Turley v. People ex rel. Mayfield

Citations

• 116 Ill. 433
• 6 N.E. 52

Syllabus

<p>1. Dbainage law—assessment of benefits upon several tracts—whether separately or in gross. Except under special circumstances showing that section lines have ceased to be regarded as descriptive of a tract of land, as, where lots are platted ignoring such lines, tracts in different sections should be assessed for benefits and valued separately, under the Drainage law. But the owner may waive his right to have them valued and assessed separately, by failing to make any objection to their being assessed in gross.</p> <p>2. Same—right of land owner to contest assessment of benefits. Under the Drainage - law the land owner has the clear right to contest before the commissioners, and also before the supervisors, on appeal, the reasonableness of assessments against each one of his tracts assessed for benefits.</p> <p>3. Same—change in assessment of benefits after appeal—powers of drainage commissioners in that regard. After an appeal has been taken from an assessment of benefits by the drainage commissioners against lands, their powers over the matter, except as to purely formal defects, are gone, and any substantial change in the assessment made by them after such appeal will be a nullity.</p> <p>4. Drainage commissioners assessed a party’s lands, being the west half of the north-west quarter of section 35, the south-west quarter of the southeast quarter of section 27, and the north-west quarter of section 34, as one body of two hundred and eighty acres, a gross sum of $420 for benefits, which assessment was affirmed in all respects by the supervisors on his appeal. A certified copy of the assessment roll was thereupon delivered to the treasurer of the drainage district, who returned the lands to the county collector as delinquent, after which the latter called before him the drainage commissioners, who, in the absence of the land owner, and without notice to him, changed the description of the last named tract to north-east quarter of section 34, and apportioned the