Kansas City v. St. Louis & Kansas City Land Co.

169 S.W. 62, 260 Mo. 395, 1914 Mo. LEXIS 123
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJuly 14, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 169 S.W. 62 (Kansas City v. St. Louis & Kansas City Land Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kansas City v. St. Louis & Kansas City Land Co., 169 S.W. 62, 260 Mo. 395, 1914 Mo. LEXIS 123 (Mo. 1914).

Opinion

LAMM, C. J.

— This is an appeal by corporate owners of property in Kansas City whose parcels were assessed to pay benefits to meet an "award of damages to other persons whose property was taken or damaged in a proceeding to widen a street.

Kansas City, in 1909, undertook to open and widen Sixth street from the east line 'of Bluff to the west line of Broadway, by condemning forty feet of private property on the south side of the street — Sixth street leading from the bottoms up town and being the main travelled thoroughfare for heavy hauling between the two. The authority for this proceeding was ordinance No. 3209, and, as there are several ordinances in the record, we will.call this the “original ordinance” passim. Under this original ordinance and in supposed compliance with charter provisions (Article 6, 1908) condemnation proceedings were instituted in a court known as the “municipal court” and ripened into judgment whereby damages were awarded for the land taken in the rise of $166,000, and the same amount was assessed against the city and over 13,000 different tracts owned by individuals and corporations, lying ■ within a benefit district prescribed by said original ordinance. No appeal from this judgment was taken, either by any landowner whose property was condemned, nor by any landowner whose property was assessed with benefits. On that judgment the city col-, lected of those benefit assessments the rise of $89,000 to pay said award of damages. Presently, and with matters in this fix, a certain railroad company, The Union Pacific, discovered the service on owners whose parcels were subject to assessment of benefits was defective. and brought its suit in equity in the circuit court of Jackson county against Kansas City and its officers, among them one Flynn. The life of the bill was injunctive relief in its favor (as an owner of property within the benefit district and which was assessed with benefits) against such assessment of benefits in [404]*404the condemnation judgment under the original ordinance. Other parties in like fix (say, two or three) intervened. As there are several suits mentioned in this record, we will call this the “Flynn suit” to identify it. The Flynn suit ripened into a decree in favor of plaintiffs and intervenors. It is sufficient to say of the Flynn suit that the ’condemnation judgment under the original ordinance was not assailed for lack of jurisdiction in the municipal court, to hear any condemnation proceedings and assess any benefits to pay damages awarded therein (a newly discovered theory, now pressed), but in substance that case proceeded on the theory that plaintiff had no notice of the proceeding and hence the judgment as to it was void. The chancellor found a lack of notice and process (the order of publication required by the charter was not published a sufficient time) and that the several assessments made against plaintiff’s and intervenors’ properties were void because of such lack of service. Hence the municipal court had acquired no jurisdiction of them. The scope and object of the decree in the Flynn case are indicated by the following excerpt:-

“It is, therefore, considered, ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court, that said assessments, in so far as they effect [sic] or purport to effect [sic] plaintiffs or any of them or any of their several properties, be and the same are hereby annulled and for naught held; that the several assessments against the respective properties aforesaid of the plaintiffs and each of them be and the same are hereby set aside and annulled; the defendant Kansas City; M. A. Flynn, City Clerk; U. E. Weary, Clerk of said Municipal Court, and the officers and agents of said city, be and they are each of them perpetually restrained and enjoined from making out, certifying or attesting any tax bills against the several properties of the plaintiffs or any of them under and by virtue of said assessments, and that plaintiffs have and recover from the [405]*405defendant, Kansas City, the costs herein expended and have execution therefor.”

Neither side took an appeal from the Flynn decree and it remained operative as a perpetual injunction against collecting such unpaid assessments.

With things in this fix, it seems that Kansas City attempted to repeal the original ordinance presumably for the purpose of abandoning the proceeding and returning to those paying assessments the amounts so paid. But the city was reckoning without its host; for pending such repeal measure, another injunction suit was brought in the Jackson Circuit Court — this time against the city and in favor of those property-owners whose lands had been condemned under the original ordinance and who had been awarded damages, to-wit, one Tuller and others. These new suitors, Tuller and others, took the position in their bill that on recognized equitable principles the city, under its charter, could not repeal the original ordinance and abandon such condemnation proceedings so far as those persons were concerned whose property had been taken or damaged and to whom damages had been awarded by the judgment, where (as here) benefits had been assessed and in part paid, and where (as- here) such property-owners had appeared, tried out the issue as to them and recovered their damages, and where (as here) the judgment was not appealed from. We will call this case the “Tuller case” for convenience. This Tuller • case also ripened into a decree whereby the city was, in effect, perpetually'enjoined from repealing the original ordinance and abandoning the condemnation proceeding, and this decree also was unappealed from, but remained operative as a perpetual injunction.

By the decrees in the Flynn and Tuller cases the city (to borrow the homely, similitude of one of its briefs) was enjoined “fore and aft. It could neither go forward nor backward.” In this peculiar condition [406]*406it enacted an ordinance, No. 7539, -which we will call the “supplemental or curative ordinance.”'- The general object and purpose of this supplemental ordinance was to authorize a proceeding to assess and spread the balance of the benefit assessments (viz., those unpaid under proceedings on the original ordinance) over the non-paying properties in the benefit district. This supplemental ordinance was based on the authority of section 23, article 6, of the present charter of Kansas City, and ran on the theory the unpaid benefit assessments were void. The charter provision in question, together with the supplemental ordinance, will be found set forth in haeo verba in State ex rel. v. Seehorn, 246 Mo. l. c. 549 et seq. (q. v.), and they will not be reproduced here. The object of said sensible charter provision was to afford a remedy when by any error, defect or omission in condemnation.proceedings, assessments made against private property cannot be enforced or collected or where property in the benefit district is omitted, etc. In such case it was provided that the city may by ordinance institute and carry on supplemental proceedings to make a proper assessment against any parcel of property in the benefit district erroneously omitted or erroneously made in the first proceeding, etc.

Presently under such supplemental and curative ordinance, a new proceeding was instituted in the municipal court to make a new assessment against such properties within the benefit assessment district as had not accepted the former judgment by payment. Proper charter notice was given and, among others, the present appellants, save one, appeared.

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Bluebook (online)
169 S.W. 62, 260 Mo. 395, 1914 Mo. LEXIS 123, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kansas-city-v-st-louis-kansas-city-land-co-mo-1914.