Request By:
Honorable Bill Cunningham
Attorney at Law
City of Eddyville
Eddyville, Kentucky 42038
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of May 5 in which you relate the following facts and question:
After a lengthy series of trials and appeals, the City of Eddyville, a 5th class city, is now liable under a civil negligence judgment to pay $25,000 plus costs to the successful plaintiff. The suit arose out of an automobile accident where the negligence of the city policeman was imputed to the city.
The City of Eddyville does not have sufficient means, either by the money in its general fund or its current revenue raising procedures, to pay off this judgment. It is therefore seeking other means to utilize.
Is the City of Eddyville precluded by House Bill 44, now KRS 132, from passing a "special assessment" within its corporate limits for the purpose of paying off this judgment?
Our response to your question would be in the negative assuming that there are insufficient funds to pay the tort judgment from current revenue based on the city's maximum tax rate under § 157 of the Constitution and the maximum tax assessment permitted under Ch. 132 KRS (H.B. 44). The court in the case of
Perry County v. Kentucky River Coal Corporation, 268 Ky. 78, 103 S.W.2d 689 (1937), declared and we quote:
". . . It is well-settled that the constitutional limitations upon municipal indebtedness and upon the amount of municipal taxation do not apply to obligations of the municipality sounding in tort. . . ."
The position taken by this office in OAG 69-555 [copy attached] concluding that a special tax assessment to pay a tort judgment could be levied where the city had reached the maximum constitutional tax rate, would equally apply where the city has levied its statutory maximum assessment pursuant to Ch. 132 KRS [enacted as House Bill 44] under the basic principle that to hold otherwise would permit cities to take advantage of their own negligence by depriving a person who has been injured of all effective remedies. See