Court Opinion

ID: 9417366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:11:02.433601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:40.378862
License: Public Domain

*292Mr. Justice Harlan
dissenting.
- By the Constitution of Louisiana adopted in 1879, and which - went into effect January 1st, 1880, it is declared, “ no parish or municipal tax, for all purposes whatever, shall exceed ten mills on the dollar of valuation.”
. The judgments held by plaintiff in error against the city of New Orleans were rendered and became final long before the adoption of that constitutional provision: At the time of their rendition, the law forbade-execution against the defendant, but the city had the power, and", was under a .duty, which thenourts could compel it to discharge, to include in its budget or annual estimate for contingent expenses, a sum sufficient to pay these judgments. At that, time, also, .the' rate of taxation - prescribed by law, was ample to enable the city to meet all such obligations. But if the limitation upon taxation imposed by the State, Constitution, be applied to the judgments in - question,' then, it'is- conceded, the city cannot raise more nfoney than will be required to meet the ordinary and necessary expenses of municipal administration. . Consequently, under the limit of ten mills on the dollar of valuation, the judgments of plaintiffs become as valueless as they would be had the State Constitution, in terms, forbidden the city from paying them.
1. Are the judgments in question contracts,? This question is answered by the Court of Appeals of New York, speaking by Woodruff, J., in Taylor v. Root, 4 Keyes, 344. It is there said:
“ Contracts are of three kinds : Simple contracts, contracts by-specialty, and contracts of record. A judgment is a contract of the highest nature known to the law. . .- The cause or consideration of the judgment is of no possible importance ; that is merged in the judgment. When recovered, the judgment stands' as a conclusive declaration that the plaintiff therein is entitled to the sum of money recovered. No matter what may have been the original cause of action, the judgment forever settles the plaintiff’s claim and the defendant’s assent 'thereto ; this' assent may have been reluctant, but in law it is' an assent, and the defendant is estopped by the judgment to dissent. Forever there*293after, any claim on tbe judgment is setting up a cause of action on contract.”
Blackstone says that “ when any specific sum is adjudged to be due from the defendant to the plaintiff on an action or suit .at law, this is a contract of the highest nature, being established by the sentence of a court of judicature.” 3 Bl. 465. Chitty enumerates judgments among contracts or obligations of record, and observes that they “ are of superior force, because they have been promulgated by, or are founded upon, the authority and have received the sanction of, a court of record.” Chitty on Contracts, 3. Am action in form ex contract will lie on a judgment of a court of record, because the law implies a contract to pay it from the fact of there being a legal obligation tó do so, “ although,” says Chitty, “ the transaction in its origin was totally unconnected with contract, and there has been no promise in fact.” Id. 87.
It seems to me that these judgments are contracts, within any reasonable interpretation of the contract clause of the national Constitution. It can hardly be that the framers of that instrument attached less consequence to contracts of record than to simple contracts. If this view be correct, then the withdrawal from the city of New Orleans of the authority which it possessed when they were rendered, to levy' táxes sufficient for their payment, impaired the obligation of the contracts evidenced by those judgments.
2. But if this view be erroneous,' it seems quite clear that the State Constitution of 1879 cannot be applied to these judgments Avithout bringing it into conflict Avith that provision of the Constitution, Avhich declares that no State shall deprive any person of property AAdthout'due process of laAV. That these judgments are property within the meaning of the Constitution cannot, it seems to me, be doubted. They are none the less property because the original cause of action did not arise out of contract, in the literal meaning of that word, but rests upon a statute making municipal corporations liable for property destroyed by a mob. If a judgment 'giving damages for such a tort is not a contract Avithin the meaning of the Constitution, it is, *294nevertheless, property, of which the owner may not be deprived without due process of law. Its value as property depends in every' legal sense upon the remedies which the law gives to enforce its collection. To withhold from the citizen who has a judgment for money the judicial means of enforcing its collection — or, what is, in effect, the same thing, to withdraw from the judgment debtor, a municipal corporation, the authority to levy taxes for its payment — is to destroy the value of the judgment as property. In Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166, this court had occasion to consider the meaning of that provision in the constitutions of the several States which forbids private property from being taken for public purposes without just compensation therefor. Under the authority of statutes of Wisconsin, certain dams were constructed across a public navigable stream of that State. The dams so constructed caused the waters to overflow the land of a citizen, resulting in the almost complete. destruction of its value. The argument was there made that the land was not taken within the meaning of the Constitution, and that the damage was only the consequential result of such use of a navigable stream as the government had a right to make for the purposes of navigation. But, touching that suggestion, this court said:
“ It would be a very curious and unsatisfactory result if in construing a provision of constitutional law, always understood to have been adopted for protection and security to the rights of the individual as against the government, and which has received the commendation of jurists, statesmen, and commentators as placing the just principles of the common law on that subject beyond the power of ordinary legislation to change or control them, it shall be held that if the government refrains from the absolute conversion of real property to the uses of the public, it can destroy its value entirely, can inflict irreparable and permanent injury to any extent, can, in effect, subject it to total destruction without making any compensation, because, in the ^narrowest sense of that word, it is not 'taken for the public use. Such a construction'Would pervert the constitutional provision into a restriction upon the rights of the citizen as those rights stood at the common law, instead of the government, and make it.an authority for invasion *295of private rights under the pretext of the public good, which had no warrant in the laws or practice of our ancestors.”
These principles of constitutional construction have an important bearing upon the present case. If the property of the citizen is “ taken,” within the meaning of-the Constitution, when its value is destroyed or permanently impaired through the act of the government, or by the acts of others under the sanction or authority of the government, it- would seem that the citizen, holding a judgment for money against a municipal corporation —which judgment is capable of enforcement by judicial proceedings at the time of its rendition — is deprived of his property without due process of law, if the State, by a subsequent law, so reduces the rate of taxation as to make it impossible for the corporation to satisfy such judgment. Since the value of tie judgment, as property, depends necessarily upon the remedies given for its enforcement, the withdrawal of all remedies for its enforcement, and compelling the owner to rely exclusively upon the generosity of the judgment debtor, is, I submit, to deprive the owner of his property.
But it is said that the plaintiffs are not deprived of their judgments, so long as they continue to be existing liabilities against the city. My answer is, that such liability upon the part of the city is of no consequence, unless, when payment is refused, it can be enforced by legal proceedings. A money judgment which cannot be collected Is of as little value as Pumpelly’s farm was, when .covered by water to such an extent that it could not be used for any of the purposes for which land is desired.
It is also said by my brethren that plaintiffs are not deprived of their property in these judgments, because at the time they are unable to collect them. No State shall “ deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” .is the mandate of the Constitution. Could a State law depriving a person of his liberty be sustained upon the ground that such deprivation was only for a time? Pumpelly’s land was ad judged to have been taken within' the meaning of the Constitution, although it was possible that, at some future time, the *296dams constructed under the authority of the State might he abandoned, or might give Avay, causing the Avaters to retire Avithin their original limits, and thereby enabling the OAvner to re-occupy his farm. It is barely possible, that the people of Louisiana may, at some future period in their history, amend her Constitution, so as to permit the city of NeAV Orleans to levy taxes sufficient to meet its indebtedness, as established by the judicial tribunals of that State. But such a possibility cannot properly be recognized as an element in. the legal inquiry Avhether the State may so réduce the rate of taxation by one of its municipal corporations, as to deprive it altogether of the poAver to pay valid judgments against it, Avhich, at the time of their rendition, and under the rate of taxation which then obtained, Avere collectable through judicial proceedings.
It is further said that these judgments may also, “ perhaps,” be used by the relators or their assignees as offsets to demands of the city. - My ansAver is, that the city may never ha\re such demands. The possibility that it may have ought not to control the determination of this case, involving, I submit, a present deprivation of-property, Avithout due process of law.
In this case, before the adoption of the Constitution of 1879-80, before even the convention that framed it met, the plaintiffs had obtained, in the inferior State court, a final order in a mandamus suit, requiring the city of NeAV Orleans to include in its .next budget or statement of liabilities (and in succeeding budgets, until they Avere paid), the amounts of existing judgments against it, including those held by plaintiffs, and to levy a tax to the extent of $1.75 on every $100 of valuation to meet them. This judgment in the mandamus suit Avas izi accordance Avith the laAV of the State as it then was. Plaintiffs, by the application of the constitutional limitation upon municipal taxation, adopted after rendition of judgment in the mandamus suit, is thus deprived not only of the benefit of that judgment, but of all .poAver to'enforce the collection of the original judgments, in the ozily way they can be enforced or be made of any value. If this be not a deprivation of property Avithout due process of law, it is, I think, difficult to conceive of a case involving such a deprivation.
*297For these reasons, I feel constrained to dissent from the judgment.