Court Opinion

ID: 7949835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-08 23:25:13.040909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:34:05.685895
License: Public Domain

Fellows, J.
(dissenting in part). I am for affirmance, but not for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Bird, and by the learned trial judge. I do not agree that a municipal unit of the State may enforce by sale for delinquency a special assessment upon the property held by its creator, the sovereign, the State, even though such property be not in use for governmental purposes, nor that this court committed itself to such doctrine by the case of Newberry v. City of Detroit, 164 Mich. 410 (129 N. W. 699, 32 L. R. A. [N. S.] 303). That case involved a special assessment for paving purposes, and the question involved was whether the city should assess upon property owned by itself and not used for governmental purposes its proportion of the costs. The charter provision was as follows:
“For the purpose of such assessment, the lots and parcels of real estate situated on said street, and fronting the portion thereof ordered to be improved, shall constitute one local assessment district”; * * * the cost and expense of the paving to be assessed according to frontage. Detroit Charter 1904, §§ 266, 267, pp. 182-184.
It was held that the municipality should assess upon its own property, not used for governmental purposes, its proportion of the cost of the local improvement, and that such property was not exempt from such special assessment. This- was the question there before the court and there decided. That case is not authority to the point that property owned by the State is subject to sale for failure to pay local assessments, but only to the point that property owned by the municipality, and not used for governmental purposes, should pay its proportion of the cost of local improvements made under the provisions of its charter. In the instant case the State parted with its title to the property on June 24, 1912. On March 24, 1913, *494the tax roll for this special assessment was approved by the board of public works, and the certificate of the comptroller was attached and the entire assessment approved May 1, 1913. The ordinance ordering the improvement was passed July 3, 1911, but this special assessment did not become due until nearly a year after the State had parted with its title and the property had become subject to private ownership. In the case of Case v. City of Saginaw, 196 Mich. 687 (163 N. W. 115), the writer expressed the view:
“That the lands were not liable for special assessments falling due while they were owned and held by the State, but were liable for such special assessments as became due after they became subject to private ownership.”
I am unable to distinguish the facts in that case from those in this case. There, as here, the property was vacant city property, used for no governmental purpose; it had been, bid off by the State for delinquent taxes. One of the special assessments in that case, as was the assessment in the instant case, was for the construction of a sewer. -Entertaining the views there expressed, I think this case should be affirmed.