Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Bd. of Montgomery v. Sullivan, 3 Div. 664

• Decision Date: 05 November 1953
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 664
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: WATER WORKS & SANITARY SEWER BOARD OF MONTGOMERY et al. v. SULLIVAN et al.

Page 709

69 So.2d 709

260 Ala. 214

WATER WORKS & SANITARY SEWER BOARD OF MONTGOMERY et al. v. SULLIVAN et al.

3 Div. 664.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Nov. 5, 1953.

Modified on Rehearing Jan. 15, 1954.

Walter J. Knabe, Montgomery, for appellants.

Godbold & Hobbs, Montgomery, for appellees.

PER CURIAM.

This is a suit in equity by appellees as occupants and owners, separately, of property in the city served by the sanitary sewerage system of the city. The purpose is to enter a declaratory judgment that 'The Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board and the respondents, * * * as directors of said board, have no right, power or authority to levy any service charge for sewer service; that the respondents have no right, power or authority to levy the sewer service charges which have been levied * * * and that the respondents have no right, power or authority to levy a sewer service charge which is not graduated according to the extent to which property is benefited by service rendered the property by a portion of a sewer system which has been wholly or in part paid for in assessments and according to the extent to which the property is benefited by a sewerage disposal plant and to the extent to which the property is benefited by a sewerage treatment plant; that the respondents have no right, power or authority to levy a service charge which is without regard to the extent of benefits of the property affected; that the respondents have no right, power or authority to levy any service charge against any tenant who uses the sewer system in the city of Montgomery'.

The board is alleged to have been organized under the provisions of Title 37, § 402(15), Pocket Part, Code, which is the Act of June 29, 1951, General Acts 1951, page 416.

A deed was executed by the mayor of the city of Montgomery to the board on September 2, 1952. On August 15, 1952, before the board acquired the system in question, it adopted a resolution prescribing a schedule of charges to be made for sewer service effective as of September 1, 1952. The rate is thereby regulated by the 'amount of water used', graduated by the quantity. No exemption is made for a user whose premises were originally charged with all or a portion of the construction of the system.

The Act of 1951, supra, section 4, section 402(18), Title 37, Pocket Part, Code, provides for sewer service charges to be made by the board, but 'provided that charges for services from any sewer system shall be established in such manner that there shall be no charge with respect to any portion of such sewer system that may have been paid for wholly or in part by assessments against the property specially benefited thereby, but any person whose property is served in part by a portion of a sewer system * * * not so paid for may be charged an appropriate rate for the service rendered such property by a sewer disposal plant, a sewage treatment plant or any other portion of a sewer system which has not to any extent been paid for by such assessments'.

These complainants own and occupy property which was originally charged in whole or in part with the cost of sewers accessible to it. It is noted that in making the charge for sewer service by the board, no provision was made for exempting them from liability for the sewerage charge on account of having been assessed in whole or in part for the cost of the sewer to the extent that it was specially benefited by the same.

Section 223 of the Constitution prohibits an assessment by a city against abutting property owners for the cost of the construction of the sewers, 'in excess of the increased value of such property by reason of the special benefits derived from such improvements.' The power to make such assessment is a taxing power of the legislature conferred on the city by legislative enactment. Armstrong v. City of Montgomery, 251 Ala. 632, 38 So.2d 862; Sections 308, 601 to 646, Title 37, Code.

But since the assessment of the cost to property specially benefited is an exercise of the taxing power limited by section 223 of the Constitution, the revenue when received is that of the city usable for a special purpose, as required by law or for general purposes when not so required. Mitchell v. City of Mobile, 244 Ala. 442, 13 So.2d 664. The property owner does not own an interest in the physical properties of the system nor a franchise right to its free use. They belong to the city. There is no constitutional reason why the city cannot exact a proper charge for such use by any and everyone. A city is authorized to require sanitary connections to be made to its sanitary system. Sections 604, 606, Title 37, Code. This is presumably required by the city of Montgomery.

In the case of Carson v. Brockton Sewerage Commission, 182 U.S. 398, 21 S.Ct. 860, 45 L.Ed. 1151, it was held not to violate the Fourteenth Amendment (due process) of the United States Constitution if a city makes a charge for using its sanitary sewerage system, though its cost was assessed against property owners. This was in a case where property owners were not required to connect with the system. We find no case of the sort where property owners were required to connect. Compare, Carson v. Sewerage Commissioners, 175 Mass. 242, 56 N.E. 1, 48 L.R.A. 277; 127 A.L.R. 1375.

But under our Constitution, section 223, such assessment cannot be 'in excess of the increased value of such property by reason of the special benefits derived from such improvements.' This is limited to the 'cost of the construction', and does not include its use as it does in some states. So that, although a tax is assessed, the project does not cost the property owner anything in a real sense. It merely requires him to share with others the increased benefits to him which arise from the system. The system when constructed or purchased belongs to the city, and not to the property owners who were taxed to pay for it. Such property owners not actually sustaining any loss by the assessment are not in position to complain of a use charge. The Constitution provides no limitation on a proposed use charge.

Rate making for a public utility service is legislative in character, and may be exercised by the legislature itself or an administrative agency by legislative authority. Mitchell v. City of Mobile, 244 Ala. 442, 13 So.2d 664; Avery Freight Lines v. White, 245 Ala. 618, 18 So.2d 394, 154 A.L.R. 732; Murray v. Service Transport, 254 Ala. 683, 49 So.2d 221; 43 Am.Jur. 624, 625. But it is the province of the courts to interpret and apply legislation and determine whether it abridges constitutional rights or requirements.

If an 'appropriate' rate is attempted to be imposed by the board and it violates constitutional rights, the courts have the privilege of so decreeing but the courts cannot fix a rate. Certainly no exactitude of accuracy is required as a condition to the validity of the rate. The law, simply stated, is that when a sewer system draining property, throughout its course including its disposal plant, has been paid for in whole or in part by assessment for special benefits, no use charge is permitted. If some of it was not so paid, the board should by the Act lay an 'appropriate' charge. We think this could be the same to all users of such plant without undertaking to apportion it according to any formula. The 'appropriate rate' to be charged one who is served in part by a portion of the system paid for by assessment and in part by a portion not so paid for, as the statute requires, has no reference to the use to be made of the funds thereby derived. The service charge is to collect funds as compensation for the use of city property. Benson v. City of Andalusia, 240 Ala. 99, 195 So. 443; City of Leeds v. Avram, 244 Ala. 427, 14 So.2d 728. It is not important here what disposition is to be made by the city of those funds. Mitchell v. City of Mobile, supra.

The legislature has made three classes of users of the city's sanitary system. One class embraces those whose property was originally assessed to pay for the cost in whole or in part of the sewers, and when its flow is throughout served by sewers paid for by assessments to property thus served. (2) Another class applies where in the course of the flow it passes through sewers which in part were not paid for by assessment against the owners of the property. (3) Another class applies to those whose property is served by sewers constructed without assessing any of the cost to property owners. It is clear by the Act that class one, supra, cannot be charged for use of the sewer system to which he is required to connect and does so. It is also clear that class three, supra, must pay a standard charge, not confiscatory in amount since he is required to connect and not subject to any deduction or exemption. It is also clear that the legislature requires as to class 2, supra, that the only charge which can be made is one appropriate for the use of that portion of the system paid for without assessing any of the cost of its acquisition to the property owners. Some drainage districts may have larger sections of the system acquired without assessment than others. The circumstance that one such district is more fortunate than another in that respect, but both affected in the same way but not to the same extent, should not be controlling in fixing the charge for its use. The legislature probably did not intend that each such district be measured in comparison with every other, but that the board could fix an appropriate rate applicable alike to all districts having those qualities without thereby creating an arbitrary discrimination. It is our view that the board should have made an effort to do so, effective as long as the law remains as enacted when this rate was fixed. It had not so undertaken up to the time this suit was begun. The law was changed in that respect by the Act of June 30, 1953 (No. 176), not here involved.

The decree of the trial court was (1)...