Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. Barber Asphalt Paving Company

• Decision Date: 03 April 1905
• Docket Number: No. 170,170
• Parties: LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err. , v. BARBER ASPHALT PAVING COMPANY and The City of Louisville
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

197 U.S. 430

25 S.Ct. 466

49 L.Ed. 819

LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v BARBER ASPHALT PAVING COMPANY and The City of Louisville.

No. 170.

Argued March 7, 8, 1905.

Decided April 3, 1905.

Messrs. Helm Bruce, James P. Helm, and T. K. Helm for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 430-431 intentionally omitted] Messrs. William Furlong, A. E. Richards, Benjamin F. Washer and Henry L. Stone for defendants in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 431-432 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a proceeding under the Kentucky Statutes, § 2834, to enforce a lien upon a lot adjoining a part of Frankfort avenue, in Louisville, for grading, curbing, and paving with asphalt the carriage way of that part of the avenue. The defendant, the plaintiff in error, pleaded that its only interest in the lot was a right of way for its main roadbed, and that neither the right of way nor the lot would or could get any benefit from the improvement, but, on the contrary, rather would be hurt by the increase of travel close to the defendant's tracks. On this ground it set up that any special assessment would deny to it the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It did not object to the absence of the parties having any reversionary interest, but defended against any special assessment on the lot. The answer was demurred to, judgment was rendered for the plaintiff, and this judgment was affirmed by the Kentucky court of appeals. 25 Ky. L. Rep. 1024, 76 S. W. 1097. A writ of error was taken out, and the case was brought to this court. It will be noticed that the case concerns only grading, curbing, and paving, and what we shall have to say is confined to a case of that sort.

The state of Kentucky created this lien by a statute entitled 'An Act for the Government of Cities of the First Class.' Louisville is the only city of the first class at present in Kentucky, and the general principles of the act are taken verbatim from the part of the charter of Louisville which was considered and upheld by this court in Walston v. Nevin, 128 U. S. 578, 32 L. ed. 544, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 192. But we take the statute as a general prospective law, and not as a legislative adjudication concerning a particular place and a particular plan, such as may have existed in Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345, 31 L. ed. 763, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 921, and as was thought to exist in Smith v. Worcester, 182 Mass. 232, 59 L. R. A. 728, 65 N. E. 40, referred to at the argument.

The law provides in the case of original construction, such as this improvement was, that it shall be made at the exclusive cost of the adjoining owners, to be equally apportioned according to the number of feet owned by them. In the case of a square or subdivision of land bounded by principal streets, which the land including the defendant's lot was held to be (see Cooper v. Nevin, 90 Ky. 85, 13 S. W. 841; Nevin v. Roach, 86 Ky. 492, 499, 5 S. W. 546), the land is assessed half way back from the improvement to the next street. Act of 1898, chap. 48; Ky. Stat. § 2833. A lien is imposed upon the land, and 'the general council, or the courts in which suits may be pending, shall make all corrections, rules, and orders to do justice to all parties concerned.' § 2834. The principle of this mode of taxation seems to have been familiar in Kentucky for the better part of a hundred years. Lexington v. McQuillan, 9 Dana, 513, 35 Am. Dec. 159.

The argument for the plaintiff in error oscillates somewhat between the objections to the statute and the more specific grounds for contending that it cannot be applied constitutionally to the present case. So far as the former are concerned they are disposed of by the decisions of this court. There is a look of logic when it is said that special assessments are founded on special benefits, and that a law which makes it possible to assess beyond the amount of the special benefit attempts to rise above its source. But that mode of argument assumes an exactness in the premises which does not exist. The foundation of this familiar form of taxation is a question of theory. The amount of benefit which an improvement will confer upon particular land—indeed, whether it is a benefit at all—is a matter of forecast and estimate. In its general aspects, at least, it is peculiarly a thing to be decided by those who make the law. The result of the supposed constitutional principle is simply to shift the burden to a somewhat large taxing district,—the municipality,—and to disguise, rather than to answer, the theoretic DOUBT. IT IS DANGEROUS TO TIE DOWN LEGIslatures toO closely by judicial constructions not necessarily arising from the words of the Constitution. Particularly, as was intimated in Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345, 31 L. ed. 763, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 921, it is important for this court to avoid extraction from the very general language of the 14th Amendment a system of delusive exactness in order to destroy methods of taxation which were well known when that amendment was adopted, and which it is safe to say that no one then supposed would be disturbed. It now is established beyond permissible controversy that laws like the one before us are not contrary to the Constitution of the United States. Walston v. Nevin, 128 U. S. 578, 32 L. ed. 544, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 192; French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co. 181 U. S. 324, 45 L. ed. 879, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 625;Webster v. Fargo, 181 U. S. 394, 45 L. ed. 912, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 623; Cass Farm Co. v. Detroit, ...