Bassett v. City of New Haven

• Decision Date: 24 July 1903
• Citation: 76 Conn. 70,55 A. 579
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BASSETT v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN (two cases).

55 A. 579

76 Conn. 70

BASSETT

v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN (two cases).

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 24, 1903.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; William S. Case, Judge.

Applications by Sarah B. Bassett for relief from sewer assessments imposed by the city of New Haven. From judgments confirming the assessment, applicant appeals. Affirmed.

John K. Beach and John W. Bristol, for appellant.

Leonard M. Daggett, for appellee.

PRENTICE, J. These two cases were tried below and argued before us together. As they involve substantially the same state of facts and the same questions of law, save in one minor particular, they may now be considered by us in a like manner.

In April, 1897, the court of common council of the defendant city, after compliance with the necessary preliminary action, awarded a contract for the construction of a sewer extending through Shelton avenue and ivy and Newhall streets, and connecting at the corner of Newhall and Division streets with a sewer already built, through which, and other laterals and mains, service to the outlet, two miles distant from Newhall street, was obtained. The construction having been completed prior to May 31, 1898, the assessment of benefits therefor was referred to the bureau of compensation. This board, after due notice and hearing, made its report. This report took the form of three reports, in which the assessments made against the abutting landowners upon the three streets through which the sewer extended were separated; each report dealing only with the assessments made against the landowners upon a single street. The applicant, being a landowner upon Shelton avenue and ivy street, had assessments made against her in the reports involving those portions of the sewer. These reports were afterwards accepted by the court of common council, whereupon the applicant began these proceedings, praying that the several assessments made against her be annulled. The first case in the order of the docket grows out of the ivy street assessment; the second, out of the Shelton avenue assessment. The total cost of the sewer was $16,288.81. The assessment along Shelton avenue amounted to $5,733.36; along ivy street, to $2,854.62; and along Newhall street, to $3,271.67; the total amount being $11,859.65. By an apportionment, made at the time of the trial of the appeals in the superior court, of the cost of the sewer, which was an entire gross sum, and so carried upon the books of the director of public works, it appeared that the cost of the Shelton avenue portion of the sewer was $5,623.79. All the assessments along the entire length of the sewer were made at the uniform rate of $1.75 per front foot, except that a 75-foot allowance was made upon one side of corner lots. At the corner of Shelton avenue and ivy street this allowance was made on the ivy street side. "About the year 1871 a general sewerage system was planned for the city of New Haven, in accordance with which plan the sewers in said city have since been constructed. At that time an estimate was made of the probable cost of the sewer system so planned, including main sewers, outlets, and laterals, or branch sewers, and such total estimated cost was divided into three equal parts. Upon the supposition that one of such third parts would be met by the city from general taxation, and that the other two-thirds would be paid by the owners of property adjoining the streets in which such sewers might be constructed, the two-thirds of such total estimated cost was divided by the total frontage of land in the city upon the streets in which sewers might be constructed, and the result thus obtained was approximately $1.75 per front foot. Said computation was made by the city engineer and by those by whom said general plan was devised, and said result, namely, $1.75 per front foot, was adopted by them as a guiding basis upon which assessments for sewers might be figured, in the expectation that, if the assessments were so figured. It would result in the city paying a third of the total cost of the sewerage system, the property owners on one side of the street paying a third and the owners on the other side paying a third. Since said plan was devised and said computation made, it has been the practice for the department of public works, through the city engineer, to furnish to the board or bureau of compensation, when about to make an assessment of benefits for a sewer, a map of the street or streets upon which such sewer has been constructed, showing the names of those owning property on each side of such street or streets, and their respective frontages, and also showing in figures upon each of such lots what the amount of the assessment would be if it should be laid at the rate of $1.75 per front foot. It has been the practice of the members of said bureau, after hearing the parties interested and after an inspection of the premises, to accept and adopt the computation so made by the city engineer, and lay the assessments accordingly, except in particular instances, where, by reason of the situation of property, irregularity in dimensions, character of the property or of its use, or other circumstances, the owners of such property were not, in the judgment of the bureau, benefited by the construction of a sewer as much as $1.75 per front foot, or to so great an extent as were...