Case Name: Hill against The Board of Supervisors of Livingston County
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1854-12
Citations: 12 N.Y. 52
Docket Number: 
Parties: Hill against The Board of Supervisors of Livingston County.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 12
Pages: 52–67

Head Matter:
Hill against The Board of Supervisors of Livingston County.
At common law, the duty of repairing public bridges rested upon the county, where no person or other body was specially charged therewith; and in England, the statute (22 Henry VIII., ch. 5) affirmed the rule of the common law in this particular. Per Johnson, J.
This rule does not prevail in this state. The general system enacted by out statutes makes the towns primarily liable for the maintenance of highways and bridges. Per Johnson, J.
The act of 1838 (ch. 314) authorizes the board of supervisors of the county to raise money by taxation to aid in the reparation of bridges, and to apportion the tax among the towns of the county as to the board appears equitable.
Whether or not the board can, in apportioning a tax to be levied under this act, entirely exonerate any of the towns, quere. Per Johnson, J.
Where the board of supervisors caused a portion of the money expended under its supervision in repairing a public bridge which crossed a stream dividing two towns to be levied upon the whole county, and the residue upon the tyro toras; Held, that the tax upon the two towns was legally imposed.
A person can recover, from a county, money collected from him for a tax illegally levied and caused to be collected by the board of supervisors and paid to the county treasurer, as money had and received by the county to his use. Per Allen, J.
In a suit against a county, the board of supervisors should be named as defendant ; the individual supervisors should not be named. Per Allen, J,
Assumpsit commenced in 1847 to recover $3.69, as money had and received by the county of Livingston to the plaintiff’s use.
The cause was tried in 1849, at the Livingston .county circuit, and the jury found a special verdict stating the following facts : In 1817, one Churchill and others, his associates, erected a bridge over the Genesee river, at an expense of about. §18,000, by virtue of an act of the legislature. (Laws of 1817, ch. 104.) The act required the parties erecting it to keep the bridge in repair, and authorized them to collect tolls, for the use thereof, during twenty years from the passage of the act, and declared that after the expiration of the twenty years the bridge should be “a public bridge and free of toll.” The bridge was erected on a highway, at a point where the Genesee river constituted the boundary between the towns of Avon and Caledonia, and the counties of Ontario and Genesee. In 1821, these two towns and the bridge were incorporated in the county of Livingston, which was then created. The company which built the bridge left it in good repair in 1837, when the right to take tolls expired, and from that time it became and was used as a public free bridge. In 1845 the bridge required a large expenditure for its repair ; and in November of that year the board of Supervisors of the county of Livingston, by resolution, ordered $900 to be levied upon the county for the purpose of aiding the towns of Avon and Caledonia in repairing the bridge, and directed the amount to be paid, in equal portions, to the respective commissioners of highways of these towns, to be used in mating the repairs. Neither the towns or commissioners having taken any measures for repairing the bridge, in June, 1846, the board of supervisors passed a resolution declaring that they recognized the bridge as county property, and to be built and kept in repair by the county, according to the provisions of subdivisions 1 and 2 of § 1 of ch. 314 of the Laws of 1838, and by which the sum of $1000 was ordered to be raised to repair the bridge, in addition to the amount theretofore appropriated for that purpose. They also rescinded so much of the resolution of November, 1845, as authorized the money raised under it to be paid tr« the commissioners of highways of the towns of Avon said Caledonia, and, by resolution, appointed George Smith commissioner to superintend the repairs of the bridge and the expenditure of the money thereon, and authorized him, as commissioner, to draw on the county treasurer for the $900 ordered to be levied by the resolution of November, 1845, and also for the $1000 ordered to b« levied by the resolution of June, in such sums and at such tunes as the same should be needed. The commissioner, in the summer and fall of 1846, caused the bridge to be repaired, and in so doing, drew and expended the $900, and, in addition thereto, expended a sum which, with interest, amounted to $692. This last mentioned sum the board of supervisors, in Nov., 1846, directed to be assessed and levied on the towns of Avon and Caledonia, $355 thereof on the former, and $337 thereof on the latter town; and in making out the tax roll for 1846, these sums were added, by the board of supervisors, to the amounts to be levied upon said towns, and were, in due form of law, collected of the taxable inhabitants thereof respectively. The plaintiff was a taxable inhabitant of Avon in 1846, and paid a tax in that year, including his proportion of the $692, of $36.25. If the amount of $692, levied for repairing the bridge, had been assessed on all the taxable inhabitants of the county, instead of upon the two towns named, the plaintiff would have been required to pay, as a tax, $3.69 less than he was, in fact, compelled to pay that year.
The supreme court, sitting in the 8th district, gave judgment upon the special verdict in favor of the plaintiff for the $3.69 and costs. The defendants appealed to this court.
L. C. Peck, for the appellants.
I. The action cannot be maintained in the form adopted in this case. It should have been brought against the supervisors by name, with the addition of their name of office. (2 R. S., 473, §§ 95, 96 and 92; 4 Hill, 136; 5 Hill, 215.) II. All the acts of the defendants, complained of, were either legislative or judicial, and hence no action can be maintained against them, even if they erred. (11 J. R., 114; 8 Cow., 178; 8 Wend., 462; 11 ib., 545; 1 Hill, 279; 1 Denio, 589; ib., 595; 1 R. S., 524, §§ 119, 120; ib., 341, § 10; Laws of 1838, 314; 21 Wend., 552; 15 Wend., 198.) III. The bridge in question was a public bridge, subject to the general law found in 1 R. S., 501, et seq.
By a reference to the resolution of June, it will be seen that the board did not assume the responsibility or expense of maintaining the bridge as a county charge; and to the contrary thereof, that they merely recognize the liability of the county to build and keep the same in repair, according to the provisions of the 1st and 2d subdivisions of § 1 of the act of 1838, above cited.
In November, 1845, the board of supervisors, under the provision contained in 1 R. S., 524, § 119, raised the sum of $900 for the repair of the bridge in question.
In June, 1846, they determined that the bridge should be repaired, and that they would raise the means for repairing the same by appropriating the $900 already in the treasury of the county, and which had been raised by a tax on the county, and by raising at their next annual meeting in November, pursuant to §1 of the act of 1838, such further sum, not exceeding $1000, as the repairs should cost over and above the $900. The $692. were directed to be levied on the towns, under the provisions of the act of 1838. The apportionment .was made according to the spirit and letter of this act. IV. The supreme court erred in deciding that the law of 1841 has been violated in this proceeding. This question was not raised on the argument in the supreme court, and it is believed has no application to any of the questions involved in this case. The act referred to (Laws of 1841, 207) does no more than define the rights and duties of certain towns, and of the commissioners of highways of the same, under the provisions of the Revised Statutes and the act of 1838; and besides, if the construction of the supreme court shall be adopted, it necessarily excludes all bridges over streams dividing towns from the provisions of the act of 1838, and also from the provisions of 1 R. S., 524, above cited.
A. Dann, for respondent.
I. At common law, which was only affirmed by the statute (22 H. VIII), the making and repair of the bridges was a duty devolving on the county. It is so in' England now. (17 Johns., 452, 453, by the Chancellor; 7 Wend., 477, by Nelson, Justice; 2 East, 342, 356, 12—192; 5 Burr., 2595.) Unless the duty of building or repairing a bridge can be shown to rest somewhere, the county must repair. (2 W. Black., 685 ; Loft, 238; 5 Harr. Dig., 6616, and the cases above cited.)
II. The statute books, from 1798 to 1848, show that about 30 statutes have been passed for the erection or for aiding in the erection of bridges over this very river; when erected, their repairs have been within the power of the counties, and have nowhere fallen on the towns, except by the mere exercise of arbitrary power, as in the case in 1 Hill, 50, and in this case.. The general and special statutes, and the cases.cited, show that there is a class of bridges, whose erection and repair do not belong to the towns, and which the sovereign should cause to be erected, and, until other provision is made, counties must repair.
. III. The board of supervisors, of its own volition, repaired . the bridge in question. There can be no pretext that they acted, in so doing, under the provisions of the Revised Statutes and the law of 1838. (1 R. S., 502, § 4; Laws of 1838, 314.)
IV. The board of supervisors having created a debt, illegally assessed the amount of it upon the towns of Avon and Caledonia, and collected it of the taxable inhabitants. The plaintiff is entitled to recover back the amount illegally collected from him. (13 J. R., 444; id., 152; 11 J. R., 444; 7 Wend., 89; 11 Pick., 396; 5 Pick., 498; 13 Mass., 272; 15 Pick., 44; 7 Conn., 550; 21 Pick., 64; 3 Greenleaf, 131; 15 Wend., 321; 4 Cowen, 454.)

Opinion:
Johnson, J.
Before the statute 22 H. VIII, ch. 5, the duty of repairing bridges rested upon the county, where no private person or other body was specially charged with that duty. The charge was upon the whole county, because bridges were regarded as for the common good and ease of the whole county. (2 Inst., 700, 1.) The statute cited affirmed the common law rule in this point, adding certain provisions for its better enforcement. But neither this statute nor the rule of the common law was ever adopted in this state. As early as 1784 (1 Greenleaf, 105), the care and reparation of highways, including bridges, was committed to town officers. Ch. 186 of the Laws of 1801 (1 W. and S., 588) amends and improves the same system, and section 26 of that act (p. 599) contains in substance the provisions which, again reenacted in the revision of 1813 (2 R. S., 281, § 33), were finally embodied in the Revised Statutes (1 R. S., 524, § 119), and which authorize the board of supervisors of any county, when it shall appear that any of the towns are unreasonably burthened by the duty of erecting or repairing bridges therein, to raise money from the county at large to defray,' wholly or in part, the expense of such erection or repair.
The same view of the law of this state was taken by the chancellor in the court for the correction of errors, in Bartlett v. Crozier (17 J. R., 439). It must, I think, be considered as settled, at least from the time when that case was decided, that the common law responsibility of counties for the repair of bridges never prevailed in this state. Our statutory system introduced the primary responsibility of the towns in respect to the maintenance of highways and bridges; and in many cases, where the burthen was greater than could conveniently be borne by the towns, particular acts of the legislature have provided for the means and method of erecting and keeping in repair the public bridges.
At the time of the. passage of the act of 1838 (Sess. Laws, ch. 314, p. 314), the provisions of the Revised and other statutes in force, upon this subject, were in substance these; The commissioners of highways in the several towns had the care and superintendence of the bridges therein, 'and it was their duty to give directions for the repair of roads and bridges, and to cause highways and bridges over streams intersecting highways to be kept in repair. , (1 R. S., 501, § 1.) The board of supervisors were bound to cause to be levied in any town a sum not exceeding $250 in any year, upon an estimate made for that purpose by the commissioners of highways, for the improvement of roads and bridges. (1 R. S., 502, § 4.) A further sum of $250 or less in any one year might be raised, upon the vote of the town in town meeting for that purpose, by the board of supervisors. (Laws of 1832, ch. 274.) These were all the general provisions in force authorizing a money tax upon the towns for roads and bridges; and these, with the provision before referred to,, authorizing boards of supervisors to relieve overburthened towns by a county tax not exceeding $1000 in any year, for-erecting or repairing bridges, constituted the whole of the-regular system of raising money by tax applicable to the repair of bridges. All these moneys were to pass into the hands of and be expended by the town officers.
The act of 1838, before cited, gave to the boards of supervisors, in addition to the powers which they then possessed, authority (1) "to cause to be levied, collected and paid, to the treasurer of the county, such sum of money as might be necessary to construct and repair bridges therein, and to prescribe upon what plan and in what manner the moneys so to be raised should be expended; and (2) to apportion the tax so to be raised among the several towns and wards of their county, as shall seem to them to be equitable and just." (§ 1, subds. 1, 2.) They are further authorized, by subd. 5 of the same section, to levy such sum, not exceeding $500 in any year above that theretofore allowed by law to be raised, as a majority in town meeting have voted to be raised upon their town for constructing or repairing roads and bridges in such town.
The first question to be considered in respect to this act is, whether the two first subdivisions relate exclusively to bridges which are a charge upon the whole county. Nothing in the language of the act favors such a construction. By its terms, the only limitation of the subject in respect to which the power is to be exercised is, that the bridges are to be in the county. The number of bridges in the state, which the counties as such are bound to maintain, cannot be large. Such cases are entirely exceptional in their characters, and where they exist have arisen from special statutory provisions ; the general rule being clear, that bridges like highways are to be maintained by the towns.
A very large number of special acts of the legislature had been passed between 1830 and 1838, providing for particular expenditures in the erection and repair of bridges. The greater part of these imposed the burthen upon a single town, and were only necessary on account of the smallness of the sum which, under the general law, could be raised in any town for roads and bridges. Many of these acts, however, imposed the burthen upon two or more towns, sometimes in equal and sometimes in unequal proportions. Some of the acts imposed the whole burthen of the particular erection or repair provided for upon the whole county, while others, again, imposed a part of the expense upon the county at large, and the residue, sometimes in equal and sometimes in unequal proportions, upon two or more of the towns and sometimes upon a single town. About two hundred acts in relation to bridges and bridge companies are to be found in the Session Laws during the period above referred to. Two of these acts, relating to the county of Livingston, will serve to illustrate the preceding observations. Ch. 240, Laws of 1835, authorizes the board of supervisors to levy $3000 for building one bridge and $1000 for another, in such proportions among the several towns in said county as the supervisors may deem equitable and just. One of these bridges was between two towns, the other hi a single town. Ch. 73, Laws of 1833, authorized the board to levy $1500 to build a bridge over the Genesee river, $300 on -the town of York, $200 on the town of Avon, and the residue upon the whole county, including those towns.
These statutes did not change the general law in respect to the liability of the towns for the repair of bridges, but were exceptional in their character. Their whole operation ended with the expenditure of the money authorized to be raised, leaving the bridges, however built, to be afterwards maintained according to the general law of the state.
The general purpose of the provisions, on this subject, of the act of 1838 was to obviate the evil which had rendered necessary so frequent applications to the legislature, by conferring upon the boards of supervisors a further and new discretionary power from time to time, to aid in the construction and reparation of bridges within their respective counties. This general purpose has been effected by removing the limit of expenditure in any one year, and by enabling the board to apportion the tax among the several towns and wards as to them shall seem equitable, as well as by intrusting the board with the power of determining what bridges they will construct or repair.
I do not think it necessary in this case to consider whether the board might entirely exonerate some of the towns in the county from bearing any part of such a tax; viewing the whole action of the board upon this subject at once, we find $900 raised from the county at large and the residue charged upon the towns of Avon and Caledonia. This in any view of the statute is a good exercise of the power of apportionment conferred by the 2d subdivision of §1. I am therefore of opinion that the tax in question was rightfully imposed by the board of supervisors, and that upon the merits, without examining the other objections, the plaintiff must fail
The judgment of the supreme court should be reversed and judgment rendered on the special verdict for the defendant, with costs.
Gardiner, Ch. J., Parker, Selden and Edwards, Js., concurred.