State v. Wilson

Citation115 S.W. 549,216 Mo. 215
PartiesSTATE ex rel. BROWN, Collector, v. WILSON.
Decision Date23 December 1908
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Missouri

Rev. St. 1899, § 8331 (Ann. St. 1906, p. 3941), provides that any owner of lands, etc., affected by a proposed township drainage district may appear on the day set for hearing the report of commissioners appointed to construct the improvement and remonstrate against the work. The county court or the presiding judge may fix a time for hearing the objections, and, on demand of any person assessed for benefits or awarded damages, may frame an issue and impanel a jury to try the issue. If there be no remonstrance, the court shall confirm the report, and such confirmation shall be conclusive, and upon entering the order of record the district is organized as a drainage district. Held, that the county court has jurisdiction to determine the legality of the organization of a drainage district, and where all parties interested in land within the district were notified of the proposed assessment and incorporation, and notified to show cause upon a day named why a judgment should not be rendered confirming the assessments and incorporating the district, and a hearing was had upon the day stated in the notice, and judgment rendered confirming the assessments and incorporating the district, the judgment was conclusive upon all objections to the incorporation of the district, whether legal or jurisdictional, as against one of the petitioners for the formation of the district, who, though notified, made no objections at the hearing, and he could not subsequently urge the invalidity of the district's incorporation in an action against him to recover district taxes.

2. QUO WARRANTO (§ 5)—GROUNDS—VALIDITY OF INCORPORATION OF DRAINAGE DISTRICT.

The validity of the incorporation of the drainage district could only be determined by quo warranto.

3. JUDGMENT (§ 474)—COLLATERAL ATTACK — JUDGMENTS IMPEACHABLE COLLATERALLY — JUDGMENT OF INFERIOR COURT DEPENDING ON JURISDICTIONAL FACT TO BE SETTLED.

Where the jurisdiction of an inferior court depends upon a fact which it is required to ascertain and settle, its decision thereon is conclusive against collateral attack.

4. DRAINS (§ 14) — ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — PROCEEDINGS — PETITION — SUFFICIENCY.

A petition praying for a decree incorporating a drainage district, alleging that the petition was "duly signed by a majority of the owners of all the lands in * * * the district, and by the owners of more than half of said lands, all of said petitioners and owners being adults of lawful age," etc., sufficiently stated that it was signed by one-half of the adult owners of the lands within the proposed district.

5. DRAINS (§ 14) — ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — PROCEEDINGS — PETITION — SUFFICIENCY — DESCRIPTION OF DISTRICT — STATUTORY PROVISIONS.

A petition praying for a decree incorporating a drainage and levee district, which described in detail the district boundaries by giving its metes and bounds, and described the lands affected, and gave the starting points, general course, and termini of the ditches and levee, sufficiently described the proposed district and levee within Rev. St. 1899, § 8319 (Ann. St. 1906, p. 3935), requiring the petition to describe the starting point, route, and terminus of ditches, levees, or other works proposed.

6. DRAINS (§ 14) — ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — FINDING OF NECESSITY — SUFFICIENCY OF RECORD.

The record of the county court, in proceedings to incorporate a drainage and levee district, that "it is further found by the court that the establishment of said drainage and levee district in accordance with said petition would be necessary for the drainage and reclamation of the land in said petition described for agricultural purposes," sufficiently showed that the court found that the proposed levee and drain were necessary or would be useful for the drainage of the lands proposed to be drained thereby for agricultural purposes as required by statute.

7. DRAINS (§ 14)ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICT — RECORDS — PRESUMPTIONS.

While records of courts of limited and inferior jurisdiction, not proceeding according to the course of the common law, must show affirmatively all the facts which the statute requires to be stated to give the court jurisdiction of the parties and the subject-matter, yet where such court, or a mere ministerial board, possesses jurisdiction of a certain class of cases, and is required to find the existence of certain facts to acquire jurisdiction of a particular case of that class, the law will presume, in a collateral attack upon the judgment, that such facts existed, and that the court or board passed upon them as required by the statute, and hence in the absence of a showing to the contrary it will be presumed that the notice by the clerk of the county court in proceedings to organize a drainage district was in substantial compliance with Rev. St. 1899, § 8320 (Ann. St. 1906, p. 3936), requiring it to recite when and in what court the petition praying for the organization of a drainage district was filed, the starting point, etc., and at what term of court the petitioners would ask for a hearing, the county court having jurisdiction of proceedings to incorporate drainage districts.

8. DRAINS (§ 14) — ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — PROCEEDINGS — COMMISSIONERS' REPORT — VALIDITY.

In proceedings to establish a drainage and levee district, a commissioners' report stating separately in express terms the amount of damages each tract of land in the district would sustain by reason of the proposed improvements, so that to ascertain the aggregate of all the damages it was only necessary to add the separate items, was in compliance with the statute requiring a statement of the aggregate amount of injuries that all the land affected would sustain, since that is considered certain which can be made certain from the face of the record.

9. DRAINS (§ 14) — ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS — VALIDITY.

In view of Rev. St. 1899, § 8331 (Ann. St. 1906, p. 3941), providing that in proceedings to establish a drainage district the court may investigate the report of commissioners appointed to lay out and construct the proposed work, and modify it if found to be inaccurate or insufficient, a commissioners' report which did not state whether or not the proposed district would embrace all the land which would be damaged or benefited by the improvement as required by statute, but stated that the district embraced 3,500 acres of land, giving the names of the owners, all of which could be reclaimed and drained by the proposed improvements, constitutes at most an irregularity, and not a jurisdictional question.

10. DRAINS (§ 14) — JUDGMENT ESTABLISHING DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — COLLATERAL ATTACK.

Even if the report presented a jurisdictional question, it was adjudicated by the judgment of the county court incorporating the drainage district, and could not be raised in an action to collect a drainage district tax by one of the petitioners for the district who had had his day in court when the district was incorporated and failed to offer any objections.

11. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (§ 290) — DUE PROCESS OF LAW — ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAINAGE DISTRICTS — PROCEDURE — NOTICE OF SUPPLEMENTAL ASSESSMENT.

Rev. St. 1899, c. 122, art. 5 (Ann. St. 1906, pp. 3935-3947), relating to the establishment of drainage districts, requires a petition to be filed with the county court, signed by the landowners, praying for a judgment incorporating the district, and that notice be given to all owners of land affected, and provides for the appointment of commissioners to view the premises and report to the court the benefits the lands would receive and the damages they would sustain from the proposed improvements, and the probable cost of the improvements, and provides that the benefits shall be paid in installments. Section 8337 of the article provides that, if in the first assessment the commissioners shall have reported a smaller sum than needed to complete the work, a further assessment or installment proportioned on the first assessment may be made under order of the court or the presiding judge thereof, without notice, on the lands benefited. Held, that the legislative intent was that a landowner in court at the commencement of the proceeding was in court at all stages of the procedure, so that a landowner who entered his appearance by signing the petition for the improvements was in court for all purposes as long as the court had any duties to perform in the case, and a supplemental assessment therein made without notice to him was not an act authorizing the taking of his property without due process of law.

12. DRAINS (§ 76) — DRAINAGE ASSESSMENT — IRREGULARITIES — STATUTORY PROVISIONS.

Rev. St. 1899, § 9179 (Ann. St. 1906, p. 4227), provides that no assessment of property or charges for taxes thereon shall be considered illegal on account of any informality in making the assessment or in the tax lists, or on account of the assessments not being made or completed within the time required by law. Section 9202 provides that no failure to deliver the assessor's or collector's books within the time required by the chapter shall affect the validity of the assessment and levy of taxes. Section 9323 provides that neither the failure to make or complete the back-tax books within the time required by the preceding sections, nor an informality in making the back-tax books, shall affect their validity. Held that, when an assessor makes out his assessor's books, jurisdiction attaches, and the rest of the proceedings are only directory; and hence where valid assessments of drainage district taxes were entered on the tax books the taxes were valid notwithstanding irregularities in the entry, extension, and...

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