King v. Portland City
Headline: Upheld Portland street-assessment rules, allowing city to charge abutting property owners for improvements and finding notice and hearing satisfied constitutional due process, so assessments stand.
Holding: In this case the Court held that Portland’s charter assessment rule and its notice-and-hearing procedures provided property owners a fair opportunity to contest street assessments, so the assessments did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment and were upheld.
- Allows cities to charge abutting property owners for street improvements under benefit-based rules.
- Confirms multiple notices and hearing stages can satisfy constitutional due process.
- Makes successful challenges unlikely unless assessments are plainly disproportionate to benefits.
Summary
Background
A group of property owners challenged special street assessments charged under Portland’s city charter to pay for an elevated roadway. The trial court found the city followed the charter process, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed. The charter requires a resolution of intention, published notices, engineer estimates, hearings before the board of public works, and an apportionment rule that charges lots according to their special benefit under section 138. The trial court found the council considered benefits, that the assessed costs did not exceed benefits, and that owners had opportunities to be heard.
Reasoning
The core question was whether the assessment process deprived owners of property without fair process under the Constitution. The Court accepted the state court’s factual findings and interpretation of the charter. It explained that the charter’s sequence of notice, opportunity to object, engineer estimates, and later notice of lien entry supplied a reasonable chance to contest both the rule and the amounts. Because the council apportioned costs by benefits and the assessments were not shown to be arbitrary or grossly disproportionate, the Court concluded constitutional due process was satisfied and affirmed the judgment.
Real world impact
The ruling lets cities like Portland enforce similar benefit-based assessment rules when the record shows notice, hearings, and a reasonable match between benefits and costs. Property owners who want to avoid such assessments must use the procedural opportunities to object during the statutory steps; courts will upset assessments only when burdens are plainly disproportionate.
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