1. Where the decision of a state supreme court construed a road
district statute as allowing twenty-eight days' notice by
publication to landowners of proceedings to assess for benefits and
adjudged that the notice published, read with the statute,
sufficiently described the lands affected,
held, that
contentions that the statute did not provide due process of law
were too insubstantial to support a writ of error. P.
266 U. S.
176.
2. The objection that a statute assessing lands for a road
improvement is arbitrary and void as to plaintiff because the
improvement could not benefit his lands, while other lands actually
benefited were not included in the district assessed,
held
clearly without merit. P.
266 U. S.
177.
Writs of error to review 158 Ark. 330, 357, dismissed.
Page 266 U. S. 176
These were two suits to enjoin collection of special road taxes
assessed on plaintiff's lands in Arkansas. Plaintiff prosecutes
error to the decrees of the supreme court of that state affirming
the decrees of the Chancery Court of Conway County, which denied
her the relief prayed.
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Both of these writs must be dismissed.
No. 92
The only ground suggested to sustain the writ in this cause is
that Act No. 245, Arkansas Legislature of 1919, which established
Road District No. 2 of Conway County, was duly challenged as
repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. Such a challenge must be
distinct and substantial.
The act undertook to create the district with boundaries which
include plaintiff's lands, and specified the proceedings for
assessing benefits to meet necessary costs. Her lands were assessed
as provided. Some months thereafter, by a bill in equity, she
claimed insufficient notice, and asked relief from both assessment
and consequent
Page 266 U. S. 177
penalties; also that the commissioner's plans should be declared
null, and she be heard as to the merits of any assessment. She
offered to pay any sum the court might find just and equitable.
The bill alleges that the statute authorized and the
commissioners gave only 17 days' notice of the assessment, by
publication, that she had no actual notice, and that the
publication failed sufficiently to describe her lands. For these
reasons, she maintained the act did not provide due process of law,
and violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court, having considered the objections, held that
the statute allowed twenty-eight days after the first publication,
during which time petitioner might have objected to the assessment,
and declared this was adequate; also that, when read in connection
with the statute, the notice sufficiently described the lands.
Plaintiff in error now insists that the act is null because it
prescribes insufficient notice and description of the assessed
lands.
Accepting the statute as construed by the state court, the
suggested objections to its validity appear to us wholly wanting in
merit.
No. 93
This cause grew out of the creation of District No. 5, Conway
County, by Act No. 245, and assessment for benefits thereunder.
With one exception, the questions now raised are the same as those
in cause No. 92. As an additional ground for challenging the
statute, plaintiff in error claims that it is arbitrary and beyond
the power of the legislature because the proposed improvement could
not benefit plaintiff's lands, while other lands actually benefited
were not included. The record does not show that this objection was
placed upon any federal ground in the courts below, but, assuming
that the point was properly made, we think it is clearly without
merit.
Page 266 U. S. 178
Houck v. Little River District, 239 U.
S. 254,
239 U. S. 265;
Miller & Lux v. Sacramento Drainage District,
256 U. S. 129,
256 U. S. 130;
Valley Farms Co. v. Westchester County, 261 U.
S. 155,
261 U. S.
163-164
Writs of Error Dismissed.
