Groff v. Mayor of Frederick City

Grason, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. By the record it appears that the appellant in this case filed his bill in the Circuit Court for Frederick County for an injunction to restrain the appellee, a municipal corporation, from collecting taxes imposed upon his property by it for municipal purposes. It appears that by the Act of the General Assembly of Maryland, passed at the January session, 1870, chap. 814, the corporate limits of the City of Frederick were extended as therein specified, and that the land of the appellant, upon which the tax was assessed, was included within the corporate’ limits of the city, by said extension. ⁷⁷ The grounds upon which the injunction is sought to be maintained is, first, that the Act of Assembly in question is unconstitutional, and second, if constitutional, that the appellant’s land, being farming land, is not liable to taxation as city property. 1st. The ground on which it is claimed that the Act of 1810 is unconstitutional is, that the imposition of the tax is in effect taking private property for public use, without compensation, and is therefore in violation of the fortieth section of the third Article.

This provision of the Constitution is a limitation on the exercise of the right of eminent domain, and has no reference whatever to the taxing power. It is not alleged in the hill of complaint that the appellee is about to take possession of land with the intention of appropriating it to the use of the corporation or the public, but it alleges only that taxes for municipal purposes have been assessed and levied upon his property within the extended limits of the city, and prays that the city authorities and tax collector may be enjoined from further proceedings for the collection of said taxes, so assessed and levied, and that the Act of 1810 may be declared unconstitutional and void. The right of eminent domain and the taxing power are not the same. The distinction between them is clearly drawn by the authorities. “Taxation exacts money or services from individuals, as and for their respective shares of contribution to any public burthen.

Private property taken for public use by right of eminent domain is taken, not as the owner’s share of contribution to a public burthen, but as so much beyond his share. Special compensation is, therefore, to be made in the latter case, because the government is a debtor for the property so taken; but not in the former, because the payment of taxes is a duty, arid creates no obligation to repay, otherwise than in the proper application of the tax.” See The People vs. Mayor, &c. of Brooklyn, 4 Comstock, 423, 425 ; Moale vs. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 5 Md., ⁷⁸ 320. It is very clear, therefore, that the Act of 1870, chap. 314, is not obnoxious to the objection that it is in violation of the 40th sect, of the 3rd Art. of the Constitution. That the Legislature had the power to pass the Act is equally clear.

The Legislature has the power to create municipal corporations, to amend their charters, enlarge or diminish their powers, extend or limit their boundaries, consolidate two or more into one, overrule their legislative action whenever it is