Seyboldt v. M. C.C. of Mt. Ranier

⁷⁰ Stourbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The record in this case presents an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, by which a demurrer to a bill of complaint was sustained, and the bill dismissed. The scope and purpose of the bill are well set out in the opinion which was tiled in the lower Court, as follows: “The bill is filed on behalf of the plaintiffs and all other taxpayers and owners of real estate abutting on the streets of said town, and prays that the Mayor and Common Council of Mount Ranier may be enjoined from, (1) issuing any bonds or obligations binding the town of Mount Ranier and the plaintiff’s property therein under the provisions of said Chapter (94 of the Acts of 1916), and (2) from issuing the bonds of town in the amounts and payable as alleged in the bill, and (3) from levying or collecting any assessment against the property of the plaintiffs under said Act for the making of such improvement or for the payment of such bonds or interest or any other purpose. “The bill sets forth at length the plaintiff’s reasons for injunction, contending that the proposed assessmeht is unlawful and confiscatory because the Act does not provide or permit a hearing with respect to assessments or benefits that the front-foot assessment is unconstitutional; that the delegation of legislative power to the voters by requiring an election before the Act goes into effect renders the Act unconstitutional; that the special election to determine whether or not the sewerage system should be adopted was not properly called; that insufficient notice of the election was given; that the form of the ballot used at the election, which read for or against ‘water and sewerage’ instead of ‘Water and Sewers’ was not proper; that a copy of the ballot was not properly published as required by the charter; that the calling of a special meeting of the Council on the 27th of April to receive the returns was invalid,' and that the votes were not properly canvassed, and that the bonds about to be ⁷¹ issued are not in accordance with the provisions of the Act because they are about to be issued in two series, and because in this way $4,000 of the principal and interest is to be paid in each of the third and fourth years of the issuance, and that since the bonds are to be numbered one to fifty, only $50,000 worth of said bonds can be issued; that even if it should be held that the defendants can issue $100,000 worth of bonds, they must mature within not over 27 years from the date of issue, and that since the town can pay $4,000 in the third and fourth years, it has the necessary authority to continue such payments each year, which would make the final bonds payable 27 years after the date of issue, and any payment after that time would not be authorized.” Most of the objections which are urged to the validity of the Act are technical merely, and are fully covered by the opinion of this 'Court in the case of Carr v. Hyattsville, 115 Md. 545 , to which more extended reference will be made later. The bill in this case again attacks the validity of a front foot assessment, notwithstanding the decisions of this Court in Hyattsrille v. Smith, 105 Md. 318 ; and Lyon v. Hyattsville, 125 Md. 306 ; and it does this upon a decision in the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider, 240 U. S. 55 , decided in the early part of the present year.

That case was one brought to collect a paving tax in the City of St. Louis, where by a somewhat peculiar provision of the Charter, one-fourth of the cost of a local improvement was to be levied upon property upon the front foot basis', and three-fourths according to area. The lot upon which the assessment had been levied was peculiar in its shape, and the ordinance by which the improvement was authorized, and the fax levied, was characterized by Mr. Justice H'oumes as “a farrago of irrational irregularities throughout; that it dis ⁷² tributed tbe tax in grossly unequal proportions, not because of special considerations applicable to tbe portions taxed, but in blind obedience to a rule wbicb required tbat result.” In the opinion, however, Justice Holmes re-affirms tbe validity of a tax for local improvements levied iri accordance with tbe front foot rule, and tbe present plaintiffs can derive no assistance from tbe decision in tbat case. Tbe Act under wbicb this contention arises is far from being well drawn. In both its title and tbe body of tbe Act tbe authority is given to Mount Eanier to borrow and issue its bonds to tbe extent of $100,000, for tbe purpose of establishing and constructing a water and sewerage system for the town.' The Act further specifies tbe denomination of said bonds to be $1,000 each, and in the same section provides tbat they shall be numbered from 1 to 50, both inclusive.

This would seem