Lombard v. West Chicago Park Commissioners/Opinion of the Court

by Edward Douglass White

United States Supreme Court

181 U.S. 33

Lombard  v.  West Chicago Park Commissioners

The assignments of error contained in the record are nine in number, and eleven in addition have been made since the record was filed in this court. The question whether the benefit accruing to each particular piece of property assessed equaled the sum of the assessment placed thereon was foreclosed by the findings of fact of the trial court, to which court the case was submitted without the intervention of a jury. It is suggested, although under the statutes of Illinois a special assessment can only be made for the amount of the benefit shown to exist, this is of no concern in this case, since this levy is not a special assessment, but is a special tax. Where a special tax is imposed under the law of Illinois, it is asserted, no inquiry into the benefits can be had, and, therefore, there arises the question whether the levy was invalid as exceeding the benefits to be derived, since all investigation into the amount of the benefits was, as a matter of law, excluded. But this proposition is plainly an afterthought. From the statement of the case which precedes, it is apparent that the objectors to the assessment considered that their defense raised the issue of benefit, that they tendered proof, submitted the question to the trial court without a jury, and had an award against them. It is plain, also, that this contention was not raised by the assignment of errors in the supreme court of Illinois, and such question was not by that court in any way considered. Putting out of view questions of form, the principal contentions made in the supreme court of Illinois, as shown by the assignment of errors in that court, were as follows: That as under the law of the state of Illinois, an authority existing at the time the work was done was necessary to justify an assessment, a violation of the 14th Amendment would be brought about by holding that authority for the assessment was supplied by the Illinois act of 1895, since such law was enacted after the work was completed; and that at the previous ordinance had been declared void by the supreme court of Illinois, to hold such void ordinance to be an authority for the subsequent assessment would also violate the 14th Amendment, since it would amount to a want of due process of law and a denial of the equal protection of the laws. And these propositions, stated in varying form, really express every substantial issue raised by the twenty assignments which are here pressed. We do not take up each essignment in detail to show that this is the case, since a statement of them all, as summed up in argument of counsel, is in the margin, and renders a more detailed enumeration unnecessary.

"1st. As the court will see, this is a hard case. The controversy arises out of an effort to compel a ribbon of land 125 feet wide, along the margin of a boulevard 250 feet in width, decorated and ornamented as a park, to pay the entire cost of its improvement, although it is made for the general benefit of the inhabitants.

'2d. The original ordinance for the improvement was declared by the supreme court, in a direct proceeding, to be void, and so utterly without effect as to form no basis for an adjudication thereon by the county court.

'3d. The Constitution and laws of the state, as uniformly construed, permit no such charge to be created against private property without a previThe power of the state of Illinois to levy a special assessment in proportion to benefits, for the execution of a local work, and the authority to confer on a municipality the attribute of providing for such an assessment, is not denied.

It is no longer open to question that where a special assessment to pay for a particular work has been held to be illegal, no violation of the Constitution of the United States arises from a subsequent authority given to make a new special assessment to pay for the completed work. Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U.S. 345, 31 L. ed. 763, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 921.

With these two propositions in mind it is certain that if the power flowing from the ordinance which the supreme court of the state of Illinois upheld existed prior to the work, the assessment was valid. So, also, if the authority was only given subsequent to the work, it was, from the point of view of the Constitution of the United States, legally conferred. In either contingency, therefore, there was no cause of complaint so far as Federal rights were concerned. The contention advanced, therefore, amounts to this, that a violation of the Constitution of the United States has been produced by the exercise of a power which, whatever view may be taken, could be brought into play without giving rise to a conflict with such Constitution. But in effect, it is asserted, this deduction is inapposite to this case, since the proposition here relied upon is that the supreme court of the state of Illinois maintained the assessment on a void ordinance, and therefore in effect decided that a valid assessment could be made where there was no authoirty whatever for the levy. This, however, rests upon an entirely false assumption, since it is manifest that the court below held that there was a valid ordinance, that is, one which sufficiently conferred the authority to make the assessment. Whether the ordinance was or was not valid, and the extent to which it was so, having regard to the state Constitution and laws, was wholly a state, and not a Federal, question, and we are not concerned with it. Accepting the conclusion of the supreme court of the state of Illinois as to the existence of the ordinance by virtue of the state law and Constitution, the proposition pressed upon us comes to the result which we have above indicated, and therefore is obviously without merit. Indeed, the misconception involved in the argument was pointed out in Castillo v. McConnico, 168 U.S. 674, 42 L. ed. 622, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 229. There it was asserted that a particular assessment was void because of a mistake in the name of the person whose property had been assessed. The supreme court of Louisiana, interpreting the statutes of that state, otherwise decided. It was urged, however, that such decision was in conflict with many prior rulings of that court, and therefore a Federal question was presented. But it was held that as it was within the power of the state of Louisiana, without violating the Constitution of the United States, to direct the assessment without giving the name of the owner, by an adequate description of the property assessed, the decision of the supreme court of the state of Louisiana raised no Federal question. The court said (p. 683, L. ed. p. 625, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 233):

'The vice which underlies the entire argument of the plaintiff in error arises from a failure to distinguish between the essentials of due process of law under the 14th Amendment and matters which may or may not be essential under the terms of a state assessing or taxing law. The two are neither correlative nor conterminous.

'The first, due process of law, must be found in the state statute, and cannot be departed from without violating the Constitution of the United States. The other depends on the lawmaking power of the state, and, as it is solely the result of such authority, may vary or change as the legislative will of the state sees fit to ordain. It follows that, to determine the existence of the one, due process of law, is the final province of this court whilst the ascertainment of the other, that is, what is merely essential under the state statute, is a state question, within the final jurisdiction of the courts of last resort of the several states.'

And the principle thus inculcated not only disposes of the argument which we have previously considered, but also makes it clear that the supreme court of Illinois decided a local, and not a Federal, question when it held that it was competent on a new assessment to determine the questions of benefit from the proof, even though in so doing a different result was reached from that which had been arrived at when the former assessment, which had been set aside, was made. The theory lying at the foundation of all the arguments advanced to show that the court below committed error of a Federal nature is this, and nothing more, that the equal protection of the laws was denied by the supreme court of Illinois, because that court, although it treated the assessing ordinance as invalid for the purposes of the first assessment, upheld that ordinance as valid for the second assessment. This but asserts that, because it is considered that there was inconsistency in the reasoning by which the supreme court of Illinois sustained its conclusion, therefore the equal protection of the laws was denied. If the proposition as thus understood was held to be sound, as it cannot be, every case decided in the courts of last resort of the several states would be subject to the revisory power of this court, wherever the losing party deemed that the reasoning by which the state court had been led to decide adversely to his rights was inconsistent with the reasoning previously announced by the same court in former cases. In thus stating the ultimate deduction to which the proposition necessarily leads, we do not wish to be understood as implying that we think the reasoning upon which the supreme court of the state of Illinois placed its decision in this case is amenable to the inconsistency which it is insisted it embodies. As that consideration is wholly beyond the pale of our jurisdiction, we have not even approached its consideration.

Judgment affirmed.

Notes