Case Name: The New Orleans Draining Company praying for the Confirmation of a Tableau
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1856-04
Citations: 11 La. Ann. 338
Docket Number: 
Parties: The New Orleans Draining Company praying for the Confirmation of a Tableau.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 11
Pages: 338–378

Head Matter:
The New Orleans Draining Company praying for the Confirmation of a Tableau.
The power of the legislative department of the government is supreme, except where restricted by the Constitution.
The Legislature has the power to drain the swamps in the rear of the city of New Orleans, directly, or by its own agents, and so it has the power to drain them through the intervention of a company created for that purpose.
Article 124 of the Constitution, guaranteeing to the city of New Orleans the election of its own officers, was not intended to direct the manner in which contractors for works of public improvement should be selected, nor to abrogate contracts already made. It is the right of appointing the several pubUc officers necessary for the administration of the police of the city that is secured to the citizens of New Orleans. The kind of officers intended is shown by the proviso to Article 124. An incorporated company taking a contract for the draining of a swamp cannot be called a public officer necessary for the administration of the police of the city.
It was within the power of the Legislature to require the proprietors of the marshy lands in the rear of the city themselves to drain them. It had the power also for sufficient causes, of which the Legislature alone was the judge, to cause the work to be done and charged to the proprietors respectively, and all this would not be the levying of a tax in the sense of that word as used in the Constitution. The money was not intended to go into the treasury, and become subject to the rules, by which alone it could be appropriated annual^.
The property drained has been benefited in amount greater than the cost of the assessed work. Were not this the case, the property of each proprietor, to the extent of the difference between the increased value and the cost of the work assessed to him, would be taken for a purpose of publi utility without adequate compensation previously made, and consequently there would be a violation of the provisions of Article 105 of the Constitution.
Under the charter the estimate that the company was required to make of the probable cost of the work, did.not limit the lien to the amount of the estimate, should the cost of the work exceed the estimate.
It is in the power of the Legislature to determine in what manner parties are to be brought into
If the estimate of the cost of the work was irregular, such irregularity has been cured by a judgment of a competent tribunal, which has not only become final, but has been acquiesced in by the parties, who daily saw the work upon their land in progress, and who made no objection or remonstrance.
By the charter of the company the cost of drainage was levied, not as a personal tax upon the individual proprietor,-but as an assessment against the property benefited by the labor of the company, and to repay the company, not to go into the public coffers. And for the benefit which it was supposed the city would derive in point of salubrity from the improvement, the municipalities were required to keep the draining machinery in perpetual operation, without any extra tax on the lands. Spofford, J.
All the rights of the company were acquired under the Constitution of 1S12; these were reserved by the schedules of the Constitutions of 1845 and 1852, so that the clauses in the Constitutions of i845 and 1852, which are not to be found in the Constitution of 1812, touching “ vested rights ” and the “ equality and uniformity of taxation,” can have no bearing upon these rights. Spofford, J.
To go behind the Constitution of the State and of the United States, in search of an unwritten bill of rights, which is said to lie at the foundation of every free government, and there to find a principle on which the legislation in question may be declared null and void, would be to prostrate the plainly declared will of a co-ordinate department of the government, not because it contravenes any provision of the organic law, which the court is to expound, and all are to obey, but because it contradicts the notions of justice that the court may entertain. Spofford, J.
Perhaps the court has such a power; like the right of revolution, it is sometimes obscurely hinted at in judicial opinions. Conceding that the court has the power to protect the citizen against encroachments from the legislative power which are not specially, or by necessary implication, inhibited by the Constitution, it is obvious that a flagrant case -of wrong and hardship should be made out to justify a judicial tribunal in thwarting the legislative will,-without a direct warrant for doing so to be found in the Constitution itself. Spofford, J.
The charter of the New Orleans Draining Company is unconstitutional in this, that it levies a tax only upon the owners of the property drained, for an improvement intended for the benefit of the whole city of New Orleans, and so declared to be in the preamble to the charter. Buchanan, J., dissenting.
The power conferred upon the Draining Company by the-Act of 1839 is a power of taxation, which it is unconstitutional for the Legislature to delegate to a joint stock company, and is inconsistent with the taxing power vested in the Municipal Corporation by the various Acts incorporating the city of New Orleans, which are not repealed. Buchanan, J., dissenting.
'The inscription of a mortgage and privilege for an undefined amount, in favor of the Draining Company, against each and every proprietor of land embraced within the company’s operations, seems to be a divestiture of vested rights, because it must render all property thus situated unsaleable in the interval between the inscription of the decree creating the mortgage and privilege before the work is undertaken, and the homologation of the assessment and tableau of contribution after the work is completed. Buchanan, J., dissenting.
The superiority which is given byf the Act of 1839 to the mortgage and privilege of the company on the lands embraced in (heir operations, over all mortgages, conventional, legal, or judicial, is a provision divesting vested rights and impairing the obligation of contracts. Buchanan, J., disg senting.
PPEAL from the Third District Court of New Orleans, Kennedy, J.
Koselias and Janin, for the Draining Company. Kustis, Morel, Straw} bridge and Bryon, for opponents and appellants.
By certain Acts of the Legislature, the New Orleans Draining Company was incorporated. The object of the incorporation was to enable the Company to drain the swamp lands in the rear of the city of New Orleans. A lien was created by the charter upon the lands drained, to pay the costs, etc., of the drainage. The present proceeding was to establish the lien, and to recover the costs of expenses of the drainage, etc. The Acts of the Legislature under which the Company claimed will be found very much at large in the opinions rendered by the several Judges.
When the case was first heard in the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Buchanan pronounced the judgment of the court, Mr. Justice Spofford dissenting, and Chief Justice Slidell recusing himself, having an interest in the cause. There was an application for a rehearing, and pending the application Chief Justice Slidell and Mr. Justice Ogden resigned their seats upon the bench, and Merrick, C. J., and Lea, J., were elected in their places respectively. A rehearing having been granted, Merrick, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court, all the Judges concurring in the decree, with the exception of Buchanan, J., who adhered to the opinion previously pronounced by him as the organ of the

Opinion:
Buchanan, J.
(Spofford, J., dissenting.) -Of the many oppositions filed herein, sixteen have called in question the constitutionality of the charter of the New Orleans Draining Company.
The points of unconstitutionality urged, may be reduced to four, namely :
1. The charter taxes a portion of the community only, for a work beneficial to the public at large; which is against the. principle of equality and uniformity in taxation, consecrated by Article 127 of-the Constitution of 1845, and Article 123 of that of 1852.
2. The charter divests vested rights, without an adequate compensation previously made, contrary to Article 109 of the Constitution of 1845, and Article 105 of that of 1852.
3. It delegates the taxing power to a private corporation, which the Legislature had not the constitutional power to do.
4. It delegates the administration and police of a portion of the territory comprised within the limits of the political or municipal corporation of New Orleans, to a private corporation, in violation of section 23 of the 6th Article of the Constitution of 1812, which was repeated verbatim in the 128th Article of the Constitution of 1845, and the 124th Article of that of 1852.
Of these points, it is only necessary to examine the first. Tested by the doctrine of the majority of this court, in the Benton street case, 9th An. 444, it must prevail.
The New Orleans Draining Company was incorporated by Act of the Legislature of-19th of March, 1835. An unusually full preamble leaves no doubt of the motives which actuated the Legislature in granting this charter; and as those motives have an important bearing upon the .constitutional question under examination, we will here transcribe the preamble in full :
"Whereas, in accordance with the opinion of physicians of the greatest experience, it appears that the epidemics which, with few exceptions, have annually prevailed in the city of New Orleans and its faubourgs, are in general to be attributed to two causes, intense heat and excessive humidity, which, when combined, frequently produce the most fatal diseases; and although the limited powers of man cannot obviate or control the first, yet he may mitigate its virulence, by adopting such means as will effect a free circulation of air; and the latter would be in a great measure, if not entirely, removed by draining off the stagnant waters which accumulate on the low and marshy grounds. And whereas, after the draining of the said grounds shall have been accomplished, if the woods which at present mostly cover the entire space between Lake Pontchartrain and the said city and faubourgs, be cut down and removed, it is more than probable that the salubrious breezes from the said lake, will be felt to the banks of the Mississippi, and after passing over a well drained surface, reach the city, free from those exhalations which are now brought thither bj' winds blowing from that quarter, vitiating the atmosphere and proving fatal to human life. And whereas, the improvements aforesaid form an object of serious importance, not only to the inhabitants of the said city and faubourgs, but also to those of every other section of the State, as their inevitable results would be the'increase of population, and the general prosperity thereof. And whereas, so desirable an object can only be effected through the medium of a large capital, in consequence of the great number of workmen required, and the immense expenses necessarily attending the undertaking thereof, and which the proprietors of the soil may want either the means or the inclination to provide for the same, particularly as the success of an enterprise of this nature chiefly depends upon the preparation and adoption of a judicious plan of well combined operations, on which it might be impossible for them to agree. And whereas, it being a well established maxim among all civilized nations, that the welfare of society always takes precedence of the interests or the will of individuals, should it conflict with the same.; hence, it becomes the duty of those' to whom the legislative power is confided, to prescribe and adopt the most efficient measures for the accomplishment of so important an object."
For these considerations, a company was' created by the statute, with the style of the New Orleans Draining Company, with a capital stock to be raised by subscription, whose duty it should be to drain, fill up and improve, all that portion of the incorporated limits.of .the«ity of New Orleans, which were not then drained and improved ; which comprised perhaps three-fourths of the superficial extent of the territory of that corporation as defined by law. The modus operaniA of the Draining Company, in effecting these improvements, was minutely detailed in the charter, but has been since essentially changed by an amendatory statute passed the 20th of March, 1839. By the provisions of the last mentioned act, the company was authorized to clear and drain the land by sections, taking an accurate account of all the expenses incurred, hire of laborers, and salaries of officers, and by means of Assessors appointed by themselves to apportion the whole of the said charges among the proprietors of the land comprised within the section thus cleared and drained. For the security of their payment, a mortgage of the first class, superior to all other claims or liens upon the land, was granted -to the company ; and the most summary process for the collection of .the assessment from each proprietor of the land.
As in the case of the Act of 1832, for the opening and widening of streets in the city of New Orleans, the assessment upon the individual proprietors of land, goes through the formality of a judicial inquiry and a judgment of ho-mologation ; but this does not change its character of a tax or impost, paid by the proprietors of the section drained, to defray expenses incurred for the benefit of the whole community.
That the work has been done for the public benefit, the preamble of the Act of 1835, and the 13th section of the Act of 1839, prohibit the company from disputing. This being the case, it is unconstitutional t.o charge the proprietors of the land drained with all the expenses of drainage. It strikes us as entirely inadmissible, to permit the company, in the face of the declarations of the preamble and the whole tenor of the charter, original and amended, to assume the quality of negotiorum, gestor of the proprietors embraced in their assessment roll. The. negotiorum gestor is one who does the business of another without an authorization. But whose business has the Draining Company done? The business of the State, who had given it the most formal authority, and the business of the city, which it was preserving from pestilence by its operations, at the same time that it was increasing her population and resources. The relation of the company to the proprietors of the land, is not that of an agent, but of a creditor — a creditor of the most favored and peremptory kind — who is equally independent of the ipsolvent court, and of the court of probates.
It should be observed, that the stock of the Draining Company is owned almost entirely by the State and the city, and .has been paid for in city and State bonds. With the proceeds of these, the company has done the work which is the subject of this tableau. In rejecting the claim against the proprietors of the land drained, that charge falls where it properly belongs — upon the taxpayers of the city and State at large.
Judgment of the District Court reversed ; and it is decreed that these proceedings I¡e dismissed; the costs in both courts to be paid by the New Orleans Draining Company.
Ogden, J.
The suit being one, based entirely on the authority which the Draining Company claim to have derived from the Acts of the Legislature, which are, in my opinion, unconstitutional, I therefore concur in the judgment pronounced by Mr. Justice Buchanan, dismissing the proceedings, without thinking it necessary to express any opinion as to the right of the plaintiffs to recover, in an equitable action, the amount to which the defendants have been benefited by the work and labor done in the improvement of their property.