Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern Ry. Co. v. City of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern Ry. Co. v. City of Cincinnati
Opinion of the Court
While the petition in error asks relief upon several grounds we shall consider only one of them,, that which invokes section 19 of article 1 of the constitution of this state. That section is as follows:
Section 6 of article 13 of the constitution is as follows:
“The general assembly shall provide for the organization of cities, and incorporated villages, by general laws, and restrict their power of taxation, assessment, borrowing money, contracting debts and loaning their credit, so as to prevent the abuse of such power.”
In Zanesville v. Richards, 5 Ohio St., 589, this court held that section 2 of article 12 of the constitution is a limitation upon the power of taxation which the general assembly can grant to a municipality under this section, and that general revenue is required to be raised by a uniform levy on all taxable property alike without exemption. Later decisions have held that general revenue may also be raised by fees in certain cases.
In Hill v. Higdon, 5 Ohio St., 243, and also in Cleveland v. Wick, 18 Ohio St., 303, this court held that section 19 of the Bill of Rights, and said section 6 of article 13, are independent of each other, and that said section 19 is not a limitation on said section
In Hill v. Higdon, supra, it is held that the constitution must be so construed as to be consistent throughout, and it was concluded that that could only be done by holding these two sections independent of each other, and the same theory obtained in Cleveland v. Wide, supra.
If they are independent of each other then the one does not affect, limit or control the other. If they áre independent, the guaranty in section 19 that private property shall ever be held inviolate, may be in effect abrogated and nullified under the guise of an assessment. If they are independent, then after private property has been taken for public use and paid for, section 19 has exhausted itself, and section 6 may ■ then step in with its powers of assessment and begin, not where section 19 left off, but back of that point, and may again take up the question of benefits conferred by the taking of the property for public use, and compel the owner from whom the property was taken, to pay back into the treasury all that he has received, and the costs and expenses in addition thereto. If they are independent, the power of assessment, unlike the power of taxation, is unlimited and unrestricted, except by the will of the General Assembly, and the general assembly need not look for benefits upon which to found an assessment, but may assess as it pleases whether there are benefits or not; it may supply its treasury with funds with which to make improvements by assessment upon any property it pleases, and exempt any property it pleases. A mere statement of the consequences of holding the two sections to be independent is sufficient to show that they are not so, and that section 19 is a limitation on said section 6.
Being such limitation all that is found in said section Í9 bearing upon the power of assessment must also be construed as a limitation upon that power; that is the power of assessment in said section 6 must be so used and administered as not to conflict with said section 19, but must be subservient and subordinate thereto.
The two sections deal with the same general subject-matter, that of taking value from a private individual and appropriating it to public use, whether that value consists of real estate for a road bed, or money to pay for improving a road bed, and both should be construed together as being in pari materia, and by so doing the constitution is consistent throughout without any independent conflicting sections.
Said section 19 provides that “Private property shall ever be held inviolate, but subservient to the public welfare. When taken * * * for the purpose of making or repairing roads, which shall be open to the public without charge, a compensation shall be made to the owner in money * i:‘ * and such compensation shall be assessed by a jury without deduction for benefits to any property of the owner.”
The property is held subservient to the public welfare, and may be taken for the purpose of making or repairing roads which shall be open to the public, so that it is only, the public that is granted the power to
In practice the compensation is awarded by a jury, and the court confirms the verdict and renders the proper judgment, and thereupon payment is made out of its treasury by that subdivision of the state which instituted the proceedings.
That subdivision which institutes the proceedings and is in that particular case the public, is thus constituted a taxing district by said section 19 to pay for the property which it takes, and payment is made by that taxing district out of its treasury, and the property cannot be awarded to it until it pays for it, or deposits the money to secure its payment.
The money to pay for property so appropriated must be raised by a levy upon the general tax list, or by the sale of bonds issued upon the public faith and credit, and whichever method may be adopted, it invokes the power of taxation, which must be an equal levy upon the general tax list, and not the power of assessment, which is a levy upon a prescribed district according to benefits. It is therefore clear that payment for property so appropriated must be by taxation, and not by assessment, and that section 19 of article 1 is in this regard a limitation upon the power of assessment in section 6 of article 13.
Section 19 of article 1 being a limitation on the power of assessment in section 6 of article 13 as held in the later cases, there is nothing to base such an assessment upon. The taking of private property for public use is an injury to the owner, for which under said section 19 he must be awarded full payment, and when such a payment is made, he has received only that which the constitution guaranteed him, and he can be under no obligation to the municipality for receiving that to which he had a legal and constitutional right. He parted with as much value as he received. The public injured him and paid for the injury, and then to make the injury and payment a basis for recovering back from him all he received and more, would be to take his property for nothing, and mulct him in costs and expenses besides, and this would be in direct conflict with said section 19 of article 1 of the constitution.
But it is said that after the owner has received payment of his compensation for the lands taken from him, that he stands on an equality with the rest of the community, and may be assessed the same as they for any special benefit which accrues to him by the improvement, that is, by the taking of his lands for street purposes. This is true as to the surface
There is much force in what is said by the Circuit Court on this question in Rhoades v. City of Toledo, 6 C. C. R., 9; 3 Circ. Dec., 325.
The case of Cleveland v. Wick, 18 Ohio St., 303, is relied upon to sustain the assessing back upon the property of the owner the compensation paid him for lands appropriated, with the costs and expenses added.
Said section 19 being a limitation upon the power of assessment as to the taxing district by which compensation and costs must be paid as above shown, it follows that such compensation and costs cannot be involved in, or as part of, the street improvement, and with that out, and the assessment made for the surface improvement against the lots and lands of all the bounding and abutting owners, including the one from whom the lands were taken to open the
That case is therefore not sound, and is overruled, and the statute, in so far as it undertakes to assess the compensation paid to the owner of the land taken, back upon his remaining lands together with the costs of the taking, is unconstitutional and void, and so is any ordinance passed thereunder.
In the case at bar there was paid to the railway company out of the general revenue fund raised by taxation the sum of one dollar for the right of way for a street across the track of the railway company, and there was assessed back upon the track of the
The case of Northern Indiana R. R. Co. v. Connelly, 10 Ohio St., 159, was a case of making an assessment by the foot front on abutting property for the cost of a surface improvement of a street, and
The case of Schroder v. Overman, 61 Ohio St., 1, also involved a surface improvement of a street, and not an assessment for the value of lands taken for the right of way to open a new street, and that case is not affected by the case at bar.
The case of Krumberg v. Cincinnati, 29 Ohio St., 69, relied upon Cleveland v. Wick, supra, to sustain the assessment of the compensation paid for the land taken, back upon the remaining lands, but did not consider the constitutionality of the statute then in force, but assumed it to be sustained by the Wick case. In that case it was conceded that the assessment for the value of the land taken was to reimburse the city treasury for money paid for the lands, but the question as to whether assessments could be made for that purpose was not argued by counsel or considered by the court.
The case of Caldwell v. Carthage, 49 Ohio St., 334, construed the statutes then in force, but did not pass upon the question of their constitutionality. The same is true of the case of Cincinnati v. Batsche, 52 Ohio St., 324.
It has been urged that the Wick case has been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in Norwood v. Baker, supra. That is a mistake. That court said: “It is said that the judgment below is not in accord with the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio in Cleve
We have considered the case at bar only in view of the constitution of this state, so as to more clearly define the rights of the owners of private property when taken for public use for making streets, and the lim
Sometimes a municipality desires to open a new street, or straighten or widen an old one, in the line of general improvements, and for the general benefit and appearance of the municipality, and not for the special benefit of the lots and lands in a particular district. In such cases the compensation, costs, and expenses for lands taken should be paid by the municipality out of its general revenue fund raised for such purposes.
Sometimes the people in the vicinity desire to have a new street opened, or an old one straightened or widened, as a special benefit to their lots and lands, and when the same would not be of sufficient benefit to the municipality to warrant the payment of the compensation, costs, and expenses out of the treasury. In such cases the municipality may refuse to act in the matter until the parties to be specially benefited supply the funds to pay the compensation, costs, and expenses or such portion thereof as the municipality regards fáir and just, the same as is now authorized by section 4651 as to public roads. By acting upon this principle the burden can be placed where it belongs without forcing people to contribute by assessments where they are not benefited, and where they are opposed to the opening,
Judgment reversed and judgment for plaintiff m error.
Concurring Opinion
I concur in the reversal, but notin the grounds on which it is placed. The admitted facts show that it is physically impossible for the property of the railway company to be benefited by the construction of the overhead bridge, as property “abutting” on the improvement. It cannot be used by the company as an abutting owner, nor can anyone using it have access to the company’s road. It may be that its construction is a benefit to the company, in that its construction may relieve the company from the dangers incident to a grade crossing. But such benefits are merely incidental to the improvement ; and are not of a kind with ■ those for which an assessment may be made for the cost of an improvement. Such benefits must be common to all abutting property owners. Such as are not common cannot afford a basis for the apportionment of costs and expenses among property owners. It is the benefits that arise from the use to be made of the improvement that can be regarded in making an assessment and none others.
I fail to see any necessity in this case for overruling any of the former decisions of this court; and it will be quite time enough to consider whether any of them should be .overruled when the necessity arises. The opinion in Cleveland v. Wick, was prepared by a judge distinguished for his ability and accuracy of reasoning; and its supposed fallacies have withstood all criticism for a third of a century and it has
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.