Bellingham Bay & British Columbia RailRoad v. New Whatcom

Citations

• 172 U.S. 314
• 19 S. Ct. 205
• 43 L. Ed. 460
• 1899 U.S. LEXIS 1373

Syllabus

<p>An answer by the defendant in an action in a state court brought to enforce a lien created by a reassessment of taxes upon its real estate, which sets up that the notice of the reassessment was insufficient, and that by reason thereof its property was sought to be taken without due process of law, arid in conflict with the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, raises a Federal question of which this court has jurisdiction.</p> <p>When a notice is duly given to landowners by municipal authorities in full accordance with the provisions of the statutes of the State touching the time and place for determining the amounts assessed upon their lands for the cost of street improvements, such notice, so authorized by the legislature, will not be set aside as ineffectual on account of the shortness of the time unless the case is a clear one.</p> <p>In view of the character of the improvements in this case, of the residence of the plaintiff in error, of the almost certainty that it must have known of the improvements, and of the action of the Supreme Court of the State, ruling that the notice was sufficient, it is held by this court to have been sufficient.</p> <p>Before proceedings for the collection of taxes, sanctioned by the Supreme Court of a State, are stricken down in this court, it must clearly appear that some one of the fundamental guarantees of right contained in the Federal Constitution has been invaded.</p>