Court Opinion

ID: 9417545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:24:19.440007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:46:35.144220
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
with whom concurred Mr. Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Lamar, dissenting.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Lamar and myself are unable to assent to the opinion of the court in this cause, and-*362I will state as briefly as possible the view we take of the three controlling questions involved: Whether the city became debtor to the drainage fund for the assessments on the streets and other public places; whether it is liable as trustee for the individual assessments uncollected; and whether its debt and liability, if any, has been discharged either directly by payment or indirectly by an equitable set-off.
Did the city of New Orleans become debtor to the drainage fund for the assessments upon the streets, squares and other public áreas? Counsel for the appellee contend that it did not; and in support of that position rely upon several propositions, the first of which only demands notice.
It is contended that as the city of New Orleans and the parish of Jefferson were not by the acts of 1858, 1859 and 1861 expressly declared liable, or given anything to do with the execution of the works in question — which Avorks Avere of the kind usually constructed at the expense of the individuals benefited — the legislature did not intend that the city and parish should be numbered among the contributors, and that as a general rule such assessments are not construed to include public property.
The questions raised on this proposition involve.the poAvers, capacities and liabilities of the city of NeAV Orleans, a municipal corporation of the State of Louisiana, and consequently a part of its governmental machinery ; a fact to be kept steadily in view Avhen questions of the legislative poAver are being examined. And furthermore, the conclusions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana on those questions, even if they are different from the usual holdings (and Ave do not- mean to imply that they are) should have great, if not controlling, Aveight with this court. It seems to us that this point has been settled by thát tribunal. The case at bar does not present the first instance in the history of NeAV Orleans of the experiment of drainage based on area taxation. In. the year 1835 a company Avas incorporated for that purpose, in which the city Avas a stockholder. The company taxed every foot of land, including streets; etc: Litigation ensued. The point of liability aauis directly raised and distinctly decided. The Supreme Court *363sustained the tax on the streets and said: “ The large proportion of the expense by which this burden is thrown upon the city for these streets meets, in some measure, that equity which has been urged upon our consideration, that as the work has been undertaken for the public good, the public ought to bear the charge of it, notwithstanding the benefit to the owner of the soil.” Draining Company, petitioner, 11 La. Ann. 338, 313.
Indeed, what could be more just than that a local assessment, directly beneficial to all, should, in some form and to some extent, at least, be provided for by a general contribution? Why should the cost of it be defrayed by one species of property alone ? And how obtain that contribution more simply than by an assessment on the public property, although such assessment may not be enforceable by a sale, and must be otherwise provided for ?
The decision above quoted was made in the year 1856. Two years later the first of the statutes now under consideration, that of 1858, was passed. It is hardly conceivable that the legislature which passed that act were ignorant of the decision of 1856, or of the construction placed upon the statute of 1835. Or that, knowing it, they still intended to produce a different result in the act of- 1858, not by adopting different but by reproducing almost the identical terms. The latter statute is substantially, indeed almost literally, a reproduction of the former; and that former statute had just been construed by the Supreme Court.
In the case of Marquez v. New Orleans, 13 La. Ann. 319, the court held that the city as the owner of the middle ground, or public promenade, running along the centre of Claiborne Street, was liable for one-half of the cost of improving that street, and in.the case of cross streets, was hable for the whole cost, since as to these parts there were no abutting owners. The city was treated, and the case decided, exactly as if it were an individual proprietor.
So also in the cases of Correjolles v. Succession of Fanchor, 26 La. Ann. 362, and of Barber Paving Co. v. Gogreve, 41 La. Ann. 251, a question arose , in respect to the ownership by the city of the public places, and the same conclusion was *364reached. How these cases may be reconciled with that of Xiques v. Bujac, 7 La. Ann. 498, 503, cited by the counsel for appellee to the point that public places are not held in fee, anti that the term “ title ” is not applicable to them, or whether they overrule it and all similar questions, are immaterial inquiries. The court, in the four cases cited, held the city to be a proprietor, in the contemplation of the laws providing 'for local assessments, and in the absence of any express statutory direction on that point ; and such is the exact question here. We therefore consider that question settled; especially when considered in connection with the fact that these assessments have been reduced to judgments and confirmed by courts of competent jurisdiction, the validity of which as well as the regularity of the assessments has been recognized and approved by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. State of Louisiana ex rel. Van Norden v. Mayor &c. of New Orleans, 27 La. Ann. 497.
We now advert to the claim of the appellant that the city is liable for the drainage fund, as delinquent trustee. That liability is asserted, on three distinct grounds: 1st, because the city unjustifiably failed to collect the assessments due the fund; 2d, because it failed, as subrogee of the original contractor, to continue the work of drainage, and thus secure, under the decisions of the Louisiana courts, the collectibility of the assessments; 3d, because she has paid out moneys belonging to the fund for purposes not permitted by the law. A short outline of some of the history of these matters will be proper.
The act of 1858 established the first, second and third drainage’districts; organized a'district board in each, with full control of the drainage in that district; gave the board the power to levy a .uniform assessment per square foot on the land to be draijned, not to exceed $350,000 in the aggregate, in each district ; made the assessments first liens on the lands' assessed; provided,' in case of non-payment, that judgment therefor should be recoverable in any court of competent jurisdiction; that lands be sold for arrearages, costs arid interest; and that the respective boards might purchase the same, and hold or dispose of them for the benefit of the districts.
*365The act of 1859 authorized the boards to borrow $350,000 for each district and to issue bonds therefor; and directed the boards, on issuing bonds, to make assessments in conformity to the act of 1858, to be collected in not less than ten annual instalments, and to be applied exclusively to the payment or purchase of such bonds, and the payment of the interest thereon.
The act of 1861 provided that copies of the assessments made as above' should be filed in certain designated courts, and, after notice, approved and homologated, and that they should then constitute judgments against the property assessed and the owners thereof, on which executions might issue as on judgments rendered in the ordinary mode, and that ten per cent be added to pay counsel fees and costs.
Under these statutes the boards organized, made the assessments, caused some of them to be homologated, collected a portion of the money and did some' of the work. Until 1869 they continued to exist and to be more or less active in discharging their duties. The system, however, did not prove satisfactory by reason of the absence of responsibility and of unity of action on the part of the several boards. The act of 1869, therefore, consolidated the districts, abolished the boards, and appointed a commissioner, who was to succeed to their property, collect the assessments and levy and collect others on such parts of the district as were not included in the tableaux turned over to him. The commissioner, however, was not to do the work. That was to be done by a company, which was to receive all the collections in return for certain work.
By the act of 18LL an entirely new scheme was devised. The Mississippi and Mexican Gulf Ship Canal Company was authorized to do the work needed; the city board of administrators was empowered to locate the canals and levees, and required to build and run the machines necessary to lift the water over from the canals into the lake; the city surveyor to furnish the company monthly estimates of the work done, on which warrants were to be issued by the city auditor; the city treasurer to pay those warrants from any funds in the treasury to the credit of the company ; and, if there was not the money *366necessary, to endorse the date 'of presentation, the warrant to bear interest therefrom. To provide the necessary funds, all the assets and the assessments provided for by the acts of 1858, and the various acts supplementary thereto, were transferred to the city, and the city was subrogated to all the rights, powers and faculties thereby conferred. The city was expressly required to collect the assessments, (which were, at the same time made exigible and confirmed,) in time to provide for the payment of the warrants. It was authorized to assess those lands in the three original districts, and such others included in the levees, as had not been already assessed; the assessments to be enforced as in the prior acts. All moneys collected were to be passed to the credit of the company, for the payment only of the drainage of New Orleans and Carroll-ton ; and all property, not money, received, to be held in trust, primarily for the same purpose, and finally, if not so needed, for the city.
Such were the circumstances under which the city became the administrator and trustee of this important interest and fund: and such were the duties imposed upon her by those capacities.
What, now, were the assets committed to her administration, and for which there must manifestly be some sort of an account ? They were:
1. A balance uncollected of a levy made in the first district, by the original board........ $500,714 42
2. Ditto in the second district................. 289,907 40
3. Levy made by the city, under the act of 1871, in the third district.................... 627,589 95
4. - Ditto in the fourth district................. 281,416 81
Total amount chargeable..............$1,699,628 58
This sum includes the assessments against the city, on account of public places, admitted never to have been paid, unless by issuance of bonds (of which hereafter)........................ 697,836 28
Leaving due on account of. individual--assessments...................... . .$1,001,792 30
*367These large assets, having come to the hands of the city for the purposes of a great public trust, it was bound to relieve itself of the charge assumed by it in some way .consistent with the rule of reasonable diligence. In' view of its antecedent agency, and its cooperative action in the creation of the trust and its more than willing acceptance of it, added to the .fact that it was the party to be ultimately benefited, we' are not prepared to accept the .theory that it was a compulsory and not a voluntary or contractual trustee, a failure to discharge whose obligations puts less strain upon the moral sense than if the obligations had been' purely statutory. And in this connection, it is well to observe that this bill was filed for the purpose of an accounting. A trustee, city or not —’ it is immaterial— receives large assets, of which its own liability forms a considerable part; and the simple question is, how shall it relieve itself of the charge? How does the city do so in this case? Not by collection and disbursement according to the law and her duty, for it is conceded that about $1,400,000 was never collected. But —
(1) By a claim that the assessments were greater than the value of ’ the lands, and, therefore, that they could not be collected from the lands. To this proposition there are several answers: First, as well argued by counsel for the appellee, it cannot be generally true in fact, since the lands are those on which the great city of New Orleans is built, and the assessments ranged from $69 to $140 per acre; second, in those instances in which the assessment was greater than the value of the lands, if there were any such, then the statute made provision by which the lands themselves, on failure of the owners to pay, should be sold and bought in by the city for the fund, and the duty of the city was to do this — in fact, it was done by the original board of the 15th district in the case of the asylum property; third, the statutes also provided, as has been seen, that personal executions should be issued against the owners for arrearages, damages and costs, and there is no showing, in our opinion, of anything like reasonable diligence in the use of this valuable right — a right which the Supreme Court of the State, in 1874, recognized and adjudged. *368We are impressed with the conviction that, although under the act of 1871, it was the duty of the city to press the collection of these funds at the rate of about $25,000 per month, yet it did nothing more than keep an office open at which the assessees might voluntarily pay, or not pay, as they wished.
(2) By a claim that the decision of the Supreme Court in the Succession of Irwin, 33 La. Ann. 63, held that certain personal judgments obtained by the summary processes given by the act of 1871 were void, and nullified the homologation of the tableaux for the entire fourth district. This decision was not rendered until the year 1881, the city then having had charge of this matter for ten years. The decision cannot, of course, be successfully offered as an apology for the antecedent supineness of so long a period. Prior to that, the Louisiana courts had been enforcing the statute of 1871, as we have already shown. And, further, in regard to the Irwin case, if it was of such, grave import as to effectually prevent the collection of these moneys, then it was probably violative of contract rights, and on proper proceedings could have been avoided. If it was not of such import, then it is no answer to the obligation of the city to make the collections aforesaid. In fact, the testimony in this case would indicate that the city was deliberately obstructing, not forwarding, the collection of these funds.
In December, 1873, after having failed to collect the taxes to pay the warrants when due, the city adopted an ordinance allowing the taxes to be paid in warrants, thus compelling the contractor to sell at a discount or get no money at all. After collecting only $88,000 in three and a half years, with warrants falling due at the rate of $25,000 a month, and making no effort to collect except to keep an office, and never having issued an execution up to January, 1875, the city then denied the right of the warrant holders to have execution, and resisted the mandamus that resulted in the judgment of the Supreme Court sustaining such right. The city did not make any effort, worthy of mention, to collect the tax from the owners independent of the land. After the purchase of the plant from the contractor in 1876, under the statute passed to that end, and the subrogation of the city to all the right of such con*369tractor, it deliberately abandoned the work, let the canals already dug fill up and the boats and other appliances, for which about $300,000 of warrants were issued, rot unused. By reason of that abandonment and the consequent non-completion of the system the Supreme Court of Louisiana decided, in the case of Davidson v. The City of New Orleans, 81 La. Ann. 170, that the tax could not be enforced. In 1881, pending the decision of the Davidson case, the mayor, by direction of the council, issued a proclamation advising the non-payment of drainage taxes until the validity thereof should be passed on by the Supreme Court, notwithstanding the previous judicial history of these transactions. In 1883 the council appointed a committee to investigate and report whether any drainage taxes were being collected and by what authority, and published in their proceedings the report whereby it was declared the large amount of taxes due and outstanding Avere not collectible, and in Avhich Avas set forth the method by which the assignees might get relieved from the assessments.
Such are substantially the charges made by the appellant to show that the city, after seeking and accepting the trust, was opposing its execution, instead of enforcing it.
(3) By a claim that the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Davidson v. New Orleans, 32 La. Ann. 245, to the effect that a judgment for a drainage tax will not be enforced Avhere it is shoAvn that the property received no benefit from the drainage, Avas a great hindrance, as its effect Avas to release from their liability for the assessment more than half of the first and third drainage districts and almost the whole of the second. The ground of the decision-was the abandonment by the city of the Avork it Avas charged to do. It is manifest that the city cannot relieve itself of the obligation to collect the assessments avoided by its oAvn default. To meet this proposition the appellee contends that the cost of completion would have been so great that the assessments would have been more than exhausted in completing the Avork, and the outstanding debt- would have remained still unpaid. There were and are uncollected $1,123,235.31, including about $7*'<>.(>(><> of the city’s OAvn assessment which should, under the circumstances, *370be considered money in hand. The appellee states the amount necessary to have completed the system, as projected, “at nearly or quite $700,000.” The dues of the city alone would have- completed the work according to appellant’s own statement and have left a balance for the benefit of warrant holders of about $725,000. .
But the appellee also claims.that when, completed there would still have been lands in the district unbenefited, on which the total assessments would have amounted to $500,000, and that these assessments, according to the Davidson case, would not have been collectible. If all that were correct, and if the city had no other resources for finishing of work than these assessments, still a margin of about $225,000 would have been left for- the benefit of warrant holders. On the other hand, however, we cannot yield assent to the Davidson decision. We cannot and do not accept the proposition that where the legislature passes on the necessity of a great public work like this, and organizes a district for its prosecution, the assessments made are void .unless the property assessed is directly and evidently benefited. What question of that kind may exist, is a question of the district, not of the individual properties. The Davidson decision would wreck every work of a like character we ever knew. The entire levee systems of the Mississippi River would be swept away at once, for the taxes would be void as to all lands above overflow from the river'unleveed, and as to all those which lie so low as to remain wet and untillable in the absence of a supplemental system of drainage, even after the completion of the levees. Admit the principle that these general assessments or taxes are to be brought to the test-of particular benefits, and the most unexpected and disastrous consequences would follow. Moreover, our criticism on the Irwin case, as to its violation of contract rights already fixed, applies to the Davidson case, if possible, with even greater force.
(4) By a claim that the constitutional amendment of 1874, which took effect on the 21st of January, 1875, in terms declared “that the city of New Orleans shall not hereafter increase her debt in any manner or form, or under an3r pretext.” An answer to this claim we do not think noc.essarv.
*371The next point calling for our consideration is the proposition of appellee that the liability, if it existed, has been discharged, either directly by payment, or indirectly by an equitable set-off. It was upon this ground the Circuit Court proceeded, and upon this ground the opinion of the majority rests. This claim' is based upon the fact that, proceeding under act No. 73 of 1872, the city retired about $1,600,000 of drainage warrants by issuing for thein its own seven per cent fifty-year gold bonds. The claim resolves itself into two heads, one of payment and one of set-off. But in order to consider either it will be necessary to advert again to the history of those bonds. The act of 1858, inaugurating the drainage enterprise, provided, as we have seen, for .the expenses by an assessment on lands to be a lien on them reducible to judgment. The act of 1859 authorized the issue of the bonds by the commissioners of each district,' not to exceed $350,000 in each district, to the payment and purchase of which, and the payment of interest thereon, the assessments were exclusively devoted. Then followed the act of 1861, which made the assessments personal liabilities, on which,, when reduced to judgment, common executions might, issue. Then the act of 1869 abolished the several boards of commissioners, in order to get rid of the obstruction arising from wrant of harmony among them, appointed a commissioner for the entire territory, and ordered the construction of the drainage canals to be paid from the assessments so collected. Then came the act of 1871. It provides for certain canals and levees to be dug and constructed by the Mississippi and Mexican Gulf Ship Canal Company ; for the supervision of the work, and the administration of the funds by the city; and for the application of the assessments when collected only to drainage. Here first appears the direction to draw warrants on account of work done; and it is directed that if warrants were not paid, on presentation, they should draw eight per cent interest. Provision was made for assessments in addition to those already levied.
During all this there was evidently felt the pressure of- the actual fact that the assessments were not collected with sufficient regularity and promptness to meet the urgent do*372mands of a scheme so éxtensive, as well as of the want of a more acceptable security to contractors for the large expenditures entailed. Therefore, two months after the passage of the act of 1871, the city ordinance provided that, “ in case the warrants issued for drainage works to be done by the Mississippi and Mexican Gulf Ship Company should not be paid within one year out of the proceeds of the drainage taxes and assessments, they should be fundable in bonds of the city, bearing eight per cent interest, payable semi-annually, having ten years to run, and with due provision for retiring the same, and securing the punctual payment of interest and gradual extinction of principal.”
Then followed act No. 73 of 1872. This is the statute under which the bonds in fact issued, and an analysis of which is indispensable here. Its objects, as expressed in its title, were, “To authorize the.council of the city of New Orleans to levy a police tax; to regulate the levies of taxes, the proceedings of tax suits, and the jurisdiction of the District Courts for the parish of Orleans in reference thereto; to define and punish forgery in certain cases; to authorize the funding of the floating debt; to consolidate, limit and provide for the debt of the city of New Orleans, principal and interest; to authorize a tax for the support of the city government, and to establish a fiscal agency, defining its duties, and for the better enforcement of the collection of all taxes.”
Section 13 of the act runs thus: >
“Seo. 13. Be it further enacted, etc.; That for unbonded debts existing December 31, 1871, and unpaid at the time of the passage of this act, or caused by receipts of certificates of 1871, for revenues proper of 1872, and for excavations and levees, drainage machinery and revetments authorized by law or required for the protection of the city from overflow and inundation the city may issue from time to time, as they may be required, bonds of the denominations of five hundred and one thousand dollars, having fifty years to run, and bearing seven per cent interest, principal and interest payable in gold in New York or New Orleans, and at any other points that the council may designate, with quarterly coupons, and that *373the bonds thus issued shall be called the new consolidated debt of New Orleans. No bonds shall be issued but by authority of the council, nor for a lower rate than ninety cents on the dollar; all issued for excavations and levees, authorized by act No.'30 of 1871, or by drainage laws previously enacted, shall be marked “ Drainage Series,” and all taxes collected for drainage, and not required for the payment of drainage warrants,- shall be devoted to the purchase from the lowest bidder of bonds issued for drainage; no bid .to be accepted above par, and the right reserved to the council to reject all unsatisfactory bids.”
Proceeding under this statute, thé city issued about $1,600,-000 of the • drainage bonds, taking up therewith warrants issued for work done. It is claimed that in issuing those bonds the city thereby paid, off both its own assessed dues to the drainage fund, as well as discharged any liability it may have been under on account of its non-feasance or mis-feasance as statutory trustee of the fund. We cannot accept that view.
It seems to us clear that it was not the intention of the legislature that such should be the effect of the issue of those bonds. That intention must of course control, as it is a question of the power of the municipality to issue negotiable bonds. The section authorized a series of bonds to be issued, and directed “that the bonds thus issued shall be called the new consolidated debt of New Orleans.” They were to constitute one debt, the consolidated debt, not a variety of debts, nor even two distinct debts; and the statute manifestly proceeded on the idea that this one consolidated debt is to be paid, as all city debts are paid, out of the property of the city, and that without any express declaration to that effect. United States v. New Orleans, 98 U. S. 381. The purposes for which the bonds were to be issued were : (1) for unbonded debts existing December 31, 1871, and unpaid at the time of the passage of the act, or caused by receipts of certificates of 1871; (2) “for revenues proper of 1872;” (3) “and for excavations - and levees, drainage machinery and revetments authorized by law, or required for the protection of the city from *374overflow or inundation; ” one as well as the other, one no less than the other.
Now,.certain of those bonds were to be marked “Drainage Bonds.” What bonds, and why? The statute in words answers : “ All issued for the excavations and levees authorized by act No. 30 of 1871, or by drainage laws previously enacted.” No bonds could be lawfully so marked, except such as were issued “ for excavations and levees; ” hot for drainage machinery or revetments; not even for excavations and levees to be thereafter made, unless they were such as the statutes, named authorized; not for excavations and levees previously made, since they were already settled for by warrants, whatever such warrants might be worth; still less for the debts or liabilities of the city, however they may have been incurred. The city could not properly thus mark any bonds issued for any purposes except those expressly limited in the statute — those issued in payment for excavations and levees authorized to be made by the act of 1871, and the preceding acts. And why? For a reason entirely in harmony with the whole tendency of the entire series of statutes, and with the requirements of good faith to the contractors working under those statutes; for the purpose of expediting the work, and of giving increased value to those particular bonds.
The appellee contends that these bonds have only the force of warrants, and could only be paid out of the proceeds of the assessments already made, notwithstanding they had fifty years to run before payment could be demanded at all. Not so; they were privileged bonds in the series. And, beside the general liability of the city, the statute provided that all the proceeds of assessments not needed to pay off warrants, if any, coming in, (and in doing which the issue of that class was, fro tanto, prevented and rendered unnecessary,) should be an additional special fund with which the city should furchase said bonds before maturity at a price agreed on not exceeding-par, thereby giving the bondholders, of some of them, if there were any such excess of receipts, an option to get their money before maturity. 'Whether a sound one or not, such was clearly the scheme, and it presupposed the continued existence *375and the continued collection of the assessments after the issue of the bonds; and plainly excludes the idea that such issue is to extinguish the assessments, or any of them. Not an intimation is given of any difference between one class of assessments and another ; those of the city and those of individuals. Therefore, the city had no power to issue such bonds for the purpose of paying the assessments. It had, perhaps, the power to issue bonds of the unmarked sort for that purpose, if Yan Norden, the transferee of the company’s rights, had .'consented to receive them for that purpose; but it was not claimed that this was done or tried. The question is, as to the effect of the issuing of the marked bonds.
Moreover, in issuing these bonds the city had no intention to pay its assessments thereby; nor were they received with any such intention or understanding by the receiver of them. This is amply shown by the following facts:
(1) It was the regular custom to mark on the assessment rolls all the payments made. No such entry was made in this case.
(2) The issue of bonds, after they were authorized, was always and largely in excess of the homologated judgments against the city on its assessments.
(3) Judgments were being constantly rendered against the city on her assessments, after she had issued bonds far ahead of even her claimed liability, yet she never presented ainr claim for payment.
(4) The city administrator "of públic accounts in his report to the city council, July 1,1872, said that the city had already issued certificates for $485,081 of the new consolidated bonds, drainage series; and he states the amount due by the city for the streets to be $763,378.69, the total amount originally assessed against the city. On the theory of payment it would have been only $258,297.69. To constitute payment, money or some other valuable thing must be delivered by the debtor to the creditor for the purpose of extinguishing the debt, and the creditor must receive it' for the same purpose. Dodge v. Freedman’s Sav. & Trust Co., 93 U. S. 379, 386; Fetchum v. Duncan, 96 U. S. 659; Carter v. Burr, 113 U. S. *376737; Wood v. Guarantee Trust Co., 128 U. S. 416; Queen v. Ashwell, 16 Q. B. D. 190, 224. These views are reinforced, if they need reinforcement, by the fact that the real question of payment or no payment lies between the city in its ordinary municipal capacity on the one hand and the city in its extraordinary capacity as statutory trustee on the other. Payment is a contract implying both proposal and acceptance; and under-such conditions could the city have made such a contract without a clear statutory authority? We think not. If the legislature had designed to authorize the city to extinguish its own liability in this manner, it would have said so.
The remaining point to be noticed is that of the equitable set-off. The argument of the appellee on this line is as follows : The act of 1872 was only an enabling act to terminate the power of the municipality to issue bonds of the same tenor as the warrants which were taken up; that is to say, payable out of the drainage fund if that should suffice. The case, as here regarded then, is clearly that of a trustee, who has, by error, issued securities for the advantage of the cestui que trust. Having so issued the securities, it must result, inevitably, that the city is to be credited with the amount to the extent of which she has relieved the fund.
It is obvious that the entire force of this argument rests on the proposition that the drainage bonds were to be issued, payable only out of the drainage fund, and did not import, as contemplated by the statute, any direct liability on the city ; also, that there was no error in the act. of issuing the bonds. We have already, in the preceding passage, analyzed the statute, and shown that, according to our view, a direct liability on the city was exactly what was intended, the provision as to the drainage fund in connection with those bonds being merely a cumulative provision for them. That view, of course, disposes of this argument, since it denies the major premise.
Outside of the statute we will mention one or two facts confirmatory of the view that it was not the intention to have the drainage bonds paid' from the assessments. First, assessments in 1872 were less by or about $200,000 than the known sum needed to complete the system devised by the act of *3771871; secondly, although the assessments were collected while the bonds were issued, so slowly and meagrely, as we have seen,'that fact, overwhelming if they were to constitute the only resource for payment, seemed not to have the slightest effect on either the city or the contractor in this matter; and, finally, the fact, that the bonds were made payable fifty years after date seems of itself a sufficient contradiction of the idea that the only source for payment at that late date was these assessments.
We are, therefore, of the opinion that the court below erred in dismissing the bill. We think an account should have been stated on the basis indicated herein in its general outlines. The city was trustee by statute, and can be called to account by any person in interest. Exactly how the decree, when rendered, and the ascertainment of liability thereby made should have been enforced, it is hardly worth while to discuss in a dissenting opinion. The usual remedy is by mandamus where a public body cannot be subjected to ordinary process. That is a matter of detail only. The fact that the public property could not be sold on execution is- no reason for absolving the city altogether from liability. The city should at least have paid what it itself owed on the assessments in question.
TJpon these grounds we feel constrained to withhold our assent from the opinion and judgment of the court.
Mr. Justice Brown did not hear argument in this case, and takes no part in its decision.