Woods v. Bd. of Sup'rs of Madison Cnty.

• Decision Date: 17 January 1893
• Parties: WOODS, Supervisor, v. BOARD OF SUP'RS OF MADISON COUNTY.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

136 N.Y. 403

32 N.E. 1011

WOODS, Supervisor,

v.BOARD OF SUP'RS OF MADISON COUNTY.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 17, 1893.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, fourth department.

Action by George E. Woods, as supervisor of the town of Stockbridge, against the board of supervisors of Madison county, to recover certain taxes. From a judgment of the general term (17 N. Y. Supp. 603) for part only of the amount claimed, plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Henry B. Coman, for appellant.

John E. Smith and Charles A. Hitchcock, for respondent.

O'BRIEN, J.

The facts in this case were agreed upon and submitted to the general term under the provisions of section 1279 of the Code. The town of Stockbridge, in the county of Madison, through the plaintiff, its supervisor, sought to recover from the county certain taxes levied and collected in the town from the New York & Oswego Midland Railroad Company, for the benefit of which corporation the town had issued its bonds under the provisions of chapter 398, Laws 1866. The taxes so levied and collected, the plaintiff claims, have been directed, by the action of the board of supervisors and the treasurer of the county, from the use of the town to general county purposes, contrary to the provisions of chapter 907, Laws 1869, as amended by chapter 283, Laws 1871. The general term held that the plaintiff was entitled to the relief demanded only with respect to the county taxes collected and diverted within six years prior to the commencement of the action. The principle upon which the decision rests seems to be that the state taxes collected from the railroad within the town are not within the statute, and the county could lawfully apply them to general purposes, and that, as to all taxes collected in the years 1882 and 1883, the plaintiff's claim was barred by the statute of limitations. The right of towns that have issued bonds in aid of railroads,and which are still outstanding, to reclaim taxes collected from the railroad within the town, but diverted to general purposes, is well settled. Clark v. Sheldon, 106 N. Y. 104, 12 N. E. Rep. 341; Strough v. Board, 119 N. Y. 212, 23 N. E. Rep. 552; Crowninshield v. Board, 124 N. Y. 583, 27 N. E. Rep. 242; Kilbourne v. Supervisors, 62 Hun, 210, 16 N. Y. Supp. 507

In this case, however, it becomes necessary to determine the effect of certain special statutes, applicable to the railroad in question and the towns issuing bonds in its aid, upon the general law. By section 16, c. 398, Laws 1866,-the statute under which the bonds of this town were issued,-the property of the railroad was exempted from all taxation for state, county, town, or municipal purposes, until a single tract was completed and in operation, but the exemption was not in any event to extend beyond the period of 10 years. The next statute that must be considered is the general law, chapter 907, Laws 1869, as amended in 1871, already referred to, the fourth section of which enacts as follows: ‘All taxes, except school and road taxes, collected for the next thirty years, or so much thereof as may be necessary, in any town, village, or city, on the assessed valuation of any railroad in said town, village, or city, for which said town, village, or city has issued or shall issue bonds to aid in the construction of said railroad, * * * shall be invested by said treasurer, and by him held as a sinking fund for the redemption of the bonds so issued.’ This provision became at once applicable to every municipality that had issued bonds which were outstanding under any law in aid of the construction of any railroad within its borders; but, as the railroad in aid of which the town in question had issued its bonds was then by law exempt from taxation, it could not apply until the exemption was removed, by lapse of time or otherwise. This event happened upon the passage of chapter 296, Laws 1874, the first section of which expressly repeals the exemption, and provides that thereafter all the property of the corporation shall be subject to taxation for all purposes. The provisions of the act of 1869 above quoted immediately took effect, and became applicable to this town and to the taxes collected from the railroad within its limits. But the act of 1874 contained another provision from which the principal argument in support of the judgment under review is deduced. It was provided that the collector of taxes in each town that had issued bonds in aid of the railroad should pay over to the commissioner of the town, within five days after collection, all moneys collected by him for county taxes which had been assessed upon the property of the railroad within the town, to be expended and applied by the commissioner in payment of the interest on the bonds or the principal. It is urged by the learned counsel for the defendant that, as the act of 1874 first removed the exemption from all taxation from the railroad property, and at the same time provided for the disposition of the county taxes collected on the property within the town, it must be deemed to contain the whole law on the subject applicable to the towns that had issued their obligations in aid of this particular railroad, or that the two enactments are so repugnant to and inconsistent with each other that the act of 1869 must be deemed to be repealed as to the towns embraced within the purview of the act of 1874, as both provisions cannot operate at the same time. This position, we think, is untenable. The act of 1869 required the treasurer to invest the moneys collected from railroads within the bonded to wns, and thus to form a sinking fund for the redemption of the bonds. All taxes collected from railroad property within such towns were thus tied up for future use; and current expenses, including the current interest on the bonds as the same fell due, had to be provided for by taxation on other property. When the act of 1874 was passed, the railroad was evidently in the hands of a receiver, and the obligations which the towns and municipalities had assumed began to press upon them in a manner perhaps not yet fully realized. Hence the legislature was induced not only to repeal the exemption, but to modify the act of 1869, as to these towns, by providing that the county taxes collected from the railroad within the towns, instead of being invested, should be used to pay the current interest on the bonds, as it became due, leaving the general law to have full operation upon the taxes collected for state purposes. The case does not come within the rule that a former statute is to be deemed repealed by implication, when a subsequent one, though not purporting to amend or repeal the former, is so repugnant to the first act that both cannot operate together, or when the later statute...