It was not the intention of the court in
Norwood v.
Baker, 172 U. S. 289,
to hold that the general and special taxing systems of the states,
however long existing and sustained as valid by their courts, have
been subverted by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States, but the purpose of that amendment is to extend
to the citizens and residents of the states the same protection
against arbitrary state legislation, affecting life, liberty and
property, as is afforded by the Fifth Amendment against similar
legislation by Congress.
This was the case of a bill in equity filed in the Circuit Court
of the United States for the Northern District of New York on
September 9, 1899, by James B. Lyon, a citizen of the State of New
York, against the Town of Tonawanda, a municipal corporation of
that state, and John K. Patton, supervisor of said town. The object
of the bill was to restrain the defendants from enforcing payment
of a certain assessment against tracts or parcels of land belonging
to the complainant, situated in the Town of Tonawanda, and abutting
on Delaware Street in said town. The assessment was levied against
said tracts of land to meet the expense of grading and paving said
street, in pursuance of the provisions of statutes of the State of
New York and of an order of the Town Board of Tonawanda. The
principal matter complained of was that the method of meeting the
expense of grading and paving the said street was by assessing the
same against the lots abutting on the street according to frontage
thereon, and that the statutes and proceedings thereunder, which
provided for that method, were contrary to the provisions of the
Constitution of the United States in that thereby the land of the
complainant would be taken for public use without just
compensation, and he be deprived of his property without due
process of law.
Page 181 U. S. 390
The case came on for final hearing on bill, answer, and a
stipulation of facts, and on January 17, 1900, the circuit court
decreed, among other things, as follows:
"That those parts of the acts of the Legislature of the State of
New York mentioned and set forth in plaintiff's bill of complaint,
to-wit, of chapter 550 of the laws of the State of New York for the
year 1893, and of chapter 816 of the laws of the State of New York
for the year 1895, which authorize and require the town board of
said town to levy the assessment for the entire expense of paving
said Delaware Street, set forth in the bill of complaint, upon the
complainant's said parcels of land described in said bill of
complaint and the other lands fronting on said Delaware Street, and
the acts of the said defendant, the Town of Tonawanda, by its town
board, mentioned in said bill of complaint, in levying said
assessments upon said lands according to the rule prescribed in
said acts of said legislature, to-wit in the proportion which the
number of front feet of each of said lots and parcels of land
bounding and fronting on said Delaware Street in front of which
said improvement of paving said street was made, and which are
assessed therefor in and by said assessment, bear and are to the
aggregate number of feet of frontage of all the lots of land so
bounding on the portion of said street in front of which said
improvement was made, was and were, and each and every of said
provisions of said acts of the Legislature of the State of New
York, and all acts of said defendant, the Town of Tonawanda, in
levying said assessment in the manner and form aforesaid, are
wholly unconstitutional and void as being contrary to the
provisions of the Constitution of the United States."
And thereupon the Town of Tonawanda and John K. Patton as
supervisor of said town were forever enjoined and restrained "from
in any manner collecting or enforcing payment of such assessments
against said complainant or his land or property." 98 F. 361.
On January 17, 1900, an appeal from said decree to this Court
was prayed for and allowed.
Page 181 U. S. 391
MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The complainant in the court below did not put his claim for
equitable relief upon any allegation that, in the proceedings to
pave Delaware Street and to assess the cost of the improvement upon
the abutting property, there had been any departure from the
provisions of the statute, or that there had been attempted any
discrimination against him or his property. Nor was it denied that
it is the settled law of the State of New York that the method
prescribed, of meeting the expense by apportioning the entire cost
of such an improvement upon the abutting land according to the foot
front rule, is a valid exercise of legislative power.
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 the lands abutting upon the highway so improved in
proportion to the feet frontage of such lands, without providing
for a judicial inquiry into the value of such lands and the
benefits actually to accrue to them by the proposed improvement, is
unconstitutional and void. And it was held by the court below that,
notwithstanding the courts of the state may have held otherwise, it
was its duty to follow the decision of this Court in the case of
Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269,
which was regarded by the court below as establishing the principle
contended for, and accordingly the defendants were enjoined from
enforcing payment of the assessment. But we think that, in so
understanding and applying the decision in
Norwood v.
Baker, the learned judge extended the doctrine of that case
beyond its necessary meaning.
It was not the intention of the Court in that case to hold that
the general and special taxing systems of the states, however long
existing and sustained as valid by their courts, have been
subverted by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the
United States. The purpose of that amendment is to extend to the
citizens and residents of the states the same
Page 181 U. S. 392
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 the 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 opinion 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. 181 U.S.
324,
181 U. S. 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 bill of
complaint.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE WHITE and
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA, dissenting:
My views touching the general questions arising in this case
have been expressed in
French v. Barber Asphalt Paving
Company, and in
Wight v. Davidson, just determined. I
adhere to those views, and therefore dissent from the judgment in
this case. As stated by the circuit court, the special assessment
in question was
"in the proportion which the number of front feet
Page 181 U. S. 393
of each of said lots and parcels of land bounding and fronting
on said Delaware Street in front of which said improvement of
paving said street was made, and which are assessed therefor in and
by said assessment, bear and are to the aggregate number of feet of
frontage of all the lots so bounding on the portion of said street
in front of which said improvement was made."
The case therefore is one in which, beyond question, private
property is specially assessed by the front foot, in the interest
of the whole public, for the entire cost of paving a highway,
without reference to any special benefits accruing to it, and
without the owner of the property being permitted to show that such
cost amounts to the confiscation of his property to the extent that
it substantially exceeds special benefits, or that it exceeds the
value of the property assessed.
The Court says that it was not the intention of this Court in
Norwood v. Baker to hold
"that the general and special taxing systems of the states,
however long existing and sustained as valid by their courts, have
been subverted by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of
the United States."
The contrary was not asserted by the learned judge of the
circuit court, nor has anyone in this case contended that the
Fourteenth Amendment subverted the taxing systems of the states.
But it was contended, and such is my position, that nothing can be
done by or under the authority of a state in violation of that
Amendment. After that Amendment became part of the Constitution,
the only provisions in the state taxing laws or systems that ceased
to have operation were those that were inconsistent with the
Amendment. No one, I assume, will dispute that proposition.
The Court also says that the purpose of the Fourteenth
Amendment
"is to extend to the citizens and residents of the states the
same protection against arbitrary state legislation affecting life,
liberty, and property as is afforded by the Fifth Amendment against
similar legislation by Congress."
I assent most cordially to this view, and therefore, in another
case, felt obliged to express my objection to the intimation that
possibly that might be done by Congress under the due process
clause of the Fifth Amendment which could not be done by a state
under the same clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
