Wood v. Bd. of Assessors of City of Brooklyn

• Decision Date: 10 February 1893
• Citation: 33 N.E. 145,137 N.Y. 201
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. WOOD v. BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF CITY OF BROOKLYN et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

137 N.Y. 201

33 N.E. 145

PEOPLE ex rel. WOOD

v.BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF CITY OF BROOKLYN et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 10, 1893.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, second department.

Application by Frederick Wood formandamus to the city of Brooklyn, its board of assessors, and Alden S. Swan, as collector of taxes, and John C. McGuire, as register of arrears of said city. From an order of the general term (17 N. Y. Supp. 659) vacating an order of the special term directing a peremptory writ to issue, requiring the city of Brooklyn, its officers and agents, and its collector of taxes and register of arrears to cancel and discharge from the records a certain tax levied upon the property of relator, Frederick Wood, said relator appeals. Affirmed.

Frederick P. Bellamy, for appellant.

William T. Gilbert, for respondents.

EARL, J.

Prior to June 1, 1888, the relator owned a tract of land in the city of Brooklyn, which had been assessed for the purposes of taxation for that year at the sum of $90,000, and a tax was imposed thereon, based upon that assessment, for the sum of $2,506.64. After wards the relator sold about one fifth in quantity and one fifteenth in value of the land to Mr. Havemeyer, and he applied to the board of assessors for an apportionment of the tax imposed upon the whole tract between the portions owned by him and the relator, respectively. The assessors apportioned the assessed value of the land by assigning $7,000 thereof to the lot of Havemeyer and $83,000 to the lot of the relator, and apportioned the tax by placing $194.96 upon the former lot and $2,311.68 upon the latter lot. It is not disputed that all these proceedings were regular and legal, and the apportionment of the taxes appears to have been properly entered in the records kept by the board of assessors. Their clerk, in transcribing the records for the purpose of certifying the taxes as thus apportioned to the collector of taxes and assessments, by mistake transposed the taxes so that the Havemeyer lot appeared to be taxed for $2,311.68, and the relator's lot for only $194.96. The relator had knowledge of the original assessment and the tax, and of the apportionment of the tax, and for the purpose and with the intention of escaping the burden of his just and proportionate share of the tax originally imposed upon his land, and escaping the payment of the tax apportioned to his lot, he went to the collector of taxes, and, without disclosing to...