Webster v. County Commissioners of Baltimore

Bartol, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The bill of complaint in this case was filed by the appellants, as tax-payers of Baltimore County, who sue as well for themselves, as in behalf of all other tax-payers ³⁹⁸ of the County, and alleges that the appellees, on the first day of May 1878, levied a tax for the year 1878, on the assessable property of Baltimore County amounting to $419,921.47, which was an assessment of 72 cents on every hundred dollars worth of assessable property in said County. The bill alleges that in estimating the amount of money necessary to meet the current expenses for the year 1878, the appellees included certain specific items, which they were not authorized by law to embrace in the levy. These items are alleged to he as follows : First.

The sum of $20,000, for what the appellees styled “ Contingent account.” Second. The sum of $60,000, for what is styled by them “Deficiency in bade levy of 1877.” Third. The sum of $3000, for what is styled “Interest on loan authorized by Act of Assembly.” All these several sums or items, it is alleged in- the hill, were wrongfully and illegally included in the estimate of the -amount to he levied, by the appellees, and the bill prays for an injunction to restrain the appellees, their agents and servants, from collecting the same. The case was heard below upon the bill, answer and exhibits; and this appeal was taken from the order of the Circuit Court refusing the injunction and dismissing the bill.

First. As to the sum of $20,000, for “ Contingent account.” With respect to this item the answer alleges that “it is impossible, in making an estimate of expenses, or of claims against the county to enumerate all that will occur. That the experience of their predecessors in office, during a long period of time, has demonstrated that in each year, large and increasing demands are made upon the County and a variety of necessary expenses have to he incurred which cannot he foreseen or provided for.” The answer enumerates a great many of the causes from which claims against the County may and do constantly ³⁹⁹ arise, which are in their nature contingent, and uncertain in their amounts, and which it is not practicable to specify or to know in advance. The Act of 1854 ch. 103 requires the Commissioners “to levy within the year for all the expenses or disbursements which by a careful estimate shall be required for that year.” They are authorized by the Code, Art. 28, sec. 5, “ to make their levy in whole or in part, by estimate,” and they are required “ to pay and discharge all claims on or against the County, which have been expressly or impliedly authorized by law.” In the discharge of these duties, having to make the levy in anticipation of the expenditures, we see no legal objection to this item in the levy on “ contingent