The allowance of equitable relief is a question of state policy,
and if the state court treated the merits of a suit in which
equitable relief is sought as legitimately before it, this Court
will not attempt to determine whether it might or might not have
thrown out the suit upon the preliminary ground.
Where a rule of conduct applies to more than a few people, it is
impracticable that every one should have a direct voice in its
adoption; nor does the federal Constitution require all public acts
to be done in town meeting or in an assembly of the whole.
There must be a limit to individual argument in regard to
matters affecting communities if government is to go on.
Page 239 U. S. 442
An order of the State Board of Equalization of Colorado
increasing the valuation of all taxable property in the City of
Denver forty percent, which was sustained by the supreme court of
that state,
held not to be in violation of the due process
provision of the Fourteenth Amendment because no opportunity was
given to the taxpayers or assessing officers of Denver to be heard
before the order was made.
56 Colo. 343 affirmed.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality under the due
provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of an order of the Tax Boards
of Colorado, increasing proportionately the valuation of all
property in the City of Denver, are stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit to enjoin the State Board of Equalization and the
Colorado Tax Commission from putting in force, and the defendant
Pitcher, as Assessor of Denver, from obeying, an order of the
boards, increasing the valuation of all taxable property in Denver
forty percent. The order
Page 239 U. S. 444
was sustained and the suit directed to be dismissed by the
supreme court of the state. 56 Colo. 512.
See 56 Colo.
343. The plaintiff is the owner of real estate in Denver, and
brings the case here on the ground that it was given no opportunity
to be heard, and that therefore its property will be taken without
due process of law, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States. That is the only question with
which we have to deal. There are suggestions on the one side that
the construction of the state constitution and laws was an
unwarranted surprise, and on the other that the decision might have
been placed, although it was not, on the ground that there was an
adequate remedy at law. With these suggestions we have nothing to
do. They are matters purely of state law. The answer to the former
needs no amplification; that to the latter is that the allowance of
equitable relief is a question of state policy, and that, as the
supreme court of the state treated the merits as legitimately
before it, we are not to speculate whether it might or might not
have thrown out the suit upon the preliminary ground.
For the purposes of decision, we assume that the constitutional
question is presented in the baldest way -- that neither the
plaintiff nor the assessor of Denver, who presents a brief on the
plaintiff's side, nor any representative of the city and county,
was given an opportunity to be heard, other than such as they may
have had by reason of the fact that the time of meeting of the
boards is fixed by law. On this assumption, it is obvious that
injustice may be suffered if some property in the county already
has been valued at its full worth. But if certain property has been
valued at a rate different from that generally prevailing in the
county, the owner has had his opportunity to protest and appeal as
usual in our system of taxation,
Hagar v. Reclamation
District, 111 U. S. 701,
111 U. S.
709-710, so that it must be assumed that the
property
Page 239 U. S. 445
owners in the county all stand alike. The question, then, is
whether all individuals have a constitutional right to be heard
before a matter can be decided in which all are equally concerned
-- here, for instance, before a superior board decides that the
local taxing officers have adopted a system of undervaluation
throughout a county, as notoriously often has been the case. The
answer of this Court in the
State Railroad Tax Cases,
92 U. S. 575, at
least, as to any further notice, was that it was hard to believe
that the proposition was seriously made.
Where a rule of conduct applies to more than a few people, it is
impracticable that everyone should have a direct voice in its
adoption. The Constitution does not require all public acts to be
done in town meeting or an assembly of the whole. General statutes
within the state power are passed that affect the person or
property of individuals, sometimes to the point of ruin, without
giving them a chance to be heard. Their rights are protected in the
only way that they can be in a complex society -- by their power,
immediate or remote, over those who make the rule. If the result in
this case had been reached, as it might have been, by the state's
doubling the rate of taxation, no one would suggest that the
Fourteenth Amendment was violated unless every person affected had
been allowed an opportunity to raise his voice against it before
the body entrusted by the state constitution with the power. In
considering this case in this Court we must assume that the proper
state machinery has been used, and the question is whether, if the
state constitution had declared that Denver had been undervalued as
compared with the rest of the state, and had decreed that, for the
current year, the valuation should be forty percent higher, the
objection now urged could prevail. It appears to us that to put the
question is to answer it. There must be a limit to individual
argument in such matters if government is to go on. In
Londoner
v. Denver, 210 U. S. 373,
Page 239 U. S. 446
210 U. S. 385,
a local board had to determine "whether, in what amount, and upon
whom" a tax for paving a street should be levied for special
benefits. A relatively small number of persons was concerned, who
were exceptionally affected, in each case upon individual grounds,
and it was held that they had a right to a hearing. But that
decision is far from reaching a general determination dealing only
with the principle upon which all the assessments in a county had
been laid.
Judgment affirmed.