Mt St Mary Cemetery Ass v. Mullins

• Decision Date: 27 January 1919
• Docket Number: No. 56,56
• Citation: 248 U.S. 501,63 L.Ed. 383,39 S.Ct. 173
• Parties: MT. ST. MARY'S CEMETERY ASS'N v. MULLINS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

248 U.S. 501

39 S.Ct. 173

63 L.Ed. 383

MT. ST. MARY'S CEMETERY ASS'N

v MULLINS.

No. 56.

Argued Nov. 15 and 18, 1918.

Decided Jan. 27, 1919.

Mr. Wm. Moore and Mr. Clarence S. Palmer, both of Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Matthew A. Fyke, of Kansas City, Mo., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice DAY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit was begun in the circuit court of Jackson county, Mo., to enforce the liens of tax bills upon land of the Mt. St. Mary's Cemetery Association. The tax bills were assessed in part payment of the cost of two district sewers constructed in a sewer district in Kansas City Mo. The Mt. St. Mary's Cemetery Association is a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Missouri for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining a cemetery, subdividing it into lots, selling, disposing of, and managing the same. The net proceeds after providing for expenses and a maintenance fund are applied to the support of Catholic orphan asylums.

The case has been three times in the Supreme Court of Missouri. In 239 Mo. 681, 144 S. W. 109, it was held that the cemetery land was liable to assessment under the Constitution and laws of Missouri and the charter of Kansas City. In 259 Mo. 142, 168 S. W. 685, the court held that the land was chargeable with its share of the cost of constructing the sewer; that the holder of a lot in the cemetery had no title or interest in the lot except a mere easement or burial right subordinate to the ownership of the cemetery by the corporation; that the special tax bills were properly issued against the entire grounds of the cemetery; that fraud in laying out the sewer district, if such there were, was not a defense to the action on the tax bills unless the alleged fraud was known to the contractor who did the work. In the third case, 268 Mo. 691, 187 S. W. 1169, the court affirmed a judgment in favor of Mullins against the Cemetery Association, holding that the presumption was in favor of the reasonableness of an ordinance which included a cemetery in the sewer district, and assessed its property with the cost of lateral sewers laid in the alleys and streets adjacent to the cemetery, and that such presumption must be satisfactorily overcome by proof in order to be defeated; that when it was shown that the sewer for which the tax bills were issued served to carry away the surface water in the cemetery, and there was no evidence that the sewers were not beneficial in the sanitation of the cemetery, it would be presumed that the city council was fully informed upon the subject, and that its ordinance was reasonable; that the tax, though large, must stand in the absence of a showing that it was unreasonable; that it was not reversible error to exclude evidence that the city in two other cases had made cemetery associations separate sewer districts in the absence of a showing that this was done under a state of facts like those then presented; that such assessments required no notice of the proceedings unless required by some charter, ordinance, or statutory provision; that the sewer tax bills could be issued against the land in its entirety, such ownership being in the Association.

So far as the judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri turns upon matters of state law it is conclusive. The final judgment is here upon writ of error because of the contention that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution in that its effect is to deprive the plaintiff in error of its property without due process of law, and to deny to it the equal protection of the laws. In passing upon the case the Supreme Court of Missouri in the decision under review, found that the sewer district contained about 407 acres; that the Cemetery Association owned about 34 acres of land in said district which was assessed for sewer purposes; that the effect of the sewers was to drain the surface water from some of the land of the Association; that there were no openings in the sewer pipes for house connections, but...