Sears v. Board of St. Com'rs of Boston

• Citation: 62 N.E. 397,180 Mass. 274
• Parties: SEARS v. BOARD OF ST. COM'RS OF BOSTON.
• Decision Date: 03 January 1902
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

180 Mass. 274

62 N.E. 397

SEARS v. BOARD OF ST. COM'RS OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 3, 1902

COUNSEL

Louis D. Brandeis, Wm. H. Dunbar, J. G. Palfrey Hutchins & Wheeler,

Gaston, Snow & Saltonstall, and Henry Endicott, Jr., for petitioners.

Thomas M. Babson, for respondents.

OPINION

HOLMES C.J.

These are petitions for writs of certiorari to quash assessments made by the defendants under St. 1896, c. 516, § 14. The act created a corporation with power to build the Southern Union Passenger Station in Boston. The stock was to belong to the five railroads that were to use the station, and the corporation was to purchase or take the specified land and to build the station. By section 11, in order to render the station and passenger facilities accessible and convenient for public use, the defendants were ordered to make certain changes in the streets of Boston, the chief of which were the widening and extension of Cove Street and the extension of Summer Street, and then by section 14 they were directed to assess upon any real estate in Boston which in their opinion 'receives any benefit and advantage from the location and construction of said union station, Summer Street and Cove Street, beyond the general advantage to all real estate in said city, a proportionate part of one half of the expense incurred by said city therefor, but in no case exceeding such benefit and advantage.' The defendants have made their assessment, reciting that 'the Union Station, Summer Street and Cove Street, provided for by' the act 'have been located, constructed and completed,' adjudicating that each of the estates in a schedule 'received benefit and advantage from such location and construction beyond the general advantage to all real estate in said city, and that said estates are all the estates receiving such benefit and advantage,' determining the amount of 'one half of the expense incurred by the city for such location and construction,' and thereupon assessing upon each estate a certain sum 'as the part of said one half of said expense, proportionate to, and not exceeding, said benefit and advantage so received by the estate.'

Against the assessment it is argued that by a true construction of the words quoted from the statute the cost and benefit ought to have been severed, so that half the cost of the extension of Summer Street, for instance, should have been assessed to those benefited by that extension, and to no others, instead of lumping the cost of both streets and the benefit of, the whole improvement, as was done. It is argued further that, at least when construed as the defendants have construed it, the statute is unconstitutional, because it makes the petitioners pay for changes which did not benefit them, and further because it does not limit the sum with which they may be charged by the benefit accruing from the outlay of the city, but only by the benefit of the whole establishment of the union station. It is said that even if it had been a public building an assessment of cost to the extent of the benefit from the station to the petitioners' land would not have been warranted, both because the benefit was merely the general public benefit and also was too remote and uncertain, and because, whatever its kind, it was an accidental result of a change made not for the purpose of improving the petitioners' land but with a different intent. But the station was not a public building, and a further objection still is based upon the fact that it was built with the money of a private corporation and belonged to that corporation when built. Some minor matters were mentioned, but these are the main points.

We shall spend no time upon the construction of the statute, because we hardly could make it plainer than it is made by the literal meaning of the words of the act that the improvement was treated by the Legislature as a unit, the station being impossible without a change in the streets, the extension of the streets being unnecessary apart from the building of the station, two means of continuous public travel being thus brought together according to a single plan. The unity of the plan is emphasized by taking the completion of the station as the time from which the two years allowed for making the assessment shall begin to run.

The more serious question, and that to which the greater part of the argument was directed, is whether the statute is constitutional. The first subdivision of this question concerns the power of the Legislature to lump the cost of the streets, treating it all as the contribution of the city to a single object. As to this we have no doubt. It is easy to put cases of absurd attempts to unite by legislative fiat things which have nothing to do with each other. But such illustrations do not carry the argument far. There is no doubt that the Legislature within the limits of reason can group as one the distinguishable elements of a public improvement. Lincoln v. Commissioners, 176 Mass. 210, 212, 57 N.E. 356. To a greater or less extent it is necessary and habitual to group them in this way. Alden v. City of Springfield, 121 Mass. 27, 28. The only thing to be considered is whether the attempt to do so is unjustifiable in the particular case. We are of opinion that in this case the action of the Legislature was fully justified. We are of opinion that if, for instance, the whole enterprise had been carried out by the city, supposing other objections out of the way, and considering the power of the Legislature only with reference to treating the cost as one whole for the purpose of assessment, it would have been warranted in so doing by the organic relation of part to part, upon plain principles of common sense. It was argued that if the Legislature treated the scheme as one, then it should have provided for the assessment of estates benefited by the station in connection with other changes besides those made in Summer Street and Cove Street. But it will be remembered that the assessment is for a part of the cost of Summer Street and Cove Street alone, and that the benefit from the location and construction of the station and streets is only a limit. Reasons of detail for the decision of the Legislature were offered by the corporation counsel. We deem it a sufficient answer that we cannot say that the Legislature was wrong. If we are right in our general view, of course it was proper to take the time of finishing the station as the moment for estimating the benefit, although the work of the city should be finished at an earlier moment.

But supposing that the Legislature could lump the cost to the city, it is said, it was bound to limit the assessment to the benefit to the petitioners' land from the city's expenditure and could not include that from any other source. With regard to this it is to be remembered, that, in the language of Chief Justice Gray, 'The estates are assessed not for the benefit conferred but for the cost of the public improvement.' Chase v. Board, 119 Mass. 556, 563. The petitioners are called on to repay a part of what the city of Boston has spent, they are not specially taxed for the gain to their lands. The benefit is referred to only as a justification and a limit. If an outlay by the city has made it possible for the petitioners to enjoy special benefits otherwise justifying an assessment, we are at a loss to see why it should be any more necessary that the city should have created the benefit in toto than that it should have created the matter out of which the station was built. The foundation on which the statute puts the petitioners' liability plainly is that although the city did not pay for the whole thing, no part of it would have been called into being without the city's payment, and the city's payment was in fact so far the cause of the advantage to the petitioners that it was entitled to assess on the footing that its expenditures brought the improvement about. Certainly we cannot say that the Legislature was wrong.

Assuming all that we have decided thus far in favor of the defendants still, it is said, this particular scheme considered as a whole was not a public improvement, and on that account payments toward it as a whole and special benefits from it as a whole would not warrant an assessment. So far as this objection is based on the general nature of the dominant purpose of the union station, it is settled that that purpose is sufficiently public to authorize the exercise of the power of eminent domain. Eastern R. Co. v. Boston & M. R. R., 111 Mass. 125, 15 Am. Rep. 13, or of general taxation, Kittredge v. Inhabitants of North Brookfield, 138 Mass. 286, even for purposes of a pure gift, Council Bluffs & St. J. R. Co. v. Otoe Co., 16 Wall. 667, 673, 675, 21 L.Ed. 375. See Portage Co. Sup'rs v. Wisconsin Cent. R. Co., 121 Mass. 460, 470, 471; Prince v. Crocker, 166 Mass. 347, 361, 44 N.E. 446, 32 L. R. A. 610; Browne v. Turner, 176 Mass. 9, 56 N.E. 969. And we see no reason why it is not sufficiently public for special assessment also. It is implied that it might be in Brown v. Railroad Co., 5 Gray, 35, 39. We...