State ex rel. Kinder v. Little River Drainage District

Decision Date31 December 1921
Citation236 S.W. 848,291 Mo. 267
PartiesTHE STATE ex rel. KINDER v. LITTLE RIVER DRAINAGE DISTRICT, Appellant
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

Appeal from Bollinger Circuit Court. -- Hon. Peter H. Huck, Judge.

Reversed.

Oliver & Oliver for appellant.

(1) The defendant drainage district is a public corporation of the State of Missouri. Laws 1905, p. 192, sec. 8253; Secs. 5498 5499, R. S. 1909. (2) In addition to the statutory enactment creating the district as a public corporation this court has repeatedly held that such a drainage district is a political subdivision of the State -- is a governmental agency, and in no sense a private corporation; that it is a public corporation "as much as the city of St. Louis or the city of Hannibal." Morrison v. Morey, 146 Mo. 543, 561; State ex rel. v. Drainage District, 269 Mo. 444 458; Land & Stock Co. v. Miller, 170 Mo. 240, 253; Drainage District v. Turney, 235 Mo. 80, 90; State ex rel. v. Taylor, 224 Mo. 290, 469; Wilson v. Drainage District, 257 Mo. 266, 286. (3) Since the appellant is a public corporation -- a political subdivision of the State -- a governmental agency, and in no sense a private corporation and as clearly a municipal corporation as the cities of the State, its property is exempt from taxation. Sec. 6, Art. 10, Mo. Constitution; Secs. 11335, 12753, R. S. 1909. (4) The Legislature never intended that the property acquired by the drainage districts should be taxed. There is no power granted the drainage district to raise money to pay taxes. There is no provision in the entire drainage law which authorizes the levying of an assessment or tax to pay taxes. The only purposes for which a drainage district can levy an assessment is to secure funds to pay the cost of the drainage works and improvements, plus the actual expenses of organizing the district and the proper working and administrative expenses and damages in the completion of said works and improvements. Secs. 5516, 5519 R. S. 1909. There is, therefore, a plain, positive limitation upon the board of supervisors of the drainage district limiting the purposes for which it may levy a tax on the lands in the district. State ex rel. McWilliams v. Drain. Dist., 269 Mo. 463. (5) It may be conceded that the general rule as announced in Missouri is that tax exemption should be strictly construed, but this rule does not apply to corporations performing a public service. State ex rel. v. Trustees William Jewel College, 234 Mo. 308; Ross v. Railroad, 111 Mo. 25; Westerman v. Lodge, 196 Mo. 709. (a) It has been repeatedly held that the subject-matter, policy and purpose of the act must always be taken into consideration. Spitler v. Young, 63 Mo. 44; Ross v. Railroad, 111 Mo. 26; State ex inf. v. Railroad, 238 Mo. 614; Craig v. Railroad, 248 Mo. 278. (b) The legislative intent is one of the cardinal principles. It must always be looked to and effect given to the act if possible. State ex rel. v. Forest, 177 Mo.App. 252; Kenney v. McVoy, 206 Mo. 65; State ex rel. v. Gmelich, 208 Mo. 159. (c) Statutes in pari materia are to be read and interpreted together. They are to be treated as embodied in one section and considered together in order to elucidate the intent of the Legislature, although they are found in different acts. State v. Ebbs, 89 Mo.App. 98; State v. Klein, 116 Mo. 263; Macke v. Byrd, 131 Mo. 690; Strottman v. Railroad, 211 Mo. 251. (d) It is both permissible and proper to take into consideration the general construction placed upon this section by the collectors and landowners of the district. State ex rel. v. Trustees, 234 Mo. 318; Westerman v. Lodge, 196 Mo. 709; Sedalia ex rel. v. Smith, 206 Mo. 364; Barber Paving Co. v. Merservey, 103 Mo.App. 194.

W. K. Chandler and Charles G. Revelle for respondent.

(1) Although drainage corporations render a secondary and incidental, or quasi-public service, they are organized and operated primarily and principally for the benefit of their stockholders, the benefited landowners, and not for purely public governmental purposes. Art. I, chap. 28, R. S. 1919; State ex rel. v. Oliver, 273 Mo. 537; Ten Eyck v. Canal Co., 18 N. J. Law, 200; 7 R. C. L. pp. 40, 41, 42. (2) Such corporations possess only the power to improve local property at the expense of the benefited owners. They possess no police power, nor power to tax, nor to legislate, nor to conduct a local civil government. They are not the direct representative of the public at large, and the public at large, as distinguished from the benefited landowners, has no voice in their creation, management or control. Their right to organize and operate is not dependent upon considerations of the public welfare, but upon financial benefits to be derived by individual property owners. They are not municipal corporations, nor other public governmental agencies, and all of their property is subject to taxation. Sec. 6, Art. X, Mo. Constitution; Sec. 13752, R. S. 1919; Heller v. Stremmel, 52 Mo. 309; In re Werner, 129 Cal. 567; Irrigation Dist. v. Peterson, 4 Wash. 147; Secs. 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, Art. X, Mo. Constitution; Houck v. Drainage Dist., 248 Mo. 383; Embrie v. Road Dist., 257 Mo. 593; State ex rel. Oliver v. Drainage Dist., 273 Mo. 537; State v. Henry County, 115 Mo. 557; Reney v. Cape Girardeau, 255 Mo. 517; Morrison v. Morey, 146 Mo. 564; Drainage District v. Ry. Co., 266 Mo. 68; Drainage District v. Bates County, 279 Mo. 78; Sec. 7, Art. IX, Mo. Constitution; Oleary v. Water Commrs., 79 Mich. 281; County v. Company, 95 N.W. 340; Dunn v. Revenue Court, 85 Ala. 144; City v. Commonwealth, 84 Pa. 487. (3) The lands owned by appellant and not used for rights of way or other legitimate drainage purposes are, for other and particular reasons, subject to taxation. State ex rel. v. Board of Trustees, 175 Mo. 61; State ex rel. v. Casey, 210 Mo. 235; State ex rel. v. Y. M. C. A., 259 Mo. 233; State ex rel. v. McGurn, 187 Mo. 238; Fritterer v. Crawford, 157 Mo. 51; Lodge v. Crawford, 157 Mo. 356; B. P. O. E. v. Koeln, 262 Mo. 444; St. Louis v. Wenneker, 145 Mo. 230; Kansas City v. Medical College, 111 Mo. 141. (4) Exemptions from taxation exist only when expressed in explicit terms, and when the law invoked to show the exemption is capable of any other rational construction the exemption cannot exist. It will never be presumed nor deducted by implication that this attribute of sovereignty has been waived. Mullens v. Cemetery Assn., 239 Mo. 681; Fritterer v. Crawford, 157 Mo. 51; State ex rel. v. Casey, 210 Mo. 235; Lodge v. Koeln, 262 Mo. 444; Railroad v. McGuire, 49 Mo. 490; Railroad v. Cass County, 53 Mo. 17; State ex rel. v. Board of Equalization, 256 Mo. 455.

WHITE, C. Reeves, C., concurs; Railey, C., not sitting.

OPINION

WHITE, C. --

The suit is to recover the general State and county taxes assessed against real estate owned by the defendant. The petition describes thirty tracts of land aggregating 4,635.66 acres, situated in Bollinger County, and demands judgment for delinquent taxes for the years 1916 and 1917.

The answer set forth facts which, under Section 6, Article X, of the State Constitution, the defendant claims exempts the land from taxation.

On a trial of the cause at the September term of the Bollinger Circuit Court judgment was rendered for the plaintiff enforcing the tax lien, in the sum of $ 966.62. From that judgment the defendant appeals.

The Little River Drainage District was organized in 1907. It comprises 1136 square miles, in an elongated shape extending approximately north and south parallel with the Mississippi River. It includes a part of Bollinger County on the northwest and extends southward through several counties. Bordering this territory on the north and northwest is a range of hills called the Ozark Hills; flowing down from these hills are several streams including Castor River and Crooked Creek, the waters of which formerly overflowed the lands comprising the district. In order to divert these waters a channel known as the Castor River Diversion Channel was constructed across the north end of the district, extending from the Castor River on the northwest eastward to the Mississippi River. This diversion channel varied in width from sixty-four to one hundred and thirty feet. Along the south side of this channel was built a levee which averaged eighteen feet in height, was twelve feet wide at the top and eighty-four feet wide at the base. North of the channel and between it and the Ozark Hills was a stretch of land acquired by the company for the purpose of forming what were called detention basins. There were three of these detention basins, the west basin, the middle basin and the east basin. The west basin, which includes the land involved in this suit, was low, flat land, subject to overflow by Castor River and Crooked Creek. The tract is about eleven miles in length, extending east and west, and comprises about ten thousand acres.

The answer of the defendant alleged and the evidence proved that three of the thirty tracts of land against which the State seeks to enforce a general tax lien were wholly within the right-of-way of the headwater diversion channel; thirteen of the tracts were wholly within the west basin, and parts of the remaining tracts were used as the right-of-way of the headwater diversion channel or in the west basin; that the purpose of acquiring the land included in the west basin was for the storage of flood water from the Castor River when the headwater diversion channel was unable to take it off as fast as it flowed in, and that all the tracts of land described in the petition had been acquired and were necessary for the purposes of the district.

In addition to the improvements mentioned the district had built 625 miles of dredge canals.

At the time of the...

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