Wheeler v. City of Caldwell

• Decision Date: 20 July 1929
• Docket Number: 5429
• Citation: 279 P. 412,48 Idaho 77
• Parties: E. A. WHEELER, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF CALDWELL, a Municipal Corporation, and WILLARD C. DYER, Treasurer and Ex-Officio Tax Collector, Respondents
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

279 P. 412

48 Idaho 77

E. A. WHEELER, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF CALDWELL, a Municipal Corporation, and WILLARD C. DYER, Treasurer and Ex-Officio Tax Collector, Respondents

No. 5429

Supreme Court of Idaho

July 20, 1929

APPEAL AND ERROR-ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR-MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS-STREET IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS-ORGANIZATION OF-CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.

1. That court erred in rendering judgment for defendants held insufficient assignment of error as being too general to present anything for review.

2. Laws 1927, chap. 257, providing for organization of local street improvement district, and for protests against creation by section 12 thereof, for objections to assessment-roll by section 17, and for appeal from confirmation of assessment-roll to district court by section 18, held not unconstitutional as being in violation of Const. U.S. Amend. 14, because assessments under act may be approved, levied and bonds issued without court action.

APPEAL from the District Court of the Seventh Judicial District, for Canyon County. Hon. A. O. Sutton, Judge.

Action contesting validity of organization of local improvement district. Judgment for defendants. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed. Costs awarded to respondent.

Curtis Haydon, for Appellant.

"It is conclusively settled by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution does not require that assessments for local improvements shall be levied according to benefits or not in excess of benefits. The case of Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 616, is the leading one on the subject, and its doctrines have been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court, and they stand as the no longer questioned law of the Court down to this present." (Dillon on Municipal Corporations, 5th ed., par. 143; City of Roswell v. Bateman, 20 N.M. 77, Ann. Cas 1918D, 426, and note following, p. 432, 146 P. 950.)

Hugh N Caldwell and M. H. Eustace for Respondents.

The constitutionality of such a law as ours has been repeatedly upheld by the supreme court of the United States and by many of the courts of last resort of the states. The leading case upholding such a law appears to be that of Davidson v Board of Admrs. of New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 616, which was decided in 1877. This case has been quoted and followed by those state courts which have had similar questions before them for decision, and is recognized by leading text-book writers as the leading case on the subject.

GIVENS, J. Budge, C. J., and T. Bailey Lee, Wm. E. Lee and Varian, JJ., concur.

OPINION

GIVENS, J.

This action was brought to contest the validity of the organization of Local Street Improvement District No. 8 in the City of Caldwell. No question of the reasonableness of the assessment was raised in the court below or is raised here. The only assignments are that the court erred in holding that chapter 257, Laws 1927, is not unconstitutional and void, and that the court erred in rendering judgment for the defendants.

The second assignment is too general. (Delap v. Lawson, 33 Idaho 95, 190 P. 262; Keltner v. Bundy, 40 Idaho 402, 233 P. 516.)

In the body of the brief the only amplification of the first assignment which appellant urged is that the act is unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, evidently because the assessments, under the act, may be approved, levied and the bonds issued, without court action. The act nevertheless provides for protests against the creation of the district (sec. 12); for objections to the...