Court Opinion

ID: 9714122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:31:18.036627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:23.636559
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring in affirmance). During argument of this case interrogation from the bench established that no question had been raised as regards possible legal effect, upon Pontiac’s special assessment of plaintiffs’ property, of presumed statutory deduction, from the statutory award (see State Highway Commissioner v. Eilender, 362 Mich 697), of “the benefits accruing to [the plaintiff] owners of lands.” For authority providing that such deduction should be made in given circumstances, see CL 1948, § 213.188 (Stat Ann 1958 Rev § 8.189). I allude to this in order that the question of such possible legal effect be not taken as having been decided, indirectly or otherwise, upon affirmance hereof. The allusion is deemedly in order because, as counsel advise, an appeal from the result of remand as ordered in the cited case has been taken and is now pending.
Had plaintiffs appealed to equity, for a decree declaring invalid these special assessments against their property, and had the seated chancellor found as in the Fluckey Case (Fluckey v. City of Plymouth, *675358 Mich 447) that “the widening and paving pro]-' ect would diminish rather than enhance” the value of plaintiffs’ said property, I would hold that the principles announced in Fluckey (also in Knott v. City of Flint, 363 Mich 483) control here and that plaintiffs should have full relief.
Plaintiffs however chose the concurrent and alterr native remedy; that of suit authorized by statute to recover assessments paid under protest. The result was a finding-, based on testimony the triers of fact had a right to believe as against opposing testimony, that, the widening and paving project in question did “confer additional benefit upon the property of the plaintiffs over and above that conferred upon the general public.”
The aforesaid finding must be accepted here, supported as it is by such testimony. On such ground I concur in affirmance.