Stephen Johnson Field

“ By the obligation of a contract is meant the means which, at the time of its creation, the law affords for its enforcement. The usual mode by which municipal bodies obtain the funds to meet their pecuniary engagements is taxation. Accordingly, when a contract is made upon the faith that taxes will be levied, legislation repealing or modifying the taxing power of the corporation, so as to deprive the holder of the contract of all adequate and efficacious remedy, is within the constitutional inhibition. ”

“ He was entitled, and the party succeeding to his interest is entitled, to a writ commanding the levy and collection of a sufficient tax to pay the judgment, according to the assessment roll of the year in which the levy is made, at any time until the judgment is satisfied; the right to demand the tax not depending upon the valuation of the taxable property for any year for general purposes. Such right was not only assured by the law in force when the contract was made, but was expressly declared in the decree accompanying the judgment and forming part of it. ”

“ The judgment being absolute, and the plaintiff therein being by law entitled at the time to a decree that the assessing and collecting officers of the parish should assess and collect a tax sufficient to pay it, and such decree having been entered, and those officers having failed in their duty, the relator was entitled to the writ prayed. The Code of Procedure of Louisiana declares that the writ may be directed to public officers to compel them to fulfill any of the duties attached to their office, or which may be legally required of them. ”