Tonawanda v. Lyon

181 U.S. 389, 21 S. Ct. 609, 45 L. Ed. 908, 1901 U.S. LEXIS 1370

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 29, 1901
• Docket: 214
• Status: Published

Opinions

lyr-w. Justice Shieas,

after stating the ease, delivered tbe opinion of tbe court.

Tbe complainant in tbe court below did not put bis claim for equitable relief upon any allegation that, in tbe proceedings to pave Delaware street and to assess tbe cost of tbe improvement upon tbe abutting property, there bad been any departure from tbe provisions of tbe statute, or that there bad been attempted any discrimination against him or bis property. Nor was it denied that it is tbe settled law of tbe State of New York that the method prescribed, of meeting tbe expense by apportioning tbe entire cost of such an improvement upon tbe abutting land according to tbe foot-front rule, is a valid exercise of legislative power. The People v. Mayor &c., 4 N. Y. 419; Spencer v. Merchant, 100 N. Y. 585.

What was claimed was that’ a state statute, which directs municipalities to assess the whole expense of paving any highway therein upon tbe lands abutting upon the, highway so improved in proportion to the feet frontage of such lands, without providing for a judicial inquiry into tbe value of such lands and tbe benefits actually to accrue to them by the proposed improvement, is unconstitutional and void. And it was held by tbe court below that, notwithstanding the courts of tbe State may have held otherwise, it was its duty tp follow’ the decision of this court in the case of Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269, which was regarded by tbe court below as establishing the principle contended for, and accordingly the defendants were enjoined from enforcing payment of tbe assessment. But we think that, in so understanding and applying tbe decision in Norwood v. Baker, tbe learned judge extended tbe doctrine of that case beyond its necessary meaning.

It was not the intention of tbe court, in that case, to bold that tbe general and special taxing systems of tbe States, however long existing and sustained as valid by their courts, have been subverted by tbe Fourteenth Amendment of tbe Constitution of tbe United States. Tbe purpose of that amendment is to extend to tbe citizens and residents of tbe States tbe same protection' against arbitrary state legislation affecting life, liberty and property, as is afforded by the Fifth Amendment against similar legislation by Congress. The case of Norwood v. Baker presented, as the judge in the court in the present case well' said, “ considerations of peculiar and extraordinary hardships,” amounting, in the opinion of a majority of ihe judges of this court, to actual confiscation of private property to public use, and bringing the case fairly within the reach- of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The facts disclosed by the present record do not show any abuse of the law, nor that the burdens imposed on the property of the complainant were other than those imposed upon that of other persons in like circumstances; and it is obvious, from expressions in the opinio# of the trial judge, that he reached his conclusion because constrained by what he understood to be the principle established by the Norwood case.

It is unnecessary to enter into an examination of the authorities on this subject, as that has recently been done in French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., in error to the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, and-in Wight v. Davidson, on appeal from the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, in the former of which the effect of the Fourteenth, and, in the latter, that of the Fifth Amendment, was considered. 181 U. S. 324, 371.

'There were other questions passed upon in the trial court and discussed in the briefs, but the conclusion we now reach renders it unnecessary for us to consider them.

The decree of the Circuit Court is reversed and the cause is remanded to that court with directions to dismiss the hill of complaint.