Daugherty v. Commissioners of Mosely Creek Drainage District

110 S.E. 853, 183 N.C. 149, 1922 N.C. LEXIS 224

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: March 15, 1922
• Status: Published

Opinion

Clark, C. J.

The findings of fact by the court, there being evidence on both sides, is binding and conclusive on appeal. Shoaf v. Frost, 127 N. C., 307. The assessment against the land was erroneously divided, and when the court restrained the collection of that part of the assessment against the timber it was equivalent to omitting the assessment on that part thereof and the deficiency should now be reassessed on proper notice to the owner of the “Seth West” lands. The defendants contend on one hand that the petitioners cannot bring this matter up in the original procedure by motion, but only by summons and on petition filed attacking the assessment, but in Banks v. Lane, 171 N. C., 505, this Court held as to this same drainage district that such motion should be made in the cause where the facts in regard to the proceedings have record.

That part of the judgment which requires the commissioners to prepare and file without delay a statement showing the receipts and expenditures of all funds coming into their hands belonging to said district, and have the court papers, maps, etc., recorded, and that a meeting of the landowners be held was eminently appropriate, and it seems that the defendants themselves have joined in asking that this be done.

It appears that this proceeding since the creation of the drainage district has been going on about 12 years. Thousands of acres of land and about 100 people owning the lands thereon are involved, maps and profiles have been made, judgment, orders and decrees have been signed in numerous cases. Thousands of dollars have been collected and expended, bonds for a large sum are outstanding, a vacancy in the board ■of commissioners caused by death has existed for many years, some assessments, one of them against the railroad company, have not been ■collected, nor any serious attempt made to collect them; yet no meeting nor election has been held for more than 10 years, no account has ever been filed or audited, no paper, map, or other thing has ever been recorded, and the original papers have been shunted around from lawyer’s office to lawyer’s office in Craven and Lenoir counties. By much handling and cramming into overcrowded envelopes they have become •dog-eared, worn, and mutilated, and are likely to be lost or destroyed. 'The court properly took steps to enforce the law as set out in the Consolidated Statutes relative to drainage districts with a view of protecting the people who, with faith in the law, undertook this expensive and costly work of draining thousands of acres of swamp and overflowed land -making it valuable and productive and improving the whole territory ■for residential and agricultural purposes.

This Honor properly adjudged that the additions to the original assessment roll to make up out of other tracts of land the deficiency caused by omitting from the assessment of the Seth West tract the value of the growing timber, $7,107.02, leased to Stewart, was illegal, and should be set aside, and the collection thereof restrained, and that the whole ■of such deficiency should be assessed as in the original roll against the Seth West estate.

Affirmed.