Case Name: Morse et al. v. Westport et al., Appellants
Court: Supreme Court of Missouri
Jurisdiction: Missouri
Decision Date: 1896-12-01
Citations: 136 Mo. 276
Docket Number: 
Parties: Morse et al. v. Westport et al., Appellants.
Judges: Gantt, Sherwood and Burgess, JJ., concur. Brace, O. J., Macearlane and Robinson, JJ., dissent.
Reporter: Missouri Reports
Volume: 136
Pages: 276–292

Head Matter:
Morse et al. v. Westport et al., Appellants.
In Banc,
December 1, 1896.
1. Municipal Corporation: fraud. A eity may be shown by proper evidence to have acted fraudulently.
2.----. Where a city has power to pass ordinances for street improvements, the fact that many are enacted about the same time in view of an impending change of the charter does not tend to prove fraud in the municipal action.
3. —■—: street improvement: ordinance. An ordinance to improve with macadam and curbstone a street in Westport, Missouri, at a maximum cost of $2.10 per front foot is not unreasonable.
4. Ordinance, Unreasonableness of: judicial action. Quaere, whether the judiciary may properly declare a municipal ordinance void because unreasonable, where the ordinance was enacted in pursuance of an express grant of power.
Macfarlane, Brace and Robinson, JJ., dissenting.
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court. — Robert E. Ball, Esq., Special Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
The following statement is taken from one prepared by Judge Macfarlane during the progress of the cause in the supreme court. It sufficiently presents the principal facts on which the judgment is based, all others deemed material being mentioned in the opinion of the majority of the court:
The suit is to .restrain the defendants, the city of Westport, its engineer and board of public improvements, from letting contracts under two ordinances, to macadamize and curb two blocks of McGree street, from 38th to 40th streets in said city. A temporary injunction was granted, which after a hearing upon the merits was made perpetual. From the judgment defendants appealed.
As ground for relief plaintiffs, who were the owners of property on said street between 39th and 40th streets, charged that the amount of the expense of such work, that would be apportioned to and charged against the property owned by them, fronting on said street, would be. oppressive and out. of all just and reasonable proportion to the value of said property, and that the ordinances requiring said work were utterly unreasonable, and that the doing of said, work would be of no public utility or public benefit whatever, and that the same would be a great, unreasonable and unnecessary burden upon their property.
The case was tried by the chancellor and in a finding and opinion made on rendering • judgment, the main facts bearing upon the issue were stated as follows :
“The ordinances provide for the curbing and macadamizing of McGee street from 38th to 40th streets. McGee street is located in the eastern part of the city and extends from the alley, just north of 35th street, four blocks south of the northern city limits, south to a tract known as ‘Southmoreland,’ and ends a short distance south of 44th street. It is the third street east of Main street which is the thoroughfare from Westport into Kansas City. It is one block east of Warwick Boulevard, a thoroughfare paved with asphalt from 35th street to some distance south of 40th street; 35th, 36th, 37th, 38th and 40th streets running east and west are paved between McGee and the Boulevard on Main street. McGee is paved and curbed from 38th street to 35th' street, and from 40th south these improvements are about to be made. From 40th north to 37th there are no buildings. From 37th north to the end of the street there are four residences. South of 40th on McGee and on Oak street, the next street east, are some fifty or more residences. Practically the entire travel to and from that section is between .Westport and Kansas City; and the most ample and convenient facilities for that purpose are afforded by way of 40th street and the Boulevard or Main street. Those facilities would not be appreciably increased by the improvements proposed. .So far from the necessities of that travel demanding this improvement, McGee street, between the points in question, would be only casually and to a slight extent used at all. The grading which is about completed between those points will'be for aught that appears abundantly sufficient for the present and for some time to come. All of the abutting property is vacant and unproductive, and there is little or no demand for it. It will not be enhanced in available value,. if enhanced at all, to anything like the cost of the improvement. Some of it has already been abandoned by the owner by reason of assessments for improving 38th street,- and on account of the estimated additional cost of grading McGee street. The total assessed value of all the property along the line of the proposed improvement is $7,040; while the cost of the improvement, including grading, will be over $7,600. A part of the newly graded street has a fill of considerable depth., and the evidence shows that it would not be safe to curb and pave it within a year at least after the fill has been made.”
Between fifty and sixty witnesses were examined on the trial, their printed evidence making about seven hundred pages of the record. The evidence bearing upon the public utility of the improvement, the value of the property affected and the benefits to the property to be charged therewith, was, as is usual, conflicting. The chancellor was familiar with the surroundings. and had the witnesses before him; he was, therefore, much better prepared to draw conclusions of fact from the evidence than we can be. In such case, when the evidence, as in this case, is so evenly balanced as to require careful weighing, in order to draw correct conclusions therefrom, this court should defer to the finding of the chancellor. Johnson v. Duer, 115 Mo. 375.
We will therefore accept and adopt the finding of the chancellor that Yso far from the necessities of that travel -demanding this improvement, McQ-ee street, between the points in question, would be only casually and to a slight extent used at all. All the abutting property is vacant and unproductive and there is little or no demand for it. It will not be enhanced in available value, if enhanced at all, to anything like the cost of the improvement. The total assessed value of all the property along the line of the proposed improvement is $7,040.”
B. J. Ingraham and C. O. Tichenor for appellants.
(1) We admit that courts can declare ordinances void because unreasonable. But courts exercise this power reluctantly and with great care, and only when the plaintiff makes out his case clearly and beyond doubt. If this were not so no legislative action of a city could be relied on. If an ordinance is held void because witnesses say it, in their judgment, is unreasonable, then all legislation of cities ought to come from courts in the first instance, in order to save trouble, for this amounts to judicial management of towns and cities. Butler v. Passaic, 44 N. J. L. 171; Com. v. Bobertson, 5 Cush. 438; State v. Newton, 20 Atl. Rep. 1078; Haynes v. Cape May, 52 N. J. Law, 180; A Coal-Float v. City, 112 Ind. 18; City v. Braden, 130 Ind. 158; Boo parte Smith, 38 Cal. 709; Van Boalen v. Peo pie, 40 Mich. 258; 2 Beach on Pub. Corp., secs. 514, 994; 2 Dillon, Mun. Corpt [3 Ed.], sees. 420, 686; Kansas City Grading Co. v. Holden, 107 Mo. 305; Cape Girardeau v. Riley, 72 Mo. 220; McCormack v. Patchin, 53 Mo. 33; St. Louis v. Green, 70 Mo. 562; Philadelphia v. Evans, 139 Pa. St. 483. (2)- It is a matter of general notoriety that there are miles of ¡macadamized road in Jackson county and that the county is still building them. It appears from the evidence that a road in the territory now within Westport, was macadamized by the county and the land owners before it was taken in by the city. Does it not seem absurd to say that an ordinance is unreasonable and void passed by a city, to pave a street with this cheapest pavement, when the'county is doing the same kind of work on its roads'? (3) An attempt was made below to show, by what was said, that the motives of the aldermen in passing the ordinances were not right, and that therefore in some way the ordinances were void. A city council is a little legislature, and their ordinances within the power intrusted, have all the force of acts •of the legislature. State v. Debar, 58 Mo. 395; Long v. Taxing Dist., 7 Lea, 134; Quinette v. St. Louis, 76 Mo. 402; Des Moines Gas Co. v. Des Moines, 44 Iowa, 505. And courts will not consider the motives which lead to the passage of an act. Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 710. (4) The ordinances were objected to because they were not sufficiently definite. On this point we refer to Gilmore v. Utica, 131 N. T. 26; Sheehan v. Gleeson, 46 Mo. 100; Cole v. Skrainka, 105 Mo. 303; State ex rel. v. Francis, 95 Mo. 50.
Hugh C. Ward, Wash Adams, and Karnes, Holmes, é Krauthofflov respondents.
(1) There is no bill of exceptions in this case. The time allowed for the filing of the bill of exceptions expired September 20, 1893, and the bill of exceptions is out of time. Dorman v. Coon, 119 Mo. 68; Danforth v. Railroad, 123 Mo. 196; Fulkerson v. Murdock, 123 Mo. 292; 2 Am. and Eng. Eney. of Law, p. 222; Morris v. Brannen, 15 S. Rep. (Ala.) 865; Bank v. Smith, 35 Pac. Rep. (Okl.) 35 Pac. Rep. 955; s. c., 37 Pac. Rep. 828; United States v. Carr, 61 Eed. Rep. 802; Brush, etc., Power Co. v. Grosch, 40 Pac. Rep. 933; McReynolds v. Jones, 30 Ala. 101; State v. Duckworth, 68 Mo. 156. (2) Speaking in general terms, the authorities of a city may be said to have a large discretion as to the necessity or expediency of the ordinances which they-adopt. But their powers in this regard are by no means omnipotent; otherwise the citizen would be without remedy or redress. These powers must be exercised within the bounds of reason and apparent necessity; they must not impose a burden without a benefit and the reasonableness of their exercise is a fit subject of inquiry. Corrigan v. Gage, 68 Mo.- 541; White v. Railroad, 44 Mo. App. 540; Beach, Pub. Corp., sec. 90, 512 g; Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703. Judge Dillon gives it as his opinion that where the motives of the board of aldermen are material and relevant, they may be inquired into. 1 Dillon, Mun. Corp. [4 Ed.], sec. 311 note; Glasgow v. St. Louis, 107 Mo. 198, 203. (3) It is worthy of note in this connection that neither the mayor who approved the ordinance, nor the alderman who voted for it, although their motives were impugned, appeared as witnesses in the case. This raises a presumption against them. Ins. Co. v. Smith, 117 Mo. 261. In- equity suits the court' may discard such parts of the evidence as may have been erroneously admitted in the trial court. Barrett v. Davis, 104 Mo. 549. Conversely the court may consider such evidence as was erroneously excluded. (4) This is a case in which this court should defer very largely to the finding of the trial judge. The record does not show it, but as a matter of fact, the trial judge, accompanied by counsel, visited McGee street. The case is of that character which a judge familiar with the surroundings is most competent to decide. The financial situation, the prospective growth of McGee street, the topography of the country, the character and appearance of the witnesses, are all matters which enter largely into the proper determination of the issue, and yet can not be reproduced or shown by a printed record. (5) Under the law, county roads are paid for out of a general fund and are not charged as a lien against adjacent property. If Westport will .pay for the improvement of McGee street in the same manner that Jackson county pays for its roads, the plaintiffs in the case at bar will certainly not object. It will'not be seriously contended that Jackson county has as many roads as Westport has streets. The county court improves the main thoroughfares and the by-paths and lanes are left in their natural state. (6) On the whole evidence, this case should be affirmed.

Opinion:
Babclay, J.
The leading facts appear in the statement first prepared by our learned brother Maofarlane, which will be printed as an introduction to this opinion.
It may, however, be properly added that the proposed street improvements were to cost $5,274, making the special tax amount to no more than $2.10 per front foot, at any part of the improved street. The local municipal body had by ordinance ordered the improvements. The injunction granted in this cause in the' circuit court put a stop to them.
It will not be needful on this occasion for the court in banc to go into the question whether or not the judiciary may properly declare void, because unreasonable, any ordinance duly passed by the municipal body, in pursuance of a definite and express legislative grant of power to impose special taxes for street improvements. For the majority of our number hold, that, even conceding the propriety or reasonableness of the exercise of the taxing power by the city (for the improvement of highways therein) open to review by the courts, there would yet be no difficulty in reaching a judgment in the actual case at bar. Surely the particular ordinance now under review is not an unreasonable exhibition of municipal power.
The fact that many ordinances were enacted, about the same time, for improvements similar to those in issue in this case is wholly irrelevant. The learned special judge rightly excluded that fact at the trial.' It may well be that the other ordinances were requested by all the property holders affected thereby. Each ordinance may be intrinsically just and necessary. Moreover, the reasonableness of each and every one of said enactments could not, we apprehend, conveniently be gone into, in the present suit. Nor does it matter (so far as concerns the right to make this particular improvement) that a change in the charter was impending, so long as the municipal power to make the improvement still remained, and was regularly exercised.
Acts of a city, no doubt, may be shown to be fraudulent by its official enactments, where such proof is competent and relevant to some proper issue to be tried. But the mere passage of' a large number of ordinances for street improvements, in anticipation of a change of law (which would necessitate a change of procedure in regard to those improvements) is not of itself any proof of fraud on the part of these municipal authorities.
The improvement proposed for McG-ee street was of the simplest character — a mere surface of ordinary macadam on the roadway, and a curb or margin of stone. It would be hard to suggest a cheaper or more primitive effort to put the street into condition for use as a thoroughfare. The contemplated expense was not to exceed $2.10 per front foot along the whole street affected by the ordinance. At some points the tax was to be less than the figures named. Such an expense can not justly be held unreasonable, unless on the theory that there should be no improvement of that part of the street at all, at the present time. To so hold would be to put a judicial veto upon the municipal powers of Westport in regard to the present improvement of McGee street, and to subject all future ordinances of every city (desiring such simple improvements) to the hazard of a similar judicial veto.
In Morse v. Westport (1892) 110 Mo. 502 (19 S. W. Rep. 831) the first division of this court had to consider an ordinance of this very city, providing for an asphaltum pavement on Warwick boulevard — an avenue parallel to (and not many blocks distant from) the McGee street mentioned in this case. In the former suit the ordinance was attacked as unreasonable; but the attack was not successful. The ordinance was approved. Yet in that case'(as appears from the abstracts and statements therein) the asphaltum street pavement was to cost $2.50 per square yard, or more than $4 per lineal foot, to be charged as a special tax against the adjacent property. While in the case at bar the proposed cost at no point of the improvement is to be in excess of $2.10 per front foot.
The ordinance here in question should not, we think, be held or considered unreasonable, whatever view may be entertained as to the power of the courts to go into-that subject.
We are hence of opinion that the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for such further proceedings as may be in conformity with this opinion.
Gantt, Sherwood and Burgess, JJ., concur. Brace, O. J., Macearlane and Robinson, JJ., dissent.