Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899. Excerpt:... APPPENDIX. Front-foot mode of assessment.--SiDce the foregoing pages were placed in the hands of the printer, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Norwood v. Baker, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 187, has come to the notice of the author. On page 205, supra, the cases were cited upholding the constitutionality of the so-called "front-foot" method of street assessment; hut by reason of this decision a more extended discussion of the subject seems to be necessary. The Supreme Court of this state early upheld the validity of that method of assessment. So firmly was the validity of the method settled that the court refused to even consider the question in the case of Jennings v. Le Breton, 80 Cal. 8. But the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Norwood v. Baker, supra, seeins to conclusively settle that the entire system of street assessments according to the front-foot method is unconstitutional and void. The facts of that case were these: The statute of the State of Ohio provided that the expense of work upon streets should be assessed "on the abutting and such adjacent and contiguous or other benefited lots and lands in the corporation, either in proportion to the benefits which may result from the improvement, or according to the value of the property assessed, or by the frontfoot of the property bounding and abutting upon the improvement, as the council... may determine." The village of Norwood passed an ordinance declaring its intention to condemn and appropriate certain land for the purpose of opening a street, and providing that the cost should be assessed " per front foot upon the property bounding and abutting on that part of Ivanhoe Avenue, as condemned and appropriated herein.'"' The cost having been assessed "o...