Court Opinion

ID: 8749764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 11:21:40.650982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:00:53.136075
License: Public Domain

CALDWELL, Circuit Judge,
after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The railroad company has paid the state, county, and school taxes assessed on the east half of the bridge, but resists the payment of the municipal taxes assessed thereon by the city of Council Bluffs, upon the ground that the bridge, though within the corporate limits of the city, is in fact in the country, and receives no benefit or protection, directly or indirectly, from the municipal government, and the city incurs no expense, directly or indirectly, on account of the same.
A long and unbroken line of decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa establish the doctrine that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation, and that the taxation of property for municipal purposes, which receives no benefits or protection whatever from, the municipal government, and imposes no burdens whatever upon the city, is a violation of this constitutional guaranty and is illegal. Morford v. Unger, 8 Iowa, 82; Fulton v. Davenport, 17 Iowa, 404; O’Hare v. Dubuque, 22 Iowa, 144; Bridge Co. v. Dubuque, 32 lowa, 427; Deiman v. Ft. Madison, 30 Iowa, 542; Taylor v. City *915of Waverly, 94 Iowa, 661, 63 N. W. 347. It is said these decisions relate to lands within the city limits used for agricultural purposes, and have no application to a bridge across the Missouri river within the city limits. In express terms, such a bridge is not included in these decisions, but the decisions rest on the broad constitutional guaranty against taking private property for public use without adequate compensation — a principle as applicable to a bridge like the one involved in this case as to lands. Henderson Bridge Co. v. Henderson City, 173 U. S. 592, 19 Sup. Ct. 553, 43 L. Ed. 823.
In the brief of counsel for the city it is frankly stated that the last decision of the court, which follows and affirms its previous decisions, is not, and “does not purport to be, based on any statute.”
The long and unbroken line of decisions which we have cited must be accepted as conclusively settling the law of the state on this subject, and are binding on this court. New Orleans v. Stemple, 175 U. S. 309, 20 Sup. Ct. no, 44 L. Ed. 174.
Prima facie, all property within the corporate limits of a city is subject to municipal taxation, but it is a settled principle of law in that state that the corporate limits of a city may exceed its taxable limits, and that real property to which the public ways of the city do not extend, and which is beyond the reach of police protection, and receives none, and beyond the reach of fire protection, and receives none, and beyond the reach of the city lights, and receives no benefit from them, and that is, in a word, denied the enjoyment of any of the benefits and protection which commonly flow from a municipal government, cannot lawfully be taxed by that municipality for its municipal purposes. This principle, undoubtedly, does not meet with universal assent. Judge Cooley (Cooley on Taxation [2d Ed.] 157, 159) refers to and criticises unfavorably the Iowa and Kentucky cases on this subject, but the principle is recognized in guarded language by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Henderson Bridge Co. v. Henderson City, supra, where exemption from municipal taxation for a bridge across the Ohio river was sought on this ground under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court, affirming the decision of the court of appeals of Kentucky in the same case, held the bridge was liable to municipal taxation because it was “within the statutory boundary of the city of Henderson, and within reach of the police protection afforded by that city for the benefit and safety of all persons and property within its limits.”
Accepting the rule prescribed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case cited, which is, in substance, that adopted by the Supreme Court of Iowa — that, in order to bring municipal taxation within the scope of the constitutional provision that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, “the case should be so clearly and palpably an illegal encroachment upon private rights as to leave no doubt that such taxation, by its necessary operation, is really spoliation under the guise of exerting the power to tax” —we proceed to inquire whether, upon the agreed' statement of facts, the municipal tax imposed upon this bridge falls within this rule.
From the agreed statement of facts and the annexed plat, it is ap*916parent that the city of Council Bluffs has the corporate limits of a great city, with the population and municipal improvements and agencies of a comparatively small one. Its boundaries seem to have been established in anticipation of a future growth in population which has not yet come,about. The result is that-there is a large scope of territory within its corporate limits, devoted to agricultural pursuits or lying vacant, which differs in no respect from ordinary farm and pasture lands in the country. Barge bodies of these lands, which, under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the state, are exempted from municipal taxation, and which are not taxed for municipal purposes, lie between the railroad bridge and the populated district of the city, and it is very clear that land lying where this bridge is situated would not be subject to municipal taxation.
The bridge is used exclusively for railroad purposes. No wagon or foot bridge is connected with it, and no street or streets lead to or from the city to it. It is not within reach of the police protection of the city, and is patroled and guarded by the servants of the railroad company. It is not within reach of any of the means provided by the city for extinguishing fires, and is far beyond the limits of the lighted portion of the city. In a word, it does not receive or enjoy any benefit or protection whatever from these or other like municipal agencies and appliances provided by the city for the benefit and safety of persons and property in the populated portion of the city.' The case would not be different in these respects if the bridge was situated miles outside of the city limits. Upon this state of facts, and under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the state, the bridge is not liable for the municipal taxes assessed in favor of the city.
The present decision applies to existing conditions, which may be so changed in the future that the bridge will become liable to taxation for municipal purposes.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is affirmed.