Eyerman v. Hardy
| Decision Date | 10 February 1880 |
| Citation | 8 Mo.App. 311 |
| Parties | GOTTLIEB EYERMAN, Appellant, v. JAMES A. HARDY ET AL., Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
1. A special tax-bill can be made a lien upon a lot only for the work done in front of it.
2. The city engineer has no power to let out the work of improving a street
between two given points in sections, and to compute the cost thereof in sections instead of as an entirety.
3. The cost of the whole work must be assessed against the property, chargeable in proportion to its linear quantity fronting on the improvement, and the city engineer must certify that the amount charged in the bill is the proportion of the whole work chargeable to the particular lot.
APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court.
Affirmed.
CASTLEMAN & LAUGHLIN, for the appellant: “It is the duty of the city engineer, * * * in making out a special tax-bill, * * * to give upon the face of the bill a detailed description of the methods by which he proceeded, the process of computation. * * *”-- Creamer v. Allen, 3 Mo. App. 545. A tax-bill, and judgment based thereon, against several contiguous “lots” of common ownership, is strictly in conformity with law, and valid.-- The State v. Richardson, 21 Mo. 420, Seibert v. Allen, 61 Mo. 488.
S. SIMMONS, for the respondents, cited: Miller v. Anheuser, 4 Mo. App. 436; Kefferstein v. Holliday, 3 Mo. App. 570; Neenan v. Smith, 50 Mo. 525; s. c. 60 Mo. 292; Weber v. Shergers, 59 Mo. 289.
It is admitted in this case that the land against which the special tax-bill issued was regularly subdivided into lots, yet the tax-bill states that the work is chargeable against “lots No. 1 to 11, inclusive;” and then describes the whole tract, one of the lots of which was of nearly twice the frontage of the others. It is further conceded that the sum charged in the bill is not certified by the engineer to be the proportion of the cost of the whole street chargeable to the lots, or any of them; that the bill does not state that the sum charged is the proportion of any sum, or that the engineer made any apportionment of the cost of the street; that the engineer does not certify that he apportioned the cost of the street, and that nothing appears upon the face of the bill from which any apportionment can be made; that the work done under ordinance 9391--by which the city engineer is directed to cause Lynch Street, from Second Carondelet Avenue to the Gravois Road, to be graded, guttered, macadamized, and cross-walks and sidewalks to be constructed--was let under three distinct contracts, of which the one in evidence covers only the space from Liberty Street to Jefferson Avenue.
These admissions the evidence compels the plaintiff to make, and these are fatal to his case. It is argued that there is nothing in the spirit or the letter of the law forbidding the letting out of the work in sections, and making contracts accordingly. But if, where the ordinance directs the city engineer to cause a given piece of work to be done, that prescribed work may be divided and subdivided, and done in sections instead of as an entirety, and the cost of parts of the work computed accordingly, not only is there no certainty that the owner of the land will obtain what the law secures him, but the mere...
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Sills v. Missouri Securities Corporation
...unlawful where the sectional construction renders the assessments disproportionate as to property within the benefit districts. Eyerman v. Hardy, 8 Mo. App. 311; Weber v. Schergens, 59 Mo. 389; Newman v. Smith, 50 Mo. 525; Dunker v. Stiefel, 57 Mo. App. 379; Nelson v. Chicago, 63 N.E. 738. ......
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Kemper v. King
...in them which conflicts with the views here expressed. The one which has been pressed upon us most strongly is the case of Eyerman v. Hardy (8 Mo.App. 311). As understand the respondent's position, that case is supposed to be authority for the conclusion that the engineer of the city of St.......
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Kemper v. King
...The contract was not in conformity with the ordinance, and the apportionment was not of the whole cost of the work.-- Eyerman v. Hardy, 8 Mo. App. 311; Miller v. Anheuser, 4 Mo. App. 436; Kefferstein v. Holliday, 3 Mo. App. 569. The street upon which the sidewalks were laid was not macadami......
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Gibson v. Henry Kayser's Ex'r
...assessed with their proportion of the cost of the curbing actually done. No other mode of assessment would have been legal.-- Eyerman v. Hardy, 8 Mo. App. 311; Neenan v. Smith, 50 Mo. 526, 531; Weber v. Schergens, 59 Mo. 389, 393. That no curbing was done in front of said lots might have be......