Tonawanda v. Lyon/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 ex rel. Griffin v. Brooklyn'', 4 N. Y. 419, 55 Am. Rep. 266; Spencer v. Merchant, 100 N. Y. 585, 3 N. E. 682.

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, 43 L. ed. 443, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 187, 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 14th 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 protection against arbitrary state legislation affecting life, liberty, and property, as is afforded by the 5th 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 14th 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. 181 U.S. 324, post, 625, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 625, 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 14th, and, in the latter, that of the 5th, Amendment was considered. 181 U.S. 371, post, 616, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 616.

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.