions in this Court together, we think that it results that the legislature of a state may determine the amount to be assessed for a given improvement, and designate the lands and property benefited thereby, upon which the assessment is to be made, without first giving an opportunity to the owners of the property to be assessed to be heard upon the amount of the assessment or the extent of the benefit conferred.
not be cases of such flagrant abuse of legislative power as would warrant the intervention of a court of equity to protect the constitutional rights of landowners because of arbitrary and wholly unwarranted legislative action. The constitutional protection against deprivation of property without due process of law would certainly be available to persons arbitrarily deprived of their private rights by such state action, whether under the guise of legislative authority or otherwise. But, in the present case, there is neither allegation nor proof of such disproportion between the assessment made and the benefit conferred as to suggest that the small tax levied upon this property would amount to an arbitrary exercise of the legislative power upon the subject. There can be no question that paving with brick in front of the property of the complainant conferred a substantial benefit, and gave authority for the subsequent legislation which, because of that benefit, original and continuing, warranted an assessment upon the property owner for a confessedly public purpose -- the improvement of the streets of the city.

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