Coulston v. Mayor of Baltimore

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellants are the owners of property situated on Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore City, and embraced in the territory annexed to the City of Baltimore by the Act of 1888, Chapter 98. It was taxed at the full city rate for the year 1907, and the City Collector presented bills to the appellants demanding payment of the taxes, and notified them that unless the bills were paid within thirty days from July 1, 1908, he would take legal proceedings to enforce the collection of the taxes. The appellants, contending that their property under the Act of 1888, Chapter 98, known as the Annexation Act, as amended by the Act of 1902, Chapter 180, called the Foutz Act, is liable only to the sixty-cent rate for city purposes, filed their bill of complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City for an injunction against the Mayor and City Council and Henry Williams, City Collector, to restrain them from demanding and collecting from the plaintiffs any greater sum for city purposes than the sixty-cent rate.

The Court passed an order upon the bill requiring the respondents to show cause why an injunction should not issue as prayed. The defendants demurred to the bill, but the Court overruled the demurrer. They then answered, and averred that the property of the'plaintiffs was liable for the year 1907 to the full city rate of one dollar and ninety-seven and a half cents, and not for the rate of sixty cents as claimed in the bill. A general replication was filed, and testimony was taken in open Court before Judge Gorter, who, by consent of the parties, visited the property and inspected the condition of Pennsylvania Avenue at the place in question.

On the 10th of August, 1908, he passed a decree dismissing the plaintiffs’ bill. The record presents for consideration two' questions: ²⁷³ 1. Can. a turnpike road be treated as an intersecting boundary under the Acts mentioned above ? 2. Is the Ileisterstown Turnpike Road, one of the boundaries of the block in question, “opened, graded, kerbed, and otherwise improved from kerb to kerb by pavement, macadam, gravel, or other substantial material,” as require',! by the Foutz Act'?

The block does not exceed two hundred thousand supei-ficial square feet, and it is admitted that, the decree must be affirmed if the turnpike road may be used as one of the boundaries of the block, and if it is improved as required by the Foutz Act. This Court has had occasion frequently and so recently to consider the Acts of Assembly relating to taxation in the annexed territory of Baltimore City that it is unnecessary to discuss them anew in this opinion. We could not state more clearly than we have already done the principles which should guide the City in the imposition of taxes in the annexed district. Sindall v. The Mayor and City Council, 93 Md. 526 ; Rosenthal v. The Mayor, Etc., 102 Md. 298 ; Hiss v. The Mayor, Etc., 103 Md. 620 ; Gail v. The Mayor, Etc., 106 Md. 684 ; The Mayor, Etc., v. Schafer, 107 Md. 38 .

After much that has been said calculated to create in the public mind a misapprehension of what this Court has so plainly decided, and to create the impression that some injustice has been done the city by these decisions, it was gratifying in this case to hear the learned City Solicitor declare lhat in no case decided by this Court had the City been denied the taxes to which it was rightly entitled. The facts of this case are few. The property of the plaintiffs is situated in a block of ground bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, Lynnbrook Avenue, Woodbrook Avenue, and Fulton Avenue. These avenues, except Pennsylvania Avenue, are public and paved Avenues of the City, and there is no claim made that they are not improved as required by the Foutz Act.

The block is improved by more than six dwelling houses, but the exact number and character of the houses in the block ²⁷⁴ are not shown by the record. The block has the advantage of city lights. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the plaintiffs’ property is owned by the Reisterstown Turnpike Company, and it is contended that this turnpike road cannot be treated under the law as an intersecting boundary because, it is argued, that by the true construction of the acts mentioned none but public streets, avenues, and alleys can be used as intersecting boundaries. In support of that position the appellants rely upon the case of Valentine v. Hagerstown, 86 Md. 486 .

That case was fully considered in Sindall’s Case, supra, in which this Court held that it was not essential to the right of the city to impose,the full tax rate that the streets and avenues bounding the block should be public as claimed by the appellants in this case. We regard that case as decisive of this question. The reason why the Valentine Case cannot control the decision of the question here presented are fully stated by Judge McSherry in the Sindall Case on pages 530, 532. Although it was expressly decided in that case that private streets might be used as boundaries of