Spencer v. Merchant

125 U.S. 345, 8 S. Ct. 921, 31 L. Ed. 763, 1888 U.S. LEXIS 1937

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 2, 1888
• Docket: 872
• Status: Published

Opinions

Me. Justice Gray,

after stating the case as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court.

The leading facts of this case are as follows: The original assessment of the expenses of regulating, grading and'preparing the street for travel was laid by commissioners,, as directed by § 4 of the statute of 1869, upon all the lands lying within three hundred feet on either side of the street, and which, in the judgment of the commissioners, would be benefited by the improvement. After the sums so assessed upon some lots had been paid, the Court of Appeals of the State declared that assessment void, because the statute, (although it made ample provision for notice of and hearing upon the previous assessment for laying out the street under § 3,) provided ho means by which the land-owners might' have any notice or opportunity to be heard in regard to the assessment for regulating, grading and preparing the street for travel under § 4. Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183. The lots, the sums assessed upon which had not been paid, were isolated parcels, not contiguous, and some of them not fronting upon the street. By the statute of 1881, a sum equal to so much of the original assessment as remained unpaid, adding a proportional part of the expenses of making that assessment, and interest since, was ordered by the legislature to be levied and equitably apportioned by the supervisors of the county upon and among these lots, after public notice to all'parties interested to appear and be heard upon the- question of such apportionment; and that sum was levied and assessed accordingly upon these' lots, one of which was owned by the plaintiff.

The question subniitted to the Supreme Court of the State was whether this assessment on the plaintiff’s lot was valid. He contended that the statute of 1881 was unconstitutional and void, because-it was an attempt by the legislature to validate a void assessment, without giving the owners of the lands assessed an opportunity to be heard upon the whole amount of the assessment. He thus directly, and in apt words, presented the question whether he had been unconstitutionally deprived of his property without due process of law, in violation of the first section, of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as of art. 1, sec. 7, of the Constitution of New York; and no specific mention of either constitutional provision was necessary in order to entitle him to a decision of the question by any court having jurisdiction to determine it. The adverse judgment of the Supreme Court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the State, necessarily involved a decision against a right claimed under the Fourteenth. Amendment to the Constitution of tho United States, which this court has jurisdiction to review. Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Co., 1 Wall. 116, 142; Murray v. Charleston, 96 U. S. 432, 442; Furman v. Nichol, 8 Wall. 44, 56; Chicago Life Ins. Co. v. Needles, 113 U. S. 574, 579.

The jurisdiction of this court, as is well understood, does not extend to a review of the judgment of the State court, so far as it depended upon the Constitution of the State. Provident Institution for Savings v. Jersey City, 113 U. S. 506, 514. Yet, as the words of the two constitutions are alike in this respect, the decisions, of the highest court of the State upon the effect of these words are entitled to great weight. The substance of the former decisions, and the grounds of the judgment sought to be reviewed, can hardly be more compactly or forcibly stated than they have been by Judge Finch in delivering the opinion of the Court of Appeals, as follows:

“ The act of 1881 determines' absolutely and conclusively the amount of tax to be raised, and the property to be assessed and upon which it is to be apportioned. Each of these things was within the power of the legislature, whose action cannot be reviewed in the courts upon the ground that it acted unjustly or without appropriate and adequate reason. Litchfield v. Vernon, 41 N. Y. 123, 141; People v. Brooklyn, 4 N. Y. 427; People v. Flagg, 46 N. Y. 405; Horn v. New Lots, 83 N. Y. 100; Cooley on Taxation, 450. The legislature may commit the ascertainment of the sum to be raised and of the benefited district to commissioners, but it is not bound to do so, and may settle both questions for itself ; and when it does so, its action is necessarily conclusive and beyond review. Here an improvement has been ordered and made, the expense of which might justly have been imposed upon adjacent property benefited by the change. By the act of 1881, the legislature imposes the unpaid portion of the cost and expense, with the interest thereon, upon, that portion of the property benefited which has thus far borne none of the burden. In so doing, it necessai’ily determines two things, viz., the amount to be realized, and the property specially benefited by the expenditure of that amount. The lands might have been benefited by' the improvement, and so the legislative determination that they were, and to what amount or proportion of the cost, even if it may have been mistakenly unjust, is not open to our review. The question of special benefit and the property to which it extends is of necessity a question of fact, and when the legislature determines it in a case within its general power, its decision must of course be final. Ye can see in the determination reached possible sources of error and perhaps even of injustice, but we are not at liberty to say that the tax on the property covered by the law of 1881 was imposed without reference to special benefits. The legislature practically determined that the lands described in that act were peculiarly benefited by the improvement to a certain specified amount Avhich constituted a just proportion of thé whole cost and expense; and while it may be' that the process by which the result was reached was not the best attainable, and some other might have been more accurate and just, Ave cannot for that reason question an enactment Avithin the general legislative power... That power of taxation is unlimited, except that it must be exercised for public purposes. Weismer v. Douglas, 64 N. Y. 91. Certainly if the acts of 1869 and 1870 had never been passed, but the improvement of Atlantic Avenue had been ordered, ’the legislature might have imposed one part or proportion of the cost upon one designated district and the balance upon another. Practically just that was done in this case. In Re Van Antwerp, 56 N. Y. 261, an assessment for a street improvement had been declared void by reason- of failure to procure necessary consents of property-owners. The legislature made a reassessment, imposing two thirds of the expense upon a benefited district and one third upon the city at large. The act was held valid as a new assessment and not an effort to validate a void one.

“ These views furnish also an- answer to the objection that the only hearing given to the land-owner relates to the apportionment of the fixed amount among the lots assessed, and none is given as to the aggregate to be collected. No hearing would open the discretion of the legislature, or be of any avail to review or change it. A hearing is given- by the act as to the. apportionment among the land-owners, which furnishes to them an opportunity to raise all pertinent and available questions, and dispute' their liability, or its amount and extent. The precise wrong of which complaint is made appears to be that the land-owners now assessed never had opportunity to be heard as to the original apportionment, and find themselves now practically bound by it as between their lots and those of the owners who paid. But that objection becomes a criticism upon the action of the legislature and the process by which it determined the amount to be raised and the property to be assessed. Unless by special permission, that is a hearing never granted in the process of taxation. The legislature determines expenditures and amounts to be- raised for their payment, the whole discussion and all questions of prudence and propriety and justice being confided to its jurisdiction. It may err, but the courts cannot review its discretion. In this case, it kept within its power when it fixed, first, the amount to be raised to discharge the improvement debt incurred by its direction; and, second, when it designated the lots and property, which in its judgment, by reason of special benefits, should bear the burden; and having the power, we cannot criticise the reasons or manner of its action. The land-owners were given a hearing, and so there was no constitutional objection in that respect. Nor was that hearing illusory. It opened to the land-owner an opportunity to assail the constitutional validity of the act under which alone an ápportionment could be made, and that objection failing, it opened the only other possible questions, of the mode and amounts of the apportionment itself. We think the act was constitutional.” 100 N. Y. 587-589.

The general principles, upon which that judgment rests, have been affirmed by the decisions of this court.

The power to tax belongs exclusively to the legislative branch of the government. United States v. New Orleans, 98 U. S. 381, 392; Meriwether v. Garrett, 102 U. S. 472. In the words of Chief Justice Chase, condensing what had been said long before by. Chief Justice Marshall, “ The judicial department cannot prescribe to the legislative department limitations upon the exercise of its acknowledged powers. The power to tax may be exercised oppressively upon persons ; but the responsibility of the legislature is. not to the courts, but to the people by whom its members are elected.” Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 548; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 428; Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514, 563. See also Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U. S. 491, 497. Whether the estimate of the value of land for the purpose of taxation exceeds its true value, this court on writ, of error to a State court cannot inquire. Kelly v. Pittsburgh, 104 U. S. 78, 80.

The legislature, in the exercise -of its power of taxation, has the right to direct the whole or a part of the expense of a public imorovement, such as the laying out, grading or repairing of a street, to be assessed upon the owners of lands benefited thereby; and the determination of the territorial district' which should be taxed for a local improvement is within the province of legislative discretion. Willard v. Presbury, 14 Wall. 676; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97; Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, 703, 704; Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701. If the legislature provides for notice to and' hearing of each proprietor, at some stage of the proceedings, upon the question what proportion. of the tax shall be assessed upon his land, there is no taking of his property without due process of law. McMillen v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 37; Davidson v. New Orleans, and Hagar v. Reclamation District, above cited.

In Davidson v. New Orleans, it was held that if the work was one which the State had the authority to do, and to pay for by assessments on the property benefited; objections that the sum raised was exorbitant, and that part of the property assessed was not benefited, presented no question under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, upon which this-court could review the decision of the State court. 96 U. S. 100, 106.

In the absence of any more specific constitutional' restriction than the general prohibition against taking property without due process of law, the legislature of the State, having the power to fix the sum necessary to be levied for the expense of a public improvement, and to order it to be assessed, either, like other taxes, upon property generally, or only upon the lands benefited by the improvement, is authorized to determine both the amount of the whole tax, and the class of lands which will receive the benefit and should therefore bear the burden, although it may, if it sees fit, commit the ascertainment of either or both of these facts to the judgment of commissioners.

"When the determination of the lands to be benefited is entrusted to commissioners, the owners may be entitled to notice and hearing upon the question whether their lands are benefited and. how much. But the legislature has the power to determine', by the statute imposing the tax, what lands, which' might be benefited by the improvement, are in fact benefited; and if it does so, its determination is conclusive upon the owners and the courts, and the owners have no right to be heard upon the question whether their lands are benefited or not, but only upon the validity of the assessment, and its apportionment among the different parcels of the class which the legislature has conclusively determined to be benefited.

In determining what lands are benefited by the improvement, the legislature may avail itself of such information as it deems sufficient, either' through investigations by its committees, or by adopting as its own the estimates or conclusions of others, whether those estimates or conclusions previously had or had not any legal sanction.

In § 4 of the statute of 1869, the assessment under which was held void in Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183, for want of any provision whatever for notice or hearing, the authority to determine what lands, lying within three hundred feet on either side of the street, were actually benefited, was delegated to commissioners.

But in the statute of 1881 the legislature itself determined what lands were benefited and should be assessed. By this statute the legislature, in substance and effect, assumed that all the lands within the district defined- in the statute of 1869 were benefited in a sum equal to the amount of the original assessment, .the expense of levying it, and' interest thereon; and determined that the lots upon which no part of that assessment had been paid, and which had therefore as yet borne no share of the burden, were benefited to the extent of a certain portion of this sum. That these lots as a whole had been benefited to this extent was conclusively settled by the legislature. The statute of 1881 afforded to the owners notice and hearing upon the question of the equitable apportionment among them of the sum directed to be levied upon all of them, and thus enabled them to contest , the constitutionality of the statute; and that was all -the notice and hearing to which they .were entitled.

It is objected ito the validity of the new assessment, that it included interest upon the unpaid part of the old assessment, and, a proportionate part of the expense of levying that assessment. But, as to these items, the case does not substantially differ from- what it would have been if a sum equal to the whole of the original assessment, including the expense of levying it, and adding the interest, had been ordered by the statute of -1881 to be levied upon all the lands within the district, allowing'to each owner, who had already paid his share of the original assessment, a credit for the sum so paid by him, with interest from the time of payment.

Judgment affirmed.