Coates v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 08 December 1887
• Citation: 35 N.W. 366,37 Minn. 498
• Parties: COATES v CAMPBELL AND OTHERS.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

37 Minn. 498

35 N.W. 366

COATESvCAMPBELL AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

December 8, 1887.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

An act authorizing the issue of bonds of a village corporation to aid in the construction of a dam for the purpose of improving a private water-power is unconstitutional as providing for public taxation for a private purpose.

When the purposes for which an act provides for taxation are partly public and partly private, and the amount to be raised for each cannot be distinguished and severed, the act is invalid.

Appeal from district court, Benton county; COLLINS, Judge.

Taylor & Calhoun, for Coates, respondent.

R. J. Bell, (Hall & Kirkpatrick, of counsel,) for Campbell and others, appellants.

GILFILLAN, C. J.

An act of the legislature approved February 25, 1887, entitled “An act to authorize the village of Sauk Rapids, in the county of Benton, to issue bonds in aid of the improvement of the Mississippi river at said Sauk Rapids,” provided: “Section 1. The village council of the village of Sauk Rapids, in Benton county, is hereby authorized and empowered to issue the bonds of said village, to the amount not exceeding the sum of forty thousand dollars, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a dam across the Mississippi river at Sauk Rapids, and for the purpose of improving the water-power of said river, at the said village of Sauk Rapids, and for such other purposes as are hereinafter specified.” *** “Sec. 4. The said village council of the village of Sauk Rapids is hereby authorized to secure for the use of said village, in consideration of the issue of bonds herein authorized, such water-power for the use of the public fire department as may be deemed proper.” *** “Sec. 6. The piers of the said dam shall constitute the foundation of a public wagon bridge.”

There is no principle of constitutional law better settled than that taxes cannot be imposed for a private purpose. State v. Foley, 30 Minn. 350,15 N. W. Rep. 375, and cases cited. “The right to tax depends upon the ultimate use, purpose, and object for which the fund is raised, and not on the nature or character of the person or corporation whose intermediate agency is to be used in applying it.” Sharpless v. Mayor, etc., 21 Pa. St. 169. It is upon this proposition that courts sustain the imposition of taxes for the purpose of constructing railroads. For although railroad companies are, so far as their rights of property are concerned, private corporations, yet railroads are public highways, constructed and maintained for public use, and which the public have a right to use, so that in this case it is not conclusive, as to the right to tax, that the title to the water-power to be improved is or will be in some private person or corporation, or that the village is not to have any direct control over the management of it. As it is entirely manifest that the general and chief purpose of the act is to improve the water-power, and without which...