Bishop v. City of Meriden

• Decision Date: 08 March 1932
• Citation: 114 Conn. 483,159 A. 289
• Parties: BISHOP v. CITY OF MERIDEN (two cases).
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

159 A. 289

114 Conn. 483

BISHOP v. CITY OF MERIDEN (two cases).

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 8, 1932

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Carl Foster, Judge.

Proceedings by City of Meriden to appraise damages and assess benefits in connection with public improvements, and appeals by Fernleigh E. Bishop and Edward J. Bishop from an order determining and assessing the benefits and damages for the taking of land for highway purposes as equal, brought to the superior court and tried to the court; judgment for the plaintiffs, and appeal by City of Meriden.

Error and cause remanded.

Cornelius J. Danaher, Denis T. O'Brien, Jr., and Robert M. Dowling, all of Meriden, for appellant.

George E. Beers, of New Haven, and Irving G. Smith, of Meriden, for appellees.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

MALTBIE, C.J.

These are appeals from appraisals of damages and assessments of benefits made by the City of Meriden in connection with the acceptance of a certain street and the establishment of street and curb lines and grades for it.The finding states that, in the assessment proceedings by the city authorities, the damages and benefits as regards the appellants in the court below, whom we shall speak of as the appellants, were found to be equal, but the record does not show whether any specific amounts of damages were appraised to them or benefits assessed against them.In establishing the grade of the street, a cut was made across the front of the appellants' properties of considerable depth.They expended one $945.32 and the other $1,322.98 in building retaining walls, grading their properties, and for other work made necessary by the improvements.The trial court found the amount of damages to each appellant in excess of any benefit derived by him from the improvement was the amount of this expenditure; it stated as its conclusion that in each case the value of the land and buildings before the grade was changed was greater than the value after the grade was changed, but before the appellant did his work by the sum so expended; but we interpret this conclusion as intended to be merely a restatement of the paragraph in the finding we have referred to.Judgment was entered in each case that the appellant recover this sum, with interest, from the city, and the city has appealed.

The city seeks certain corrections in the finding, but no material change can be made in it.One of the requested changes raises the question of law whether the trial court erred in adopting as a measure of damages the exact amounts expended by the appellants in the work done upon their properties.While, as the city states, the measure of damages is the difference in value of the property before the improvement was made and after it, such expenditures may be an accurate measure of such difference, and the record in these cases shows nothing to indicate that this was not true in the situations presented as to them.Pickles v. Ansonia,76 Conn. 278, 281, 56 A. 552;Rogers v. New London,89 Conn. 343, 94 A. 364;Staite v. Smith,95 Conn. 470, 473, 111 A. 799;Appeal of Phillips, 113 Conn. 40, 43, 154 A. 238.

The relevant provisions of the charter of the city are printed in the footnote.^[1]See18 Special Laws 1921, p. 969, and following.These provisions, while differing in detail, follow the plan for the making of assessments for public improvements contained in many of our city charters, and it will be well at the outset to state the general purpose and effect intended.When a public improvement has been decided upon by a municipality, the board or committee charged with that duty makes an appraisal of damages to those lawfully entitled to them, and the amount of such damages with the estimated cost of the improvement, or such portion thereof as may be fixed by the city authorities, is then assessed against those actually benefited by the improvement in proportion to the special benefits each will receive.Whether stated in the charter or not, in no case can the assessment against any property owner exceed the special benefits he will actually receive from the improvement.Davis Holding Corporation v. Wilcox,112 Conn. 543, 549, 153 A. 169.It necessarily follows that in any such proceeding it may not be possible to assess to those specially benefited all the damages appraised and the cost of the improvement, and, where this occurs the city must assume the difference, if it carries out the improvement.In the assessment proceedings by the city authorities, in order properly to carry out the procedure established by the charter, particularly with reference to an appeal, there must be a finding of the amounts of damages awarded and of the benefits assessed and also of the actual benefits accruing to each property owner either by a direct finding of those amounts or by a statement of the proportion of those benefits which are assessed.

When an appraisal of damages and assessment of benefits has been made by the city authorities, any person affected may claim to have been unjustly treated because the damages appraised to him are too low or the benefits assessed against him are too high or both.He is therefore given a right of appeal to some court or judge which must, if cause is found to alter either or both, proceed to make a new appraisal of damages to him or assessment of benefits against him.If his damages are increased or the benefits assessed against him are decreased the result would be to cast upon the city an additional expense.To provide against this some provision is made for a reassessment of this sum upon those specially benefited, and in this reassessment must be included a proper reassessment against the appellant; but again it is true, and in the charter before us it is especially provided, that such a reassessment may not bring the amount assessed against any property owner above the amount of his actual benefit.If the proceedings by the city authorities conform to the requirements we have stated, this presents no difficulties.But if in those proceedings there is merely a finding that benefits and damages are equal, the court or judge hearing the appeal cannot carry out such a reassessment.If the amount of damages is not stated, ordinarily the court or judge cannot determine the extent to which they have been increased and hence what sum should be reassessed.If the amounts of actual benefits are not stated directly or by some method by which they can be determined, with the amounts assessed against each property owner, the only way by which a reassessment could be made would be by an independent determination by the court or judge of the special benefits each has received, which the charter does not contemplate.Newton's Appeal, 84 Conn. 234, 245, 79 A. 742.Manifestly to assess against the appellant the full amount of his special benefits from the improvement might do him a grave injustice because only a small part of their special benefits may have been assessed against the other property...