City of Springfield v. Bradley
| Decision Date | 29 January 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 15095,15095 |
| Citation | 744 S.W.2d 559 |
| Parties | CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, Missouri, a Municipal Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. S. Ray BRADLEY and Verna Jo Bradley, Defendants-Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Dennis Budd, Asst. City Atty., Springfield, for plaintiff-appellant.
John R. Lewis, Lewis & Stevens, P.C., Springfield, for defendants-respondents.
Plaintiff City of Springfield brought this action to enforce the lien of a special tax bill. Upon trial, the court found for the defendants. The plaintiff, to whom we shall refer as the city, has appealed. The question presented is whether the city's construction of a sanitary sewer line across the defendants' lot conferred a taxable special benefit upon the defendants' property. The trial court found it did not. We agree and affirm the judgment.
The Sewer District here involved is Sanitary Sewer District 36E of Section 15. It is part of the sanitary sewer system of the City of Springfield. The district was established and its boundaries were defined by a special ordinance enacted by the plaintiff city on May 17, 1982. The special tax was levied and assessed by an ordinance enacted August 8, 1983 and the special tax bill sued upon bears the same date. The regularity of the proceedings to establish the sewer district and to issue the special tax bill is not questioned.
Defendant Ray Bradley testified that he and his wife owned Lot 3 in Sunset Acres in the south part of the city. He had bought the lot "early" in 1972. When the defendants bought their property, a brick duplex had been built on it; the defendants lived in the "east unit" of the duplex at trial time. Further, when the defendants bought their property, it was served by a private sanitary sewer service. In 1982, the City of Springfield purchased the sanitary sewer which served the defendants' property. Since that time the defendants have paid sewer service charges to the city. Nevertheless, after the establishment of Sewer District No. 36E of Section 15, the city condemned an easement across the defendants' lot and installed a sewer line on defendants' property. The defendants had never had any problems with their original sewer service; their sewer service had been satisfactory and uninterrupted during the entire time they owned the property, and they did not connect their sewer to the new line constructed by the city. Such, speaking generally, is the substance of the record before us.
The city reminds us that its legislative determination of the necessity for the sanitary sewer district creates a presumption that the property in the sewer district was benefited thereby, and the burden to establish the contrary rests upon the defendants. Lakewood Park Cemetery Association v. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, 530 S.W.2d 240, 248 (Mo. banc 1975). The city also cites Sears v. City of Columbia, 660 S.W.2d 238, 245 (Mo.App.1983), wherein our colleagues at Kansas City quite correctly pointed out that judicial review is limited to deciding whether the legislative determination was 1) arbitrary, 2) induced by fraud, collusion or bad faith, or 3) was in excess of the city's powers.
While we agree that the city's legislative determination carries with it a strong presumption that a benefit was conferred upon the defendants' property, there is another side to the coin, so to speak. Many years ago our Supreme Court held that special or local assessments are valid only when they are imposed to pay for improvements clearly conferring special benefits upon the property assessed, and the benefits must be substantial, certain and capable of being realized within a reasonable time. City of Webster Groves v. Taylor, 321 Mo. 955, 959, 13 S.W.2d 646, 647 (1929). Such is the general law. Nev-Cal Electric Securities Co. v. Imperial Irrigation Dist., 85 F.2d 886, 902 (9th Cir.1936), cert. denied, 300 U.S. 662, 57 S.Ct. 493, 81 L.Ed. 871 (1937); 14 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 38.32, p. 143 (3rd ed. 1987). Despite the intensity of the language limiting judicial review of the validity of a special assessment, the presumption on which the city relies is not conclusive. Sears v. City of Columbia, 660 S.W.2d at 257.
In this case the controlling principle is that if property is not benefited by reason of the existence of a like or similar improvement from which the property derives all the benefit of the kind necessary to its use and enjoyment, it is not subject to assessment for the later improvement. 14 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 38.34, p. 158. In McChesney v. City of Chicago, 213 Ill. 592, 73 N.E. 368, 370 (1905) the Supreme Court of Illinois held that where a city lot fronted 218 feet on one street and was already furnished with water, and its frontage on another street was such that there would be no benefit from a water pipe laid therein, the lot was not subject to special...
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