Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/125/345/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 16:32:54+00:00

Document:
A judgment of the highest court of a state sustaining the validity of an assessment upon lands under a statute of the state which was alleged to be unconstitutional and void because it afforded to the owners no opportunity to be heard upon the whole amount of the assessment, involves a decision against a right claimed under the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the taking of property without due process of law, and may be reviewed by this Court on writ of error, although the constitution of the state contains a similar provision and no constitutional provision is specifically mentioned in the record of the state court.
the whole amount of the tax, and what lands which might be so benefited are in fact benefited, and provides for notice to and hearing of each owner at some stage of the proceedings upon the question what proportion of the tax shall be assessed upon his land, there is no taking of his property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Pursuant to an act of the Legislature of New York, the expense of grading a street was assessed by commissioners upon the lands lying within three hundred feet on either side of the street and which would, in the judgment of commissioners, be benefited. After the sums so assessed upon some lots had been paid, the Court of Appeals of the state adjudged the assessment to be void because the act made no provision for notice to or hearing of the landowners. The legislature then passed another act directing a sum equal to so much of the first assessment as had not been paid, adding a proportional part of the expenses of making that assessment, and interest since, to be assessed upon and equitably apportioned among the lots the former assessment on which had not been paid, first giving notice to all parties interested to appear and be heard upon the question of the apportionment of this sum among these lots, but not as to any apportionment between them and those lots, the former assessments upon which had been paid. Held that an assessment laid under the latter statute was not a taking of property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
"at least twenty days before meeting for that purpose, of their intention to proceed to make the award and assessment required by this act, and of the time when and the place where they will meet for that purpose at which meeting all persons interested may appear and be heard in relation to the said award and assessment,"
award damages to the owners of those lands and assess the amount of the award and the attendant expenses upon the lands lying within three hundred feet on either side of the avenue which in their judgment should be benefited by opening and extending it, and report such award and assessment to the court for confirmation after public notice that all persons having any objection to it might be heard before the court, and that upon its confirmation, the amount of the assessment should be added by the county supervisors to and made part of, the annual taxes for three years, one-third each year, with interest on the portions unpaid, and when collected, be paid over to the owners of the lands taken.
"upon the lands and premises which, in their judgment, shall be benefited by such improvement, in proportion to the benefit accruing to them by reason thereof, the district of assessment to extend back as provided heretofore in this act,"
should be added to and made a part of the annual taxes for the ensuing year upon the lands assessed, and, when collected, be applied to the payment of bonds issued under that statute.
The commissioners were appointed, laid out the street, and regulated, graded, and prepared it for travel, and made the award and assessments as directed by the statutes aforesaid. The assessment made under § 4 for the expense of regulating, grading, and preparing the street for travel amounted to more than $100,000. The sums so assessed upon some lots were paid, but the sums assessed upon other lots remained unpaid, the owners of these lots contesting the validity of the assessment. The principal amount of the unpaid part of that assessment, being $40,664.96, was returned for five years as uncollected by the Treasurer of Kings County to the comptroller of the state and, together with interest thereon at the yearly rate of five percent and amounting to $8,293.33, was paid or credited in account by the state to the Treasurer of Kings County. On June 18, 1878, the Court of Appeals declared that assessment void. Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N.Y. 183. On January 29, 1879, the comptroller of the state cancelled the unpaid assessment and charged the county with the amount thereof, being $40,664.96, together with the interest thereon to February 1, 1879, amounting to $8,293.33.
at six percentum per annum, from February 1st, 1879, to the date of such levy. Before proceeding to levy such sums, the said board shall apportion the same among the several parcels of land hereinbefore mentioned, and said board shall give ten days' notice of the time and place when they will meet to make such apportionment, which notice shall be published daily in a newspaper published in the County of Kings, and all parties interested in said lands shall be entitled to be heard before said board upon the question of said apportionment."
The statute of 1881 further provided that the sums so levied should be collected by the Collector of Taxes of the Town of New Lots and paid over to the county treasurer, and by him applied "to pay the amount so due the New York by reason of such cancellation.'"
Under and pursuant to this statute, the Supervisors of Kings County added to the aforesaid sums of $40,664.96, being the unpaid balance of the previous assessment, and $8,293.83, being the interest thereon to February 1, 1879; further interest thereon at the yearly rate of six percent from that date to November 3, 1881, the day of the final conclusion of their report, and assessed and levied the aggregate sum of $55,653.52 upon the plaintiff's and other lots.
The lots so assessed were isolated parcels, not contiguous, and many of them not fronting on the avenue. Most of the territory benefited as fixed by the statute of 18$9, and a great portion of the original assessment, were not included in the statute of 1881 nor directed to be taken into consideration in making the new assessment. But this assessment included a proportionate part of the expenses of the former assessment, which had been declared void by the Court of Appeals.
of 1881, c. 689, is unconstitutional, and therefore void for the reason that it is an attempt made by the legislature of this state to validate a void assessment, and to do the same without giving the propertyholders an opportunity to be heard as to the total amount of the assessment, only providing for a hearing on the apportionment, which was levied upon said premises under and pursuant to c. 217 of the laws of 1869, as amended by c. 619 of the laws of 1870, and that the statute of 1881 is clearly void for the further reasons that the defect in the former assessment was jurisdictional, and it has been so declared and decided by the Court of Appeals in the case of Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N.Y. 183, and is special and invidious and unjustly and illegally apportioned upon certain individuals without reference to a uniform standard, and is an arbitrary exaction, and is levied on an individual or individuals to the exclusion of others in the same district. The defendant doubts the said claim of the plaintiff. The question submitted to the Court upon this case is as follows:"
"Is the assessment levied on the property in 1881 in question a good and valid lien or cloud on said property?"
"If this question is answered in the affirmative, then judgment is to be rendered in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff, requiring the plaintiff to pay said assessment to deliver a deed according to contract."
"If it be answered in the negative, then judgment is to be rendered in favor of the plaintiff, requiring the defendant to take title to said premises in accordance with the contract above mentioned, without the plaintiff's paying said assessment or tax and without deducting the same out of the consideration money."
said statute and the proceedings thereunder were in violation of the Constitution of the United States and were void for the reason that they deprived the said plaintiff and the other persons assessed thereunder of their property without due process of law."
The original assessment of the expenses of regulating, grading, and preparing the street for travel was laid by commissioners, as directed by § 4 of the statute of 1869, upon all the lands lying within three hundred feet on either side of the street and which, in the judgment of the commissioners, would be benefited by the improvement. After the sums so assessed upon some lots had been paid, the Court of Appeals of the state declared that assessment void because the statute (although it made ample provision for notice of and hearing upon the previous assessment for laying out the street under § 3) provided no means by which the landowners might have any notice or opportunity to be heard in regard to the assessment for regulating, grading, and preparing the street for travel under § 4. Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N.Y. 183. The lots the sums assessed upon which had not been paid were isolated parcels, not contiguous, and some of them not fronting upon the street. By the statute of 1881, a sum equal to so much of the original assessment as remained unpaid, adding a proportional part of the expenses of making that assessment, and interest since, was ordered by the legislature to be levied and equitably apportioned by the supervisors of the county upon and among these lots, after public notice to all parties interested to appear and be heard upon the question of such apportionment, and that sum was levied and assessed accordingly upon these lots, one of which was owned by the plaintiff.
The question submitted to the supreme court of the state was whether this assessment on the plaintiff's lot was valid. He contended 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. He thus directly, and in apt words, presented the question whether he had been unconstitutionally deprived of his property without due process of law in violation of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as of article 1, sec. 7, of the Constitution of New York, and no specific mention of either constitutional provision was necessary in order to entitle him to a decision of the question by any court having jurisdiction to determine it. The adverse judgment of the supreme court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the state, necessarily involved a decision against a right claimed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which this Court has jurisdiction to review. Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Co., 1 Wall. 116, 68 U. S. 142; Murray v. Charleston, 96 U. S. 432, 96 U. S. 442; Furman v. Nichol, 8 Wall. 44, 75 U. S. 56; Chicago Life Ins. Co. v. Needles, 113 U. S. 574, 113 U. S. 579.
never been passed, but the improvement of Atlantic Avenue had been ordered, the legislature might have imposed one part or proportion of the cost upon one designated district and the balance upon another. Practically just that was done in this case. In In re Van Antwerp, 56 N.Y. 261, an assessment for a street improvement had been declared void by reason of failure to procure necessary consents of property owners. The legislature made a reassessment, imposing two-thirds of the expense upon a benefited district and one-third upon the city at large. The act was held valid as a new assessment, and not an effort to validate a void one."
criticize the reasons or manner of its action. The landowners were given a hearing, and so there was no constitutional objection in that respect. Nor was that hearing illusory. It opened to the landowner an opportunity to assail the constitutional validity of the act under which alone an apportionment could be made, and that objection failing, it opened the only other possible questions of the mode and amounts of the apportionment itself. We think the act was constitutional."
The general principles upon which that judgment rests have been affirmed by the decisions of this Court.
"The judicial department cannot prescribe to the legislative department limitations upon the exercise of its acknowledged powers. The power to tax may be exercised oppressively upon persons, but the responsibility of the legislature is not to the courts, but to the people, by whom its members are elected."
Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 75 U. S. 548; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 17 U. S. 428; Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514, 29 U. S. 563. See also Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U. S. 491, 100 U. S. 497. Whether the estimate of the value of land for the purpose of taxation exceeds its true value this Court, on writ of error to a state court, cannot inquire. Kelly v. Pittsburgh, 104 U. S. 78, 104 U. S. 80.
for notice to and hearing of each proprietor at some stage of the proceedings upon the question what proportion of the tax shall be assessed upon his land, there is no taking of his property without due process of law. McMillen v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 37; Davidson v. New Orleans and Hagar v. Reclamation District, above cited.
In Davidson v. New Orleans, it was held that if the work was one which the state had the authority to do, and to pay for by assessments on the property benefited, objections that the sum raised was exorbitant, and that part of the property assessed was not benefited, presented no question under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution upon which this Court could review the decision of the state court. 96 U. S. 96 U.S. 100, 96 U. S. 106.
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.
When the determination of the lands to be benefited is entrusted to commissioners, the owners may be entitled to notice and hearing upon the question whether their lands are benefited, and how much. But the legislature has the power to determine by the statute imposing the tax what lands which might be benefited by the improvement are in fact benefited, and if it does so, its determination is conclusive upon the owners and the courts, and the owners have no right to be heard upon the question whether their lands are benefited or not, but only upon the validity of the assessment and its apportionment among the different parcels of the class which the legislature has conclusively determined to be benefited.
In determining what lands are benefited by the improvement, the legislature may avail itself of such information as it deems sufficient, either through investigations by its committees or by adopting as its own the estimates or conclusions of others, whether those estimates or conclusions previously had or had not only legal sanction.
In § 4 of the statute of 1869, the assessment under which was held void in Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N.Y. 183, for want of any provision whatever for notice or hearing, the authority to determine what lands, lying within three hundred feet on either side of the street, were actually benefited was delegated to commissioners. But in the statute of 1881, the legislature itself determined what lands were benefited and should be assessed. By this statute, the legislature in substance and effect assumed that all the lands within the district defined in the statute of 1869 were benefited in a sum equal to the amount of the original assessment, the expense of levying it, and interest thereon, and determined that the lots upon which no part of that assessment had been paid, and which had therefore as yet borne no share of the burden, were benefited to the extent of a certain portion of this sum. That these lots as a whole had been benefited to this extent was conclusively settled by the legislature. The statute of 1881 afforded to the owners notice and hearing upon the question of the equitable apportionment among them of the sum directed to be levied upon all of them, and thus enabled them to contest the constitutionality of the statute, and that was all the notice and hearing to which they were entitled.
of the original assessment a credit for the sum so paid by him, with interest from the time of payment.
MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
I am unable to agree with the judgment of the Court in this case, and will state very briefly the ground of my dissent.
"I am of opinion that the Constitution sanctions no law imposing such an assessment without a notice to, and a hearing, or an opportunity of hearing, by the owners of the property to be assessed. It is not enough that the owners may by chance have notice, or that they may, as a matter of favor, have a hearing. The law must require notice to them, and give them a right to a hearing and an opportunity to be heard. It matters not, upon the question of the constitutionality of such a law, that the assessment has in fact been fairly apportioned. The constitutional validity of law is to be tested not by what has been done under it, but by what may by its authority be done. The legislature may prescribe the kind of notice, and the mode in which it shall be given, but it cannot dispense with all notice."
these 'without due process of law' has its foundation in this rule. This provision is the most important guaranty of personal rights to be found in the federal or state constitutions. It is a limitation upon an arbitrary power, and is a guaranty against arbitrary legislation. No citizen shall arbitrarily be deprived of his life, liberty, or property. This the legislature cannot do, nor authorize to be done. 'Due process of law' is not confined to judicial proceedings, but extends to every case which may deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property -- whether the proceeding be judicial, administrative, or executive in its nature. Weimer v. Bunbury, 30 Mich. 201. This great guaranty is always and everywhere present to protect the citizen against arbitrary interference with these sacred rights."
Accordingly the assessment for the expense of regulating and grading the avenue under the act of 1869, as amended by the act of 1870, was declared null and void as against parties refusing to pay.
in question were deprived of the opportunity of being heard upon the question whether the apportionment as between them and the other landowners, embraced within the original assessment district for the same improvement, was equitable and fair. They were therefore deprived by the act of 1881 of the very thing of which they were deprived by the act of 1869, on account of which the Court of Appeals of New York held the latter act to be unconstitutional and void. It is impossible for me, therefore, to reconcile the opinion of the Court of Appeals of New York now under review and the opinion of the same court in the case of Stuart v. Palmer. The same objection applies to both statutes with equal force. As I think the Court of Appeals was right in its judgment upon the first statute, I am of opinion that its judgment upon the act of 1881, involved in this writ of error, should be reversed.
The argument against this conclusion which seems to be chiefly relied on is that in the act of 1881, the legislature made a new assessment upon a new assessment district created for that purpose by the statute, and fixed the whole amount to be raised, leaving the question of apportionment open as between the parties, upon notice and a hearing, and that all this was within the admitted competency of the legislative power of the state, the exercise of which cannot be construed as depriving the parties of their property without due process of law. But it seems to be a mere evasion to say that this was an original assessment upon a district created by law for that purpose, consisting of the lands adjudged by the legislature to be benefited by the improvement. The improvement was ordered by the act of 1869, and the assessment district was created by it, and, so far as the laying out of the street and the appropriation of private property for that purpose, and awarding damages to the owners thereof, and assessing the amount of such awards, and the attendant expenses upon the lands lying within three hundred feet on either side of the avenue, which in the judgment of the commissioners should be benefited by opening and extending the street, that act and what was thus far done under it were not invalidated, but were held to be in conformity with the Constitution.
In the act of 1881, the Legislature of New York did not profess to undo anything which had been done under the act of 1869, and certainly did not begin de novo in dealing with the improvement. On the contrary, they took that portion of the old assessment for the expense of regulating, grading, and preparing the street for travel which remained unpaid, and which had been declared to be void, and revived it by a mere act of legislation as against the parties who had been judicially declared not to be bound by it, adding interest upon it from the time when it was first charged to the state by virtue of the cancellation, as well as a part of the expenses incurred in making the original assessment. Such an act of the legislature seems to me to be in violation of that provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution which declares that no state shall deprive any person of his property without due process of law.
I am authorized by MR. JUSTICE HARLAN to say that he concurs in these views.

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