City of East St Louis v. United States Zebley

• Decision Date: 04 February 1884
• Citation: 28 L.Ed. 162,4 S.Ct. 21,110 U.S. 321
• Parties: CITY OF EAST ST. LOUIS and another v. UNITED STATES ex rel ZEBLEY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

110 U.S. 321

4 S.Ct. 21

28 L.Ed. 162

CITY OF EAST ST. LOUIS and another v. UNITED STATES ex rel ZEBLEY.

February 4, 1884.

J. W. Freels and B. H. Canby, for plaintiffs in error.

T. C. Mather, for defendants in error.

MATTHEWS, J.

The relator having recovered judgments in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of Illinois upon bonds issued by the city of East St. Louis, a municipal corporation of that state, was awarded in this proceeding a peremptory mandamus. The directions of the judgment are as follows:

'That said defendant, the city of East St. Louis, do, through its proper corporate authorities, levy and collect full one per cent per annum taxes upon the assessed and equalized valuation of all the real and personal taxable property of said city for the year A. D. 1883, and subsequent years, until the full payment and discharge of all balance due upon said judgments in said petition mentioned, with lawful interest thereon, and the costs of said suits wherein said judgments were obtained, as also the costs of this suit.

'It is hereby further ordered and adjudged that said city do, through its proper corporate authorities, annually, commencing with the year A. D. 1883, appropriate and set apart three thousand dollars out of three-tenths of said one per cent. levy, and the sum of ten thousand dollars out of the remaining seven-tenths of said one per cent. levy, as a special fund for the payment of said judgments, interests, and costs, until the same are fully paid and discharged.

'It is further ordered and adjudged that said city annually, through its proper corporate authorities, pay over said sums, so soon as collected, to petitioner's attorney of record, to be applied to wards the payment of said judgments, interest, and costs.

'It is further ordered and adjudged that said city do annually, for the year A. D. 1883, and subsequent years, until said judgments, interest, and costs are fully paid, exercise, through its proper corporate authorities, to the full extent of its charter provisions, all its powers and resources of taxation and revenue derivable from all sources whatever; and that it do, through its corporate authorities, appropriate, use, and expend its said revenues in the most rigid and economical administration of its municipal affairs, to the end that said judgments, interest, and costs may be paid as speedily as possible. And it is ordered and adjudged that whatever funds remain at the end of each fiscal year, if any, after such economical administration of its affairs, as above ordered, that it apply the same in further liquidation of said judgments.'

The cause having been duly submitted to the court without the intervention of a jury, the court made the following special findings: '(1) That said city of East St. Louis is organized and existing under a special act of the legislature of illinois,...