Sioux City Bridge Co v. Dakota County, Neb

• Decision Date: 02 January 1923
• Docket Number: No. 105,105
• Citation: 43 S.Ct. 190,67 L.Ed. 340,260 U.S. 441
• Parties: SIOUX CITY BRIDGE CO. v. DAKOTA COUNTY, NEB
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

260 U.S. 441

43 S.Ct. 190

67 L.Ed. 340

SIOUX CITY BRIDGE CO.

v DAKOTA COUNTY, NEB.

No. 105.

Argued Nov. 20, 1922.

Decided Jan. 2, 1923.

Messrs. F. W. Sargent, of Chicago, Ill., and Wymer Dressler, of Omaha, Neb., for petitioner.

Mr. R. A. Van Orsdel, of Omaha, Neb., for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

Thi case is here by writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Nebraska. The question is whether the taxing authorities of the state of Nebraska and of Dakota county in assessing taxes against the petitioner, the Sioux City Bridge Company, upon that part of its bridge across the Missouri river at South Sioux City, which is in the jurisdiction of Nebraska, deprived the Bridge Company of due process of law and denied it the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

For a number of years before 1918, the Bridge Company had returned the Nebraska part of the bridge for taxation at $600,000. In that year the assessor of Dakota county sent the blank return to the Bridge Company as usual, but the Bridge Company sent back the proposed return, refusing to sign, and insisting that the valuation was too high. The assessor then returned the bridge at $600,000 as formerly. The Bridge Company appealed to the board of equalization of the county. Only the counsel for the Bridge Company and for the city of South Sioux City appeared. No witnesses were called and no evidence produced, but the board of equalization, on the appeal of the Bridge Company for reduction, raised the assessment above that of the assessor $100,000. From this ruling an appeal was taken to the district court of Dakota county for relief against the action of the board of equalization on the ground that the valuation was excessive, was without evidence and arbitrary, that it violated the Constitution of the state requiring a uniformity of taxing burdens, and that it deprived the Bridge Company of due process and equal protection of the law as forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Seventy-four per cent. of the total value of the bridge is in Dakota county, Neb., and 26 per cent. is in Iowa. The original cost of the bridge was $941,000, but some wooden trestles in the original construction were taken out and steel substituted and this increased the original cost to $1,022,000. The bridge was built in 1888. Since 1907 it has been under lease to two railroads and jointly they maintain the bridge, pay the taxes and 8 per cent. on the original cost of $945,800. The leases are short-time leases because the bridge, while in good repair, is too light for modern traffic and can only be used under burdensome and expensive restrictions. One of the railroad companies has made soundings for a new bridge. The engineers report the existing bridge to be totally out of date and estimate a depreciation in its value on this account of $300,000 from its original cost. The same witnesses testified that to build the bridge just as it was would cost at present prices from $1,300,000 to $1,500,000, but that it would be most foolish to build a bridge of that old type now.

A tax commissioner of one of the lessee railroads, with long experience in taxation and valuation, testified that from an examination of the sales of real estate as shown by deeds of record in Nebraska and in Dakota county and the tax list, the acre property in Dakota county was assessed at 55.70 per cent. of its value; that improvements in city property were assessed at 49.29 per cent. of their selling value, and had been so assessed for seven years. The county assessor thought such sales were not best evidence of true value in money, and denied that there was any attempt to value at less than such value.

The district court held the reasonable value of the bridge in Nebraska to be more than $700,000, as assessed, and dismissed the appeal. It made no finding upon the issue as to whether there was an under valuation of other real estate and improvements in Dakota county or the state and did not refer to it.

The Bridge Company carried the case on appeal to the Supreme Court. That court found from the evidence that $700,000 as the true value was not so manifestly wrong that it was justified in disturbing the assessment. Taking up the objection that the real property and improvements were undervalued in Dakota county, th court said:

'It is finally urged that this court should reduce the true value of the bridge as found by the court to 55 per cent. of such value, for the reason that other property in the district is assessed at 55 per cent. of its true value, and that it would be manifestly unjust to appellant to assess its property at its true value while other property in the district is assessed at 55 per cent. of its value.

'While undoubtedly the law contemplates that there should be equality in taxation, we are of the view that the plan of equalization proposed by appellant is not the proper remedy. The rule is now settled by a recent decision of this court that when property is assessed at its true value, and other property in the district is assessed below its true value, the proper remedy is to have the property assessed below its true value raised, rather than to have property assessed at its true value reduced. Lincoln Telephone & Telegraph Company v. Johnson County, 102 Neb. 254.¹ In the argument of appellant the soundness of this ruling is assailed, and authorities in other jurisdictions are cited which seem at variance with our holding. We are not willing, however, to recede from the rule of that case.'

Section 1, article 9, of the Constitution of Nebraska, contains the following:

'The Legislature shall provide such revenue as may be needful by levying a tax by valuation, so that every person and corporation shall pay a tax in...