Miami Conservancy District v. Ryan

Citations

• 104 Ohio St. (N.S.) 79

Syllabus

<p>Conservancy act — Assessment for costs and damages — Benefits, equality and uniformity — Validity of rules of board of appraisers — Appeal from award — Section 6828-8//, General Code —Questions for court and jury — Reasonableness of rules and benefits assessable.</p> <p>1. In making assessments to pay costs and damages of an improvement under the conservancy act (Section 6828-1 et seq., General Code) it is essential to the validity of such assessments that they should not exceed the benefits; it is equally essential that such assessments should be equal and uniform upon all property subject to assessment.</p> <p>2. In making such assessments a board of appraisers may properly formulate rules to aid in producing equality and uniformity, and where rules have been formulated and uniformly applied in making assessments upon all the property subject t'o assessment, and where a large proportion of the property subject to assessment has submitted to assessment in accordance with such rules, such rules if reasonable may not be disregarded in a hearing before the court of common pleas and a jury, upon appeal by the owner of a portion o£ the property so assessed, and the question of the reasonableness of such rules becomes a question of law for the court and may not be submitted to the jury for their determination.</p> <p>3. By virtue of the provisions of Section 6828-34, General Code, the provision for an appeal to a jury does not contemplate that the jury shall become arbiters of both law and fact, but, on the contrary, that the court shall preside over the jury and determine all questions of law and leave to the jury only the determination of questions of fact.</p>