Eyermann v. Blakesly

• Citation: 9 Mo.App. 231
• Parties: AUGUST EYERMANN, Respondent, v. HENRY BLAKESLY ET AL., Appellants.
• Decision Date: 15 June 1880
• Court: Court of Appeal of Missouri (US)

9 Mo.App. 231

AUGUST EYERMANN, Respondent,

v.HENRY BLAKESLY ET AL., Appellants.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Jun. 15, 1880.

1. The provisions of the St. Louis City Charter of 1876 making special taxbills prima facie evidence are substantially the same as those of the Charter of 1870.

2. It is not essential to the establishment of a district sewer under sect. 22, Art. VI., of the Charter of 1876, that it connect with a technically public sewer.

3. It is not essential to the validity of a special tax-bill for sewer-work that all the items of the work be let in separate contracts.

4. The passage of the ordinance, with the recommendations of the board of public improvements indorsed thereon, is evidence that the work charged for in the bill was necessary.

5. The rate of interest which special tax-bills shall bear was prescribed by the freeholders as a penalty; and this they had the right to do.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, THAYER, J.

Affirmed.

M. MCKEAG, for the appellants.

T. J. CORNELIUS, for the respondent.

HAYDEN, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action on special tax-bills issued for the construction of a district sewer in Sidney Street Sewer-District No. 3, in the city of St. Louis, under a contract with the city. The answer set up various defences, which, so far as necessary, are noticed below. The plaintiff offered in evidence the special tax-bills, the signatures to which were admitted. There was a demurrer to the evidence; and it is contended that, as this work was done under the present City Charter, the tax-bills were not prima facie evidence. But the provisions of sect. 25 of Art. VI. of the Charter are, in effect, the same as those of the corresponding provisions of the former Charters of the city of St. Louis, the construction of which upon this point is well settled. Stifel v. Dougherty, 6 Mo. App. 441, where the previous decisions are examined. Here the special tax-bills are regular in form and the certificate is sufficient. The form of this latter is not prescribed, but the twenty-fourth section of the sixth article of the present Charter corresponds in its requirements to the fourteenth section of the eighth article of the Charter of 1870. No further statements are required than under the latter section. It is complained that the president of the board of public improvements certifies that the board assessed the cost of the sewers in the district upon the property-owners,--but there is no error in this,--while the tax-bill itself shows that the amount chargeable was assessed against each lot of ground in the name of the owner. The total area of square feet in the district is shown, the area of square feet in each lot, the total cost of the sewer, and the rate per one hundred square feet. No error appears in the method, or in the assessment itself.

It is complained that ordinance 10,720, under which the sewer was constructed, is void because the restrictions and conditions of the twenty-second section of the sixth article of the present Charter were not complied with, and that the construction of the sewer was not in accordance with the provision of the Charter requiring district sewers to be connected with a public sewer or with some natural course of drainage. The twenty-second section of the sixth article provides that “district sewers shall be established within the limits of districts, to be prescribed by ordinance, as approved by the board of public improvements, and so as to connect with a public sewer or some natural course of drainage.” It is clear...