Carpenter v. City of St. Paul

• Decision Date: 12 December 1876
• Citation: 23 Minn. 232
• Parties: WARREN CARPENTER <I>vs.</I> CITY OF ST. PAUL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

23 Minn. 232

WARREN CARPENTER vs. CITY OF ST. PAUL.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

December 12, 1876.

Certiorari to review a judgment of the court of common pleas of Ramsey county, Simons, J., presiding, against certain real estate of plaintiff, for the amount charged against it in the reassessment for grading Ramsey street, in the city of St. Paul.

James B. Beals, for plaintiff.

W. A. Gorman, for defendant.

CORNELL, J.¹

Whether, in exercising the power of taxation, under § 1, art. 9, of the constitution, it is competent for the legislature to confer upon the common council or board of public works of a city authority to decide upon the local character of any contemplated public improvement within said city, to fix the amount necessary to be raised by taxation for that purpose, to ascertain what property will be benefited by the improvement, to prescribe the tax district within which the amount of the tax shall be raised, and to apportion the same by an assessment upon the property therein embraced and benefited, as also to give a final and conclusive effect to such its decision, except in case of fraud or mistake, was fully considered, and affirmatively settled, in the case of Rogers v. City of St. Paul, 22 Minn. 494. Instead of prescribing, in terms, the limits of the tax district for any such local improvement, the legislature may, in its discretion, authorize the assessment to be made on such property as shall appear to be benefited, and empower such subordinate tribunal to ascertain and report, as a matter of judgment, upon actual inspection, what property will be so benefited, in which case the property so designated in the report is regarded as constituting the tax district prescribed by legislative authority. Cooley on Taxation, 451; Matter of Ward, 52 N. Y. 395; Appeal of Powers, 29 Mich. 504. These principles are decisive of the main question raised and discussed by the counsel for appellant in this case as to his right to show, by parol evidence, upon the application for judgment in the district court, that the property in question was not in fact benefited by the proposed improvement, as well as the constitutional validity of the statute in question. It follows that the proceedings upon the reassessment in this case must be sustained, unless there has been some material departure from the provisions of the statute under which the judgment was rendered.

It is claimed by the petitioner that section 60 of the act of March 5, 1874, compiling the several acts relating to the incorporation of the city of St. Paul, and amending the same, (Sp. Laws 1874, p. 73,) gives no authority for a reassessment in any case originating prior to the passage of such act. The language of the section is: "In all cases where application has been or shall be made for judgment, under sections thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, and thirty-nine of this chapter," etc. This clearly recognizes the fact that in some cases application for judgment "has been" or may have been made, under the provisions of these sections, prior to the passage of the act; and, when we consider that the statute is but a codification of the then existing law relating to this subject, with such amendments as experience had suggested, and that these sections were substantially taken from the act of 187...