Commissioners of Road Improvement Dist No of Lafayette County, Ark v. St Louis Southwestern Ry Co

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: TAFT
• Citation: Commissioners of Road Improvement Dist No of Lafayette County, Ark v. St Louis Southwestern Ry Co, 257 U.S. 547, 42 S.Ct. 250, 66 L.Ed. 364 (1922)
• Decision Date: 27 February 1922
• Docket Number: No. 141,141
• Parties: COMMISSIONERS OF ROAD IMPROVEMENT DIST. NO. 2 OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY, ARK., v. ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO

257 U.S. 547

42 S.Ct. 250

66 L.Ed. 364

COMMISSIONERS OF ROAD IMPROVEMENT DIST. NO. 2 OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY, ARK.,

v ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO.

No. 141.

Argued Jan. 26 and 27, 1922.

Decided Feb. 27, 1922.

[Syllabus from pages 547-548 intentionally omitted] Mr. Henry Moore, Jr., of Texarkana, Ark., for petitioner.

Mr. J. R. Turney, of St. Louis, Mo., for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question in this case is whether a proceeding in a state county court to assess benefits and damages growing out of a road improvement was properly removed to the federal District Court.

The assessors appointed by the county court of Lafayette county, Ark., for road improvement district No. 2, imposed an assessment on lands within the district, belonging to the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, a corporation of Missouri, of $49,706, for benefits from the projected improvement. The book of assessments for the district was filed by the district commissioners in the office of the county clerk and the day for hearing objections by the landowners before the county court was duly advertised. On the day before the hearing, the railway company filed a petition for removal to the District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, with the necessary bond. That court denied a motion to remand, tried the controversy between the commissioners of the road district and the railway company, reduced the assessment to $10,485.48, entered judgment therefor and certified the same to the county court. On error, the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment, and the case is here on certiorari.

Under section 28 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1010), a suit at common law or in equity between citizens of different states involving more than $3,000, may be removed by the nonresident party to the proper federal District Court. Under section 29 (Comp. St. § 1011) the petition for removal must be filed on or before the day when defendant is required to answer. The petition herein was filed the day before the hearing as advertised, upon which day the landowner is required by state law to file his written objections. Thus the requisites of the removal statute were fulfilled, if the proceeding was a suit at common law in a state court.

Road district improvements are provided for in chapter 81, title 7, Crawford & Moses' Statutes of Arkansas. A district is formed upon a petition of a majority of the landowners by the county court's approval of the district and the projected improvement. C. & M. Dig. § 5399. The district then becomes a corporation, with a seal and capable of contracting and suing and being sued. C. & M. Dig. §§ 5402, 5404. The court appoints three commissioners, who are the governing body of the corporation. C. & M. Dig. §§ 5405 and 5407. After appointment, they cannot be removed by the county court, but are independent. Taylor v. Wallace, 143 Ark. 67, 219 S. W. 314. They submit to the county court a plan for the improvement and estimate its cost. C. & M. Dig. §§ 5409-5419. The county court then appoints three assessors, whose duty it is to assess the enhanced value which the improvement will give to the various lots of real estate (C. & M. Dig. §§ 5419, 5421), as well as the damages, if any, 'by reason of right of way taken or other damage sustained' (C. & M. Dig. §§ 5419, 5421, 5422). The damages 'may be paid out of the funds of the district, or by a reduction in the assessment of benefits in proportion to the amount of damages sustained.' C. & M. Dig. § 5422. The assessments of benefits and damages are noted by the assessors in a permanent book. C. & M. Dig. § 5421. The subsequent proceedings as to hearing and judgment are set forth in C. & M. Dig. §§ 5423 and 5424, given below in the margin.¹

Appeals from the judgment of the county court as to assessments of benefits and damages may be taken to the circuit court, the court of general jurisdiction, either by the owner or the commissioners of the district 'by filing an affidavit for appeal and stating therein the special matter appealed from, but such appeal shall affect only the particular tract of land * * * concerning which said appeal is taken.' C. & M. Dig. pars. 5425, 5427; Wapponocca Outing Club v. Road Imp. District, 135 Ark. 196, 204 S. W. 840. The circuit court tries all such appeals denovo as if originally brought in that court (C. & M. Dig. par. 2236), and the judgment is in the same form as in the inferior court (Wilson v. Hinton, 63 Ark. 145, 38 S. W. 338).

Just as soon as the assessment book is filed in the office of the county clerk who is ex officio clerk of the county court, and the commissioners submit the estimate of cost of the improvement, the county court, pending its hearing of objections to assessments, levies an assessment against all the real property in the district, adding 10 per cent. to the estimated cost for contingencies, to be collected against the properties in proportion to the benefits then to be adjudged. C. & M. Dig. § 5432. The assessments thus determined and confirmed become liens on the property affected, and, unless paid, are collected through equitable proceedings brought by the commissioners of the road district to sell in the chancery court. C. & M. Dig. par. 5437.

This review shows that the proceedings for the making of this road improvement are in the main legislative and administrative. There is, however, one step in them that fulfills the definition of a judicial inquiry, if made by a court. That is the determination of the issue between the road district on the one part and the landowners on the other, as to the respective benefits which the improvement confers on their lands, and the damages they each suffer from rights of way taken and other injury.

The distinction between a proceeding which is the exercise of legislative power and of administrative character and a judicial suit is not always clear. An administrative proceeding transferred to a court usually becomes judicial, although not necessarily so. In Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line R. R., 211 U. S. 210, 225, 226, 29 Sup. Ct. 67, 69 (53 L. Ed. 150), this court said:

'We shall assume that when, as here, a state Constitution sees fit to unite legislative and judicial powers in a single hand, there is nothing to hinder so far as the Constitution of the United States is concerned. * * * A judicial inquiry investigates, declares and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist. That is its purpose and end. Legislation on the other hand looks to the future and changes existing conditions by making a new rule to be applied thereafter.'

The inquiry before the county court is a proceeding to declare and enforce a liability of lands and their owners as it stands on present and past facts under a law and rules already made by the Legislature and the administrative officers.

The determination of benefits in such cases it quite like the valuation of property under condemnation proceedings.

'The true inquiry is: What will the effect of the proposed improvement be upon the market value of the real property including the building thereon? The board may consider what the property is then fairly worth on the market and what will be the value when the improvement is made.' Kirst v. Street Imp. Dist., 86 Ark. 1, 109 S. W. 526; Rogers v. Imp. Dist., 139 Ark. 322, 213 S. W. 749.

Assessments for benefits and damages are different in their essential characteristics from those for general taxation. Paving District v. Sisters of Mercy, 86 Ark. 109, 109 S. W. 1165, 15 Ann. Cas. 347. Though due process of law does not necessarily require judicial machinery to fix values in condemnation, still, because of the direct invasion of private right, courts will treat it as a common-law suit whenever it is brought before a court, and it becomes removable as such to the federal court. Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, 25 L. Ed. 206; Searl v. School District No. 2, 124 U. S. 197, 8 Sup. Ct. 460, 31 L. Ed. 415; Madisonville Traction Co. v. St. Bernard Mining Co., 196 U. S. 239, 25 Sup. Ct. 251, 49 L. Ed. 462. Speaking of the power of eminent domain, Mr. Justice Field, in Boom Co. v. Patterson, supra, said:

'But, notwithstanding the right is one that appertains to sovereignty, when the sovereign power attaches conditions to its exercise, the inquiry whether the conditions have been observed is a proper matter for judicial cognizance. If that inquiry takes the form of a proceeding before the courts between parties, the owners of the land on the one side, and the company seeking the appropriation on the other, there is a controversy which is subject to the ordinary incidents of a civil suit, and its determination derogates in no respect from the sovereignty of the state.'

This principle has been extended by this court to benefits set off against damages in Pacific Removal Cases, 115 U. S. 1, 18, 5 Sup. St. 1113, 29 L. Ed. 319. In that case the proceeding was for widening a street running through the grounds of a railway company. Under the statute, the hearing was, first, before the mayor and a jury, who were to determine the actual damage done to each person in consequence of the taking of his property, without reference to the proposed improvement; and, second, to determine the actual benefits conferred upon the city and upon such private property. This court held that the proceeding before the mayor and common council was only a preliminary inquisition, but that the distinct and separable issues in the state circuit court between the city and the private owner as to the value of his property taken for the street, and the amount of benefit his remaining property received from the improvements, constituted 'a suit' which might be removed to the federal court, even though their determination might delay the state court proceedings. The case rules the one before us so far as the character of the...