Hill v. Echols
| Decision Date | 17 November 1919 |
| Docket Number | 199 |
| Citation | 215 S.W. 882,140 Ark. 474 |
| Parties | HILL v. ECHOLS |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Woodruff Chancery Court, Southern District; A. L Hutchins, Chancellor; affirmed.
Decree affirmed.
Ross Mathis, for appellants.
1. The description of the road to be improved is too vague and indefinite for identification. The agency provided for approving the plans and for levying assessments is not sufficiently designated and the court to enforce the assessments is not definitely specified.
The act does not designate with certainty an agency to make the levy nor the court to collect the assessments. 36 Ark. 331. The authorities are too numerous to cite. The act does not provide for the collection of delinquent assessments on the land of both districts of Woodruff County and is void.
2. The description of the route is so vague and indefinite and uncertain that the legislative intent can not be ascertained. See act 402, § 2; 120 Ark. 277; 125 Id. 325.
The proof shows that there are two or more roads between Cotton Plant and Jelks that might have been improved and it does not appear from the act which was intended. Cases supra.
3. The exclusion of the lands in the town of Cotton Plant is arbitrary and discriminatory, so as to render the act invalid. It excludes certain lands in the district. Act 402 § 3; 130 Ark. 75; 214 S. W., p. 56.
4. The failure to include the Monroe County lands is arbitrary and discriminatory and makes the act invalid. 213 S.W. 768; 214 Id. 23. So, because of the uncertainty of the route and the failure to designate the agency and court and the discrimination as to lands and failure to include lands in Cotton Plant and Monroe County, the act is invalid. Cases supra. 130 Ark. 75; 214 S.W. 47; 1 S.Ct. 103.
Coleman Robinson & House and Roy D. Campbell, for appellees.
The act is valid. The description of the roads to be improved is not vague nor indefinite, nor is it invalid for the exclusion of lands in Cotton Plant or Monroe County. 130 Ark. 70-97. The map describes and points out the lands. 214 S.W. 47; 125 Ark 325; 131 Id. 59; 133 Id. 380; 214 S.W. 23; Ib. 767. The attacks on the district and act are without merit. Supra.
OPINION
Appellants are owners of land in a road improvement district in Woodruff County, created by a local statute enacted by the General Assembly of 1919, at the regular session (Act 402, p. 1693), and they instituted this action against the commissioners of the district to restrain proceedings on the ground that the statute is void and unenforceable.
One of the grounds for the attack on the validity of the statute is that the description of the road to be improved is too vague for identification. The clause of the statute describing the road reads as follows:
It is shown on the map introduced in evidence and verified by testimony adduced that there are two parallel public roads to Jelks, intersecting the roads running east out of Cotton Plant, and it is argued that the statute does not identify the particular one to be improved and that this renders the statute void. The description in the statute is that the road to be improved is one that leaves the road running east about a mile from Cotton Plant, and only one of the parallel roads shown on the map answers that description. It follows, therefore, that the road to be improved is capable of identification from the language of the statute. The statute is not uncertain in this respect, and the attack upon it on that ground is unfounded.
It is next insisted that the statute is void for the reason that the agency providing for approving the plans and for levying assessments is not sufficiently designated, and that the court for the enforcement of the collection of assessments is not definitely specified.
The statute provides that the plans and assessment lists shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the county court, which court is authorized to approve the same. It also provides that suits to enforce the assessments shall be instituted in the chancery court.
Woodruff County was, by a statute enacted in the year 1901 (Acts 1901, p. 249, as amended by the act of 1909, p. 937), divided into two districts in which separate courts, chancery, circuit, probate and county, are held, and the county clerk is required to maintain an office in each of the districts. The respective courts are held at Augusta, the county seat, which is in the Northern District, and at Cotton Plant, in the Southern District. The territory embraced in the road improvement district, and the road to be improved, lie in both of the court districts, and the contention in this case is that the statute is void for uncertainty because it fails to specify which of the courts is to take jurisdiction of the proceedings.
It is plain from the language of the statute that the county court for the Southern District at Cotton Plant is the one to have jurisdiction over the proceedings, for in section 8 of the statute prescribing the form of notice to landowners the county court at Cotton Plant is the one mentioned. This supplies the omission to mention the particular court in other sections of the statute, for it shows definitely what was in the minds of the lawmakers with respect to the proper court. The fact that some of the affected territory and the roads to be improved lie in the Northern District does not constitute an attempt to give the county court at Cotton Plant extraterritorial jurisdiction, for the division of the county into separate districts results only from the force of a statute, and the legislative authority which separated the judicial system of the county could withdraw it for the purpose of conferring exclusive jurisdiction on one of the...
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