County Commissioners v. Mayor of Westminster

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The City of Westminster was created a municipal corporation prior to the year 1860. It was the County Seat of Carroll County and remained a part of that county, but the municipal corporation was given certain special, separate and distinct powers which, -with the several amendments to them, were included as a poidion of the local laws of Carroll County when those laws were codified in 1888, and they appear in the Code of that year in sections 214 to 254 of Article YII of the Public Local Laws. Among the powers given to the municipal corporation was the control over the streets, roads and alleys within the corporate limits, whether for the purpose of condemning and opening new highways, or of repairing and maintaining the existing ones.

Sections 227 and 228. By sections 229 and 231 there wms also vested in the municipal body the power to assess property located within or belonging to residents living within the corporate limits, as established by the Legislature. At the same time there existed in the County Commissioners of Carroll County the general powers vested in the County Commissioners by the Code of Public General Laws, and now appearing in the Code (1912), Article XXY, section 2. In the year 1890 the General Assembly passed an Act designated as Chapter 508 of the Acts of that year.

By this it was provided “that it shall be the duty of the County Com ²⁰⁰ missioners of -Carroll County to -pay annually to the Mayor- and Common Council of Westminster one-half of the amount of taxes levied and collected annually hy the County Commissioners for road purposes upon assessable property liable to taxation within the limits of the City of Westminster, to be- appropriated and used by the Mayor and Common Council of Westminster for the repair, maintenance and improvement of the streets and roads within the limits of said City.” In the year 1891 the County Commissioners of Carroll County paid over to the Mayor and Common Council of Westminster from the levy of 1890 the sum of $800, as the proportion due the city from the tax collected by said County Commissioners, and which sum of $800 was assumed to represent the one-half of the road taxes levied upon and collected from assessable property within the limits of Westminster, in conformity with the provisions of the Act of 1890 just quoted. Since the year-1891 the City of Westminster has annually presented a bill to, and received from, the County Commissioners the like sum of $800 per annum, upon an assumption that this was the proper amount of the proportion of taxes collected, to which the City was entitled under the provisions of the Act of 1890, and this payment has been made irrespective of whether there was an increase or decrease in the assessable basis, or moneys collected for the road tax of the county, and entirely irrespective of the rate per hundred dollars levied for road purposes in any of the intervening years. The present bill is tiled by the municipal corporation for an accounting upon the part of the County Commissioners of the amounts received hy them for such road tax in each of the years, and for the payment over of any sum or sums which may be found to be due to the municipal corporation as the result of such accounting, and that without being furnished a list of the assessable property liable to taxation within the limits of the City of Westminster by the municipal authorities. The bill further prays for the rescission of the agreement, if- any, het-ween the County Commissioners of Carroll ²⁰¹ ‘'County and the Mayor and City Council of Westminster for the acceptance of $800 as the full share accruing to the City from' the annual road levy, and that the receipts which had been given may be deemed as part payment only on account -of each annual levy.

The bill was demurred to upon various grounds, which • demurrer, after hearing, was overruled. Some of the ques- ' tions raised under the demurrer may properly be disposed of in limine. Thus the demurrer raised the question of equitable . jurisdiction in a case of this character, upon the ground that if there was any remedy at all, there was a full, complete and ■ adequate remedy at law. It will be sufficient upon this point to say, that the question of adequacy and inadequacy of the remedy at law must depend in each case largely upon the facts • of the particular case; the general rules are well and correctly ■ stated in Miller’s Equity Procedure, sec. 721, and in a note lo the case of Wiggins v. Bisso, 5 Am. & Eng.

Dec. in Eq. (1st Series) 65. An examination of the record in this case ■ satisfies this Court that the character of the accounts involved is such as to present a case proper for an equitable accounting, rather than a suit at law. While not technically a bill ' for discovery it is in effect STich, for there is, no means avail- •• able to the City authorities by which to know with precision the amounts actually collected for such taxes, except the accounts and returns in the possession and control of the County ' Commissioners.

The bill asks that the accounting be furnished without the City giving a list of the assessable property liable to taxation within the limits of the municipal corporation. It is true that the Act of 1890 nowhere requires the City to furnish any such list, and there are numerous cases to the effect that where such an Act as this does not contain a provision therefor, the City is not compellable to furnish such a list. On the - other hand, it is the City which has invoked the jurisdiction of equity to do justice as between it and the County Commis- : sioners. As already noted, the City has the express legisla ²⁰² tive authority to assess property within its limits for the purposes of taxation, a power which it cannot exercise without making a list of such property.

The County Commissioners-make their assessment by districts, and the Seventh District of Carroll County, in which the City of Westminster is located, is, so far as legal requirements are concerned, ' the smallest division for which the County Commissioners can be assumed to have the precise information. Later on it will. • appear that the demand of the City must be restricted to the-year 1908 and subsequent years, and it is, therefore, placing-no undu-e hardship or burden upon the municipal corporation tb require of it as a condition of demanding and receiving tile-proportion of the road tax allotted to it by the Act of 1890, that it should -be required to furnish to the County Commissioners a list of the assessable property liable to taxation within the corporate limits. The County Commissioners seek to avoid responsibility for-any other or greater sum than the amount of $800 per annum paid over to the city upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of the Act. The ground of the supposed invalidity of" the Act is that it contravenes Article XV of the Bill of Rights-which provides that “every person in the State or holding-property therein ought to contribute his proportion of public-taxes for the support of the government according to his actual worth'in real and personal property,” and that the provision of the Act of 1890 would result in, unequal taxation.

This precise question was directly passed upon in the case-of the County Commissioners of Prince George’s County v. Laurel, 51 Md. 457 , and the validity of a similar provision was there sustained, Judge Irving saying: “It has never-been decided by this Court that the XY Article of the Bill of' Rights was applicable to any taxation except that for the support of the State Government, but that if it was held as applicable to municipal governments it is hard to see how inequality of taxation would result from the operation of the 19th section of the Act of Incorporation, it only provides that: ²⁰³ such taxes as are levied on the inhabitants or property in the town of Laurel for road purposes shall be expended on particular roads, it by no means establishes unequal taxation but bestows the taxes collected in a particular locality on the roads of that locality.” The conclusion in this case is claimed to have been modified or its value destroyed by the language-used by the same judge in a case between the same parties,, though arising out of a different Act, and reported in 10 Md. 443 . An examination of the latter case, however, discloses a wide distinction between the -two eases, and the immediate question of the correctness or incorrectness of the conclusion reached in 51 Md. was in no wise essential to the determination of the subsequent case, nor was that conclusion in any way modified. Substantially the same question has arisen in other States, and the conclusion of Jodgs Living in 51 Md. has been adopted, though for different reasons than those assigned by him. In the case of the Board of Supervisors of Sangamon County v. The City of Springfield, 63 Ill. 66 , it was held that the revenues of a county are not the property of the county in the sense in which the revenue of a private corporation is regarded, and that the power of the Legislature in regard to them is plenary, and that an Act providing for an apportionment between a county and a city of the moneys, raised by taxation, does not contravene the constitutional provision with regard to equal and uniform taxation.

In the case of the Duval County Commissioners v. Jacksonville, 36 Fla. 196 , 29 L. R. A. 416, there was presented almost an exact counterpart of the present case, and it is there said, quoting from the State v. Putnam County Commrs., 23 Fla. 632 , “though all public roads and streets are public highways, yet neither all public highways nor all public roads are streets or city or town highways.” Or to express it a little differently, the streets and highways of a city are no less public highways of the county, because they happen to lie within the corporate limits of a municipality, and in Sangamon County v. Springfield, supra, it is said, that the turn ²⁰⁴ Ing over of one-half of the money raised from the property in the towns and cities does not destroy the equality and uniformity of the tax itself. The levy is made upon all the taxable property of the county just as any other tax is assessed and levied, and all the property in the-county bears an equal portion of the burden of such tax in proportion to its value. Three cases in Missouri were cited by the appellant in support of itsi contention on this ground, but they do not meet the question involved. In Wells v. Weston, 22 Mo. 384 , the question was whether the Legislature could authorize a municipal corporation to levy a tax for its own local purposes on land lying beyond the corporate limits; here the issue is whether the Legislature can direct the application of money raised by taxation upon property inside of corporate limits in some proportion to defray certain specified expenses within those same limits.

In the City of St. Charles v. Nolle, 51 Mo. 122 , the question was the validity of a city ordinance imposing a license tax on wagons used to haul into-or out from the city, and it was. held, and held only that there was no corporate power to pass such an ordinance, and that the Legislature could give the City Council no authority to pass such an ordinance, since in that case also the attempt would be to tax those residing without- the city, purely for the municipal benefit. In the Town of Cameron v. Stevens, 69 Mo. 372 , the question presented was as to the power of an incorporated town to levy a tax upon the land outside of the corporate limits for town purposes. Oases of this character, therefore, are in no way pertinent to the question now presented, and the objections to the Act of 1890, based on its supposd unconstitutionality cannot prevail. The next point of objection urged against giving effect to the Act is that even if it shall be held to be constitutional, it has been repealed by subsequent legislative enactments.

A number of different Acts are relied upon as producing this result. Before considering these it is important to see just what hast been done in each of the years to be affected. In ²⁰⁵ m a Vi ng up the tax rate for the year 1908 for the Seventh Election District there were two items which enter into the present controversy, one of nine cents upon each $100 valuation for “large bridges and main roads,” and twelve cents for roads; in 1909 tbe same two items appear and for tbe same amounts; in 1910, the same items and amounts; in 1911, the same two items appear, but tbe amounts are six cents for eack $100 valuation for “Large bridges and main roads” and ten cents for roads. Tbe reason for tbe two separate items is to-be found in the provisions of Chapter 365 of tbe Acts of 1906, an Act the purpose of which was to provide a general road system for Carroll County.

By section 137 of the local laws as ñxed by that Act, two funds were provided for, one-a special road fund to be used in tbe annual repair of tbe public roads and bridges in the county from the amount collected from the levy in each road district and to be expended by road commissioners under the direction of the County Commissioners; the other a levy for a general road fund to be used, in the construction of all bridges costing over $100 and the special permanent improvement to or temporary repairs of such main roads in the county, as they may deem advisable. This latter fund it appears from the evidence has. been construed to be applicable for “large” bridges and the permanent improvement or temporary repairs of what are-commonly known as Shoemaker roads, that is, roads built