Citation Numbers: 190 Iowa 162
Judges: Arthur, Ladd, Stevens, Weaver
Filed Date: 12/14/1920
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/24/2022
— The original assessment against the defendant on account of the cost and expense of the establishment and construction of a drainage district and improvement in Harrison County, known as the Mosquito Drainage District, was $14,000. Plaintiff appealed from this assessment to the district court, and moved for the transfer of the cause to the Federal court for trial. The motion was sustained. Instead of a trial in the Federal court, a decree was entered by consent of the parties, reducing the assessment to $10,000. Upon completion of the improvement, it was found necessary to levy an additional assessment of $13,771.14, which sum included the $4,000 deducted from the original assessment against the plaintiff to defray the total cost of the improvement. The board of supervisors there
Section 1989-al8 of the 1913 Supplement to the Code provides :
“ . * * * The commissioners to assess benefits shall fix and determine the benefits to the property of the railroad company within the levee or drainage district and make return thereof with their regular return. Such special assessment shall be a debt due personally from the railroad company, and unless the same is paid by the railroad company as special assessment, it may be collected in the name of the county in any court having jurisdiction. All other proceedings in relation to railroads shall be the same as provided for individual property owners within the drainage district.”
Drainage improvements are established, constructed, and maintained upon the theory that the benefits conferred exceed the cost. The primary purpose thereof is the drainage and improvement of agricultural and other lands, thereby making them tillable or suitable for profitable use. All assessments must be equitably apportioned against the property of the district. In Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Board of Supervisors, 171 Iowa 741, we said:
“It is not enough to estimate the amount of benefits derived by any particular piece of property, and from that basis alone determine that the figure so found represents the proper tax.
So far as the record discloses, all parties believed, or assumed, that the expense of the improvement in question would not exceed the estimate of $40,000, and that no further assessment was contemplated, or would be necessary, except the apportionment of the $4,000 deducted from plaintiff’s assessment, which the parties agree should be assessed upon the whole district, including the appellant, upon the equitable basis fixed. We find nothing in the statute to sustain the contention that a railroad company may not be assessed for its full pro rata share of the total cost of a drainage improvement, although it becomes necessary, because of error or mistake in the estimated cost of the'improvement, to make one or more additional levies.
The sole question here presented is whether the decree of the Federal court conclusively determined and fixed the benefits of the improvement, and limited the amount that might be assessed against appellant to the sum of $10,000. We do not think such was the intention of the parties, or that the provisions of the decree should be so construed. We think it manifest that the decree went no further than to fix the basis upon which the apportionment of the total cost of the improvement should be based. It was not then known that such cost was going to be in excess of the estimate which formed the basis of the agreed adjustment, and the decree must be construed in the light of this fact.
Counsel for appellant concede that the railway company should be assessed with its pro rata share of the $4,000 deducted from the original assessment. If .the decree was intended to,