Bouslog v. City of Gulfport

Citations

• 112 Miss. 184
• 72 So. 896

Syllabus

<p>Constitutional Law. Municipal corporations. Due process of law. Notes. Special assessments. Statutes.</p> <p>Chapter 128, Laws 1916, being an act to authorize hoards of supervisors and the mayor and hoard of aldermen or other governing bodies of municipalities to erect sea walls, breakwaters, and bulkheads for protection of ‘ public roads or streets extending along the beach or shores of any body of water and to lay special assessments on abutting property not to exceed one-half of the cost of construction, and to issue bonds therefor, and empowering the mayor and commissioners of the city to prorate the assessment without any express rule therefor, and which does not provide for notice to owners either personally or by publication, to afford opportunity of hearing on and objection to the assessments, though section 7 of the act permits any person aggrieved by the order of any board to take bill of exceptions to. the circuit court for trial on the record without a jury and in the absence of any such provision in the general law, is violative to both the state Constitution providing that no one shall be deprived of property, etc., except by due .course of law, and that every person for an injury done him in his lands, etc., shall have a remedy by due course of law and to the similar provisions of the Federal Constitution; and the court could not say that the power granted to boards, etc., impliedly carried the right to prescribe the notice to be given nor that the bond issue could be upheld, regardless of the legality of the assessments.</p>