Rowe v. Town of Hampton
| Decision Date | 03 May 1910 |
| Citation | 76 A. 250,75 N.H. 479 |
| Parties | ROWE et al. v. TOWN OF HAMPTON et al. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Exceptions from Superior Court, Rockingham County; Plummer, Judge.
Bill in equity by Arthur L. Rowe and another against the Town of Hampton and another. On denial of their motion to dismiss the hill, and on the granting of a temporary injunction restraining the collection of a tax, defendants except. Bill dismissed.
The allegations of the bill were in substance as follows: The town of Hampton, at a special meeting held June 6, 1908, voted to adopt the provisions of chapter 79, Pub. St., and to construct a common sewer at Hampton Beach, in the town of Hampton, for the public convenience and health. The sewer was constructed in 1908, and the following year the selectmen assessed upon each person whose real estate was specially benefited his share of the expenses thus incurred (Pub. St. 1901, c. 79, § 4), and committed the assessment to the collector of taxes with a warrant to collect the same (Pub. St. c. 79, § 5). The plaintiffs are the persons upon whose real estate the taxes were assessed, and they bring this proceeding against the town and the tax collector to enjoin the collection of the tax and the sale of their property.
The plaintiffs attack the assessment upon the following, grounds: (1) That the vote, taken upon the second article in the warrant at the special town meeting held June 6, 1908, was illegal and void because it involved the raising and appropriating of money, and the ballots cast were not equal in number to one-half the number of legal voters borne on the check list of the town at the annual election next preceding such special meeting (Pub. St. c. 40, § 4); (2) that the Hampton Beach Village district, which was organized in 1907, under chapter 53 of the public statutes, for the purpose, among others, of constructing and maintaining main drains and common sewers, embraced the territory through which the sewer in question was built, and that the district had not adopted the provisions of chapter 79, Public Statutes; (3) that because of the existence of the district, the town had no authority to construct the sewer in the district, and because the district had not adopted the provisions of chapter 79, the selectmen had no authority to construct the sewer therein (Pub. St. c. 79, §§ 2, 10), or to assess the benefits upon the plaintiffs' property (section 4).
Samuel W. Emery, for plaintiffs. Eastman, Scammon & Gardner, for defendants.
The defendants' motion to dismiss the bill should have been granted. The remedy afforded the plaintiffs by section 6, c. 79, Pub. St., for abatement of their taxes by application to the selectmen, and in case of their neglect or refusal, by petition to the superior court within the time there prescribed, is plain and adequate to redress any errors in the assessment of which they complain, even though "the whole assessment is Illegal." Rockingham Ten-Cent Savings Bank v. Portsmouth, 52 N. H. 17, 30; Brown v. Concord, 56 N. H. 375, 386; Edes v. Boardman, '58 N. H. 580, 584, 585, 589; ...
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Improvement District No. 1 of Clarendon v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co.
...for parties who contend that assessments are illegal or excessive, injunction will not lie to prevent the collection of such assessments. 76 A. 250. Appellees, railway companies, no suit of the nature provided by law for the correction of assessments, nor within the time provided. Notice wa......
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Cohn v. City
...under it which could be afforded by equity, it precludes a resort to equity generally in such a case as the one before us. Rowe v. Hampton, 75 N.H. 479, 480, 76 A. 250; see Wilcox v. Madison, 106 Conn. 223, 227, 137 A. 742. The claim of the plaintiff that there is no proper basis in the evi......
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Bretton Woods Co. v. Carroll
...of such a defect? There are two cases decided since Edes v. Boardman, supra, which are based upon the idea that he can. Rowe v. Hampton, 75 N, H. 479, 76 A. 250, was a bill in equity to restrain the collection of a tax assessed in 1909, to pay for appropriations voted and laid out in 1908. ......
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City of Manchester v. Town of Auburn
...to the same limitations as a petition for abatement of taxes, one of which is that the appeal is an exclusive remedy. Rowe v. Town of Hampton, 75 N.H. 479, 76 A. 250; Edes v. Boardman, 58 N.H. 580, 591-594. A bill in equity will not lie to establish an exemption. Lefevre v. Healy, 92 N.H. 1......