Union Pacific Railroad v. City of Abilene

Citations

• 78 Kan. 820
• 98 P. 224
• 1908 Kan. LEXIS 150

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Pleadings — Unconstitutionality of a Statute. The unconstituti.onality of a statute or of proceedings under a statute need not be pleaded with any greater definiteness or certainty than other issues, and the determination of whether a material constitutional question is presented is to be made by construing the pleadings according to the usual methods.</p> <p>2. Taxation — Special Assessments — Property Owner’s Right to Notice and a Hearing. The fundamental fact upon which the validity of special assessments rests is an increment of benefit to the property taxed resulting from the improvement, and the property owner must, at some stage of the proceedings, have notice and opportunity to be heard, or the equivalent of such notice and opportunity, before a special assessment can become a valid charge against him.</p> <p>3. - Same. The legislature may lawfully prescribe the rule by which the benefits accruing to real estate from a local improvement shall be apportioned. Should it do so the theory of the daw is that the property owner has been given the equivalent of notice and a hearing upon that subject by representation in the legislature.</p> <p>4. - Same. When one or more essential features of a special-assessment proceeding are committed to some tribunal tor body inferior to the legislature, notice and an' opportunity to contest them must be allowed.</p> <p>-fi. - Same. It is not necessarily fatal to a special-assessment statute that it does not contain an express provision relating to notice and a hearing. When the terms of the statute ^¡permit, such a provision may be implied.</p> <p>*6. -Method of Apportioning Benefit's — ■Front-foot Rule. The legislature may lawfully prescribe the front-foot rule as a reasonable method of apportioning the benefits accruing to real estate from a local improvement. If palpable injustice, result from the application of that rule equity may' interfere, but unless it be patent and obvious that the