Court Opinion

ID: 9831756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:20:25.901116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:37.699436
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
As we understand the assignments advanced by relators on this rehearing, their main contention is that the' act is unconstitutional, becausé it contains no provision for a hearing as to benefits on an ad valorem assessment. In holding against this contention of relators, we said,1 in our original opinion;
“If the authority vested in the promoters is abused, our courts have authority to nullify their acts. The act is not unconstitutional because the Legislature did not define what would constitute a fraud on the citizenship of the proposed district. It had the authority to make such a definition a part-of the act, but the omission does not make the act unconstitutional. The courts, under their common-law powers, can redress all such wrongs. * * *
“It follows from these authorities that the courts have the power to review the facts of all districts organized under this act, aná, if the promoters have clearly abused their power, to declare the districts void, thus obviating the necessity of declaring a solemn act of the Legislature unconstitutional. As we understand the law of this state, the relators were given the right to as full and complete a hearing as if such right had been specially granted in the body of the act itself.”
In their reply to relators on this issue, respondents have cited to us the Kentucky *1025Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U. S. 321, 6 Sup. Ct. 57, 29 L. Ed. 414, where it is said:
“And this is the principle that was followed in the subsequent case of Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701 [28 L. Ed. 569]. In that case the statute of California, which conferred the jurisdiction, authorized any defense, going either to the validity or to the amount of the tax assessed, to be pleaded. What inquiries may be permitted in such cases, of course, is a matter that depends upon the particular provisions of the law of the jurisdiction. In the absence of such provisions, and as a principle of general jurisprudence, it is safe to say that any defense is admissible which establishes the illegality of the proceeding resulting in the alleged assessment, whether because it is in violation of the local law which is relied on as conferring the authority upon which it is based, or because it constitutes a denial of a right secured to the party complaining by the Constitution t>f the United States. The judgments now under review were rendered in just such actions, so that we cannot escape the conclusion that there is no ground for the plaintiffs in error to contend that they have been rendered without due process of law.”
It seems to us that the proposition thus announced is directly in point on the question presented and urged by respondents, and sustains fully our conclusion. “Under their common-law power,” as we have said, or under the “principle of general jurisprudence,” as the Supreme Court of the United .States has said, the courts of this state have, in fact, given relators a full and complete hearing on all the facts entering into the organization of fresh water supply district No. 1 of Jefferson county and the inclusion of their property in said district. No grant of right by the Legislature could have enlarged the hearing which relators have had.' Is there any reason why the courts of this state should not exercise this jurisdiction inherent in our “general jurisprudence”? Its exercise avoids “the necessity of declaring a solemn act of the Legislature unconstitutional.” Again, relators have been given a full hearing on the issue as to whether the taxes levied on the property of the district are “equitably distributed,” as required by section 59, art. 16, of the Constitution of this state. Relators may have a full hearing before the board of equalization on all issues as to the value of their property.
If we are correct in what we have just said, relators are fully protected in all their property rights, and this act violates neither the federal Constitution nor the Constitution of this state. As we understand the authorities cited by us in our original opinion, they fully sustain all we have said.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.