Craighill v. Lambert

• Decision Date: 03 January 1898
• Docket Number: No. 164,164
• Citation: 18 S.Ct. 217,42 L.Ed. 599,168 U.S. 611
• Parties: CRAIGHILL et al. v. LAMBERT et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

168 U.S. 611

18 S.Ct. 217

42 L.Ed. 599

CRAIGHILL et al.

v LAMBERT et al.

No. 164.

January 3, 1898.

In January, 1895, Mary Van Riswick, widow, and Avarilla Lambert, and Martina Carr, children and heirs, of John Van Riswick, deceased, filed a bill of complaint in the supreme court of the District of Columbia against the commission, under the Rock Creek Park act of September 27, 1890, seeking to restrain the said commission from assessing lands of the complainants for any portion of the cost and expenses of locating and improving the Rock Creek Park, for the alleged reason that the sixth section of the said act, under which the commission was acting in proposing to make such assessment, was unconstitutional and void.

The cause was so proceeded in that on September 30, 1895, the supreme court of the District rendered a final decree as prayed for in the bill. From that decree an appeal was taken to the court of appeals of the District of Columbia; and by that court, on March 17, 1896, the decree of the supreme court of the District was affirmed. The cause was then brought to this court on appeal.

Sol. Gen. Richards, for appellants.

T. A. Lambert and John B. Henderson, for appellees.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

Courts of equity undoubtedly have jurisdiction to hear the complaints of those who assert that their lands are about to be assessed and subjected to liens by a board or commission, acting in pursuance of the provisions of a statute which has been enacted under the forms of law, but which is unconstitutional, and therefore does not avail to confer the powers sought to be exercised. Dows v. Chicago, 11 Wall. 108 Railway Co. v. Cheyenne, 113 U. S. 513, 5 Sup. Ct. 601; Ogden City v. Armstrong, 168 U. S. 224, 18 Sup. Ct. 98; 2 Dill. Mun. Corp. (4th Ed.) § 922.

Accordingly if, in the present case, the sixth section of the act of September 27, 1890, entitled 'An act authorizing the establishment of a public park in the District of Columbia,' and upon which the defendants rely for their authority to act, is, indeed, unconstitutional and void, for all or any of the reasons urged against it, we think that the complainants are entitled to a remedy by a direct proceeding in a court of equity. For the reasons mentioned in the cases above cited and in numerous others, the remedy at law could not be regarded as plain and adequate.

The validity of the section in question has been heretofore considered and determined by this court in the case of Shoemaker v. U. S., 147 U. S. 282, 13 Sup. Ct. 361. The objections which in that case were ably but ineffectually urged were, in the main, those of which we now hear. it is true, however, that the question there arose incidentally and by way of argument. Persons whose property was made liable to assessment for special benefits were not ostensible parties to the cause; nor was the question raised by any special assignment. Hence this court, though undoubtedly called upon to consider the validity of the act as a whole, and in all its parts and sections, did not deem it necessary to discuss the validity of the sixth section at any length. In view, however, of the fact that we are now confronted with a specific arraignment of the sixth section, and of the further fact that the courts below, in able opinions, have held that the section is fatally defective in form and substance, we have felt constrained to carefully reconsider the question.

It is obvious, and we understand it to be conceded, that neither the act, nor this particular part of it, can be assailed, because the subject-matter is outside of the power of congress. But, while the general power to l gislate exclusively for the District of Columbia is not disputed, nor the competency of congress, in the exercise of that power, to establish a public park, it is contended that, under the limitation upon that power contained in the fifth amendment, protecting the citizen from being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, congress, when erecting a work which is expressly declared to be perpetually dedicated to the use and enjoyment of the people of the United States, should defray the cost thereof out of the funds of the entire nation. It is further contended in the brief of the appellees that a tax for raising a fund for such a purpose, to be valid, ought to be levied and apportioned as a direct tax, among the several states, according to their respective numbers. This latter proposition, however, was not approved by the courts below, and we need not discuss it. 8 App. D. C. 185.

The reasoning upon which those courts proceeded seems to have been that, upon general principles of constitutional law, when the works whose cost is to be defrayed by taxation are public, the public alone should pay for them, and the present case is compared to one where, upon the erection of a court house or post office, the private property of individuals adjacent to such structure should be specially taxed for the supposed greater convenience enjoyed of access thereto.

Upon a final analysis this proposition will be found to resolve itself into a denial of the validity of special assessments in any case where the work in question is undertaken by the public authorities, without the express assent or desire of the property holders. The effort made to distinguish between streets and highways, as constituting proper subjects of taxation for special benefits, and public parks, as matters of such a general nature as not to justify special assessment, does not appear to us to be successful. Legislation of this character, both in respect to its justice and its constitutional validity, has been thoroughly discussed by the judicial tribunals of nearly every state in the Union. We shall briefly notice a few of the leading cases.

By a statute of 1875 a board of park commissioners were authorized to locate and lay out within the city of Boston a public park, to take such lands as the board should deem desirable therefor, and to assess upon any real estate in Bos- ton which, in the opinion of the board, should receive any benefit or advantage from such locating and laying out, beyond the general advantages to all real estate in the city, 'a proportional share of the expense of such location and laying out.' The...