State v. Oliver

• Decision Date: 04 March 1918
• Docket Number: No. 18898.,18898.
• Citation: 273 Mo. 537,201 S.W. 868
• Parties: STATE ex rel. BROUGHTON v. OLIVER.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

201 S.W. 868

273 Mo. 537

STATE ex rel. BROUGHTON v. OLIVER.

No. 18898.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 4, 1918.

Appeal from Circuit Court, New Madrid County; Frank Kelly, Judge.

Proceedings by the State of Missouri, on the relation of Henry E. Broughton, against R. B. Oliver. Judgment for plaintiff was appealed to the Springfield Court of Appeals which certified the case to the Supreme Court (186 Mo. App. 272, 172 S. W. 75). Case retransferred to Springfield Court of Appeals.

Oliver & Oliver, of Cape Girardeau, for appellant. James R. Brewer and Henry C. Riley, Jr., both of New Madrid, for respondent.

GRAVES, J.

This case was certified to this court by the Springfield Court of Appeals (186 Mo. App. 272, 172 S. W. 75) on the ground that it involved the construction of the revenue laws of the state. The applicable clause of the Constitution conferring appellate jurisdiction upon this court reads, "in cases involving the construction of the revenue laws of this state."

The relator is the collector of New Madrid county. By his suit he seeks to enforce a lien upon lands owned by defendant for certain special benefits assessments directed by the county court of that county to be charged against such land to meet the bonded obligation of drainage district No. 18, which district was organized under the county court statutory provisions for the organization of drainage districts. No constitutional questions are raised, and the amount of the several assessments sought to be collected does not bring the case within our jurisdiction. In fact, it is certified here solely on the ground that it involves "the construction of the revenue laws of this state." Have we jurisdiction?

I. In some two or three cases the Springfield Court of Appeals has ruled that the enforcement of these special benefit assessments does involve "the construction of the revenue laws of this state." Besides the case at bar, and another one on our present docket, we have had the case of State ex rel. v. Redman, 190 Mo. App. 300, 176 S. W. 714; Id., 270 Mo. 465, 194 S. W. 260. We assumed jurisdiction in the Redman Case, supra, with this remark: "It is sufficient to say that constitutional questions were duly lodged in the answer." The Court of Appeals certified the case here upon both grounds, and we assumed jurisdiction with the remark above quoted. We thought then (as the writer of the opinion in this court in the Redman Case), and think now, that but for the constitutional questions lodged in the Redman Case this court would have been without jurisdiction; this for the reason that laws providing for benefit assessments are not "revenue laws of this state" within the meaning of section 12 of article 6 of the Constitution. These are laws which provide a means of paying for mere local improvements, and should not be classed with the "revenue laws of this state" so as to fix jurisdiction in this court. When we speak of the "revenue laws of this state," we have reference to those laws by which revenue is raised for purely public governmental functions, and not to laws the principal purpose of which is to furnish a means of payment for mere local improvements. To illustrate: The state grants power to municipalities to raise revenue, by taxation, with which to run the municipality, and such might be properly denominated a revenue law of this state, but it would hardly do to say that, because the state has said to a city that you may improve your streets by means of special benefit assessments, this would make such a law a revenue law of this state within the meaning of the constitutional provision supra. In drainage district matters the state authorizes the formation of the districts, and further authorizes the assessments of benefits in order to raise money with which to make the improvements, but this does not make such laws "revenue laws of this state" within the constitutional provision aforesaid. If so, then, when the state authorizes cities to improve their streets and boulevards by means of special benefit assessments, such laws would likewise be a "revenue law of this state." Such laws, like the drainage district laws, raise money to be expended for a quasi public purpose, but there is a difference between such laws and the laws which provide for the raising of money for purely public governmental purposes. It is to the latter class that this constitutional provision refers, and it was this we had in mind when we stated in Redman's Case, supra, that the constitutional questions duly lodged in the answer sufficed to fix our jurisdiction in that case.

This court has never viewed special assessments laws in the light of revenue laws, as such laws are usually understood. In the very earcly case of Egyptian Levee Co. v. Hardin, 27 Mo. loc. cit. 496, 72 Am. Dec. 276, we said:

"That provision of our state Constitution which requires taxation to be proportioned to the value of the property on which it is laid is only applicable to taxation in its usual, ordinary, and received sense, and is therefore limited to taxation for general purposes alone, where the money raised by the tax goes into the state treasury, or the county treasury, or the general fund of some city or town, and is applicable to any person to which the legislative body of such state, county, or town may choose to apply it; and is not intended to apply to local assessments, where the money raised is to be expended on the property taxed. These local assessments are not necessarily, under our Constitution, apportioned by reference to the value of the property assessed, but may be regulated...