Bass v. Aransas County Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 25 March 1965
• Docket Number: No. 19,19
• Citation: 389 S.W.2d 165
• Parties: Perry R. BASS et al., Appellant, v. ARANSAS COUNTY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 165

389 S.W.2d 165

Perry R. BASS et al., Appellant, v. ARANSAS COUNTY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Appellee.

No. 19.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Corpus Christi.

March 25, 1965.

Rehearing Denied April 15, 1965.

R. Dan Settle, of Cantey, Hanger, Johnson, Scarborough & Gooch, Fort Worth, Allen Wood, of Fischer, Wood, Burney & Nesbitt, Corpus Christi, for appellant.

Ross Terry, J. C. Hinsley, Austin, for appellee.

GREEN, Chief Justice.

This appeal is from a judgment entered after a jury verdict, granting recovery to appellees, Aransas County Independent School District, the State of Texas and Aransas County, plaintiffs below, for delinquent taxes for the years 1960 and 1961. The property involved, owned by the S. W. Richardson Estate of which appellants were independent executors, was St. Joseph Island, consisting of approximately 32,750 acres, divided for tax purposes into two classes of land, usable pasture land, and waste land, consisting of tidal flats, mud flats, sand dunes and shore grass flats.

Appellants resisted the suit on the grounds that the valuations upon which the assessments were made were grossly excessive, unequal, and made pursuant to an arbitrary and fundamentally erroneous method of valuation used by appellees' Boards of Equalization which resulted in placing an unequal and discriminatory share of the tax burden on appellants' property. Appellants also complain that appellees, in violation of their promise and agreement, refused to reduce the 1960 assessment to conform to the 1961 assessed value.

The jury, in answer to special issues, found: (1) there were 10,200 acres of usable pasture land on the island on January 1, 1960 and January 1, 1961; (2) the reasonable cash market value of the usable pasture land on said dates was $70.00 per acre; (3) the reasonable cash market value of the waste land on the island on said dates was $21.00 per acre; (4) appellees did not fail to send written notices of the meeting of the Boards of Equalization held June 9, 1960, to appellants; (5) appellants, their agents or employees, received such notices; (6) the Boards of Equalization did not follow a plan to value all pasture land in Aransas County at $100.00 per acre for ad valorem tax purposes for the year 1960; (7) the Boards of Equalization, except for the discount given St. Joseph Island, did not follow a plan to value all pasture land in Aransas County at $100.00 per acre for ad valorem tax purposes for the year 1961.

It was stipulated between the parties, and the jury was so instructed, that the cash market value of all land on St. Joseph Island was the same on January 1, 1961, as on january 1, 1960, and that the amount of usable pasture land, as well as the amount of waste land, was the same in both years.

In September, 1959, appellees county and school district employed Thomas Y. Pickett & Co., specialists in appraising minerals, real estate, utilities and industries for taxing agencies, to assist them in appraising taxable property, so that it could be equalized for taxation purposes. Such a contract is valid, and it is not under attack here. Pritchard & Abbott v. McKenna, 162 Tex. 617, 350 S.W.2d 333; Tatton v. Aransas County, Tex.Civ.App., 359 S.W.2d 200. Bill Taylor, head of their land appraisal department, was placed in charge of this project by Pickett. He and his crew worked on this appraisal in Aransas County from September, 1959, until late Spring, 1960.

Appellants mailed their 1960 renditions to each of the taxing bodies in January, 1960, based on the 1959 valuations. These renditions proved unsatisfactory to the taxing authorities, and both county and school district decided to have this property revalued by their 1960 boards of equalization. Arts. 7206, 7211, 7212, 7343, Vernon's Ann.Tex.Civ.St. Though an issue of fact developed as to whether appellants received notice of such decision as provided by subd. 5, Art. 7206, appellants do not deny that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's answers to special issues 4 and 5, that appellees sent and appellants received such notices.

In June, 1960, the boards of equalization for county and school district met for the purpose of hearing witnesses and revising assessed valuations as the facts might show proper. While the two boards met together for convenience to hear the testimony and reports at the same time, they did not intermingle or sit as one board, each having its own separate members and chairman and each acting for its own principal. Appellants did not appear, nor did they have any representative present.

At this meeting, after hearing sworn testimony from witnesses, including Taylor, the boards each raised materially the valuations of appellants' St. Joseph Island property. From the evidence, the boards estimated that approximately half of the 32,750 acres on the island was usable pasture land, and the other half was waste land, and set a value of $75.00 per acre on the former and $26.25 per acre on the waste land, averaging the two figures to place a valuation of $50.00 per acre on all of the land. This was a very substantial increase over the valuations fixed for 1959. Assessments were based on a percentage of 20% of market value for state and county, and 25% for school district. Appellants were unaware that the valuations had been raised until in October, 1960, when they received notices from the tax collectors of appellees of the taxes due for 1960. In January, 1961, appellants sent the tax collectors their checks for 1960 taxes computed upon the valuations set out in their voluntary renditions, the same as for the year 1959. These checks were returned by the respective collectors as unacceptable. So far as shown in the record, the taxes for the years 1960 and 1961 have not been paid, nor has any tender of the amount claimed to be due by appellees been made by appellants.

Shortly after appellants received the tax notices in October, 1960, their tax representatives contacted proper officials of appellees county and school district concerning the increased valuations. Further investigation was made by Taylor and appellees' taxing authorities, and it was determined that the usable pasture acreage was overcalculated, and the amount of waste land was under estimated. At the 1961 meeting of the two boards of equalization, attended by representatives of appellants adjustments on such acreage were made for the year 1961, and the valuations of the property for 1961 were reduced to $70.00 per acre for usable pasturage land and $21.00 per acre for waste land. No change was made in the valuation or assessments for 1960. Such valuations were unsatisfactory to appellants, and they have refused to pay taxes based on the assessments for said two years, which refusal resulted in this suit.

Appellants in their first point of error state that the trial court erred in failing to grant their motion for judgment non obstante veredicto since the evidence established as a matter of law that appellees' assessments of St. Joseph Island were unequal and grossly excessive in comparison to assessments of other property. We have found no testimony in the record of the assessed value of any other tract of land in Aransas county with which to make a comparison with the assessed value of appellants' land. The only evidence of assessments of other property was by the introduction of the total amount of assessed value of all real estate in the county, including improvements, less mineral rights which are not here involved, for the years 1959 and 1960. This evidence shows to have been introduced by appellants to prove that the percentage of increase in the assessed valuation of St. Joseph Island property in 1960 over the 1959 assessed values was greater than the percentage of increase in assessed value of the total of all other taxable real estate in the county for the same two years. However, appellants did not attempt to show whether such other property had been assessed at less than market value in 1959, or that in 1960 it was assessed at values more favorable to the owners than was appellants' property, or to show that any facts existed calling for a like percentage of increase in such other property. In the absence of such showing, and in the total absence of any testimony of the assessed value of any other pasture land or waste land in the county, appellants failed to make any showing of discrimination against their property, or that their assessments were unequal and grossly excessive in comparison with assessments of other property. State v. Houser, 138 Tex. 28, 156 S.W.2d 968; Dallas County v. Dallas National Bank, 142 Tex. 439, 179 S.W.2d 288; State v. Whittenburg, 153 Tex. 205, 265 S.W.2d 569; City of Arlington v. Cannon, 153 Tex. 566, 271 S.W.2d 414; Whelan v. State, 155 Tex. 14, 282 S.W.2d 378; Bernhardt v. Port Arthur Independent School District, 159 Tex. 488, 324 S.W.2d 163; State v. Federal Land Bank of Houston, 160 Tex. 282, 329 S.W.2d 847; City of Orange, Texas v. Levingston Shipbuilding Co., 5 Cir., 258 F.2d 240; Westerman v. Vernon Independent School District, Tex.Civ.App., 354 S.W.2d 431.

The rule has been definitely established in Texas that where an aggrieved taxpayer fails to avail himself of the affirmative remedies of injunction and mandamus to prevent a taxing authority from putting an invalid and arbitrary plan of taxation into effect, but waits until suit is brought against him for delinquent taxes, his right to relief is limited. Once such a plan is put into effect, in the absence of a showing, by comparison of the assessments against his property with assessments against other like property, of a gross discrimination against him, the land owner may defeat recovery of taxes only to the extent that they are excessive, and he must assume the burden of proving excessiveness. He must show that the use of such a plan worked to his substantial injury, and the extent of such injury. Authorities...