Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. City of Gainesville

Citations

• 83 Fla. 275
• 29 A.L.R. 668
• 91 So. 118
• 1922 Fla. LEXIS 551

Syllabus

<p>1. A city may charge a railroad’s property that abuts, fronts or borders on the side of a street with its proportionate part of the expense of paving the street upon which such property abuts, fronts or borders.</p> <p>2. Where a railroad whose tracks run longitudinally through the center of a street, has been assessed the cost of-paving between the rails of its track and for two feet on either side, it cannot be further assessed for a proportionate part of the residue of the cost of paving the street.</p> <p>3. The theory of special assessments for improvements is based upon the doctrine that the property against which the assessment is levied, derives some special benefit from the local improvement. In the matter of street paving, it is presumed or assumed that all property abutting on a street to .be improved will be benefitted, and upon that theory such special assessments are permitted without having to establish that the .property will be benefitted.</p> <p>4. Assessments for street improvements are upheld on the ground that the adjacent property upon which the cost of the improvement is assessed is enhanced in value to an equal amount to the sum assessed against it, and that the owners have received a peculiar benefit which the citizens do not share in common.</p> <p>5. Whether the owners of property abutting on a street will or will not be benefitted by street improvements, is a legislative and not a judicial question.</p> <p>6. Where there has been an arbitrary and unwarranted exercise of the legislative power to declare that certain property will necessarily be benefitted by street improvements, or where there has been some 'denial of the equal protection of the laws in the method of evercising it, the courts are open to protect the constitutional rights of land owners from arbitrary and wholly unwarranted legislative action.</p>