Bay Trust Co. v. Bay City

• Citation: 280 Mich. 44,273 N.W. 437
• Decision Date: 21 May 1937
• Docket Number: No. 19.,19.
• Parties: BAY TRUST CO. v. BAY CITY.
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan

280 Mich. 44

273 N.W. 437

BAY TRUST CO.

v.BAY CITY.

No. 19.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

May 21, 1937.

Suit by the Bay Trust Company against the City of Bay City. From an adverse judgment, plaintiff appeals.

Judgment reversed, without a new trial, and with instructions.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Bay County; Samuel G. Houghton, judge.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Clark & Henry, of Bay City (Samuel) Hechtman, of Detroit, of counsel), for appellant.

Albert W. Black, of Bay City, for appellee.

Cummins & Cummins, of Lansing, amici curiae.

SHARPE, Justice.

Plaintiff began suit against the city of Bay City to recover certain taxes paid under protest. Plaintiff is a Michigan corporation and on April 12, 1932, filed with the board of assessors of Bay City a statement under oath showing the value of its shares of stock for assessment purposes as of the second Monday in April, 1932, to be $9,734.98. Thereafter, the board of assessors increased the valuation of the shares of stock of the plaintiff from the sum of $9,734.98 to the sum of $59,685.00 and spread the same upon the assessment rolls of the city of Bay City. In making the increase the board of assessors added to the value of the stock for taxation the sum of $50,000 representing the book value of the abstract books owned by plaintiff.

In the court below the plaintiff contended that the issue involved was determined by the decisions in Perry v. City of Big Rapids, 67 Mich. 146, 34 N.W. 530,11 Am.St.Rep. 570, and Loomis v. City of Jackson, 130 Mich. 594, 90 N.W. 328, while the defendant contended that abstract books have an available cash value at all times; that they are used as a medium of making a profit and as such are taxable property. The trial court held that the abstract books being property liable to seizure and sale on execution are also property liable to assessment for taxation. Plaintiff appeals.

The question involved in this cause is not new in Michigan. In Dart v. Woodhouse, 40 Mich. 399, 29 Am.Rep. 544, we said: ‘The counsel in the argument of this cause on both sides found difficulties in the nature of the property, but did not plainly present the radical difficulty that the right in unpublished manuscripts is neither goods nor chattels subject to execution. The right of the proprietor of such a manuscript to publish it or to keep it back from publication is not only a property right, but one which is purely incorporeal and attended with considerations of a nature entirely different from any involved in other rights. * * * The value when it is considered at all in a pecuniary sense depends on the information or interest of the composition or document, and not on the particular bundle of paper which records it.’

The question was next considered in the case of Perry v. City of Big Rapids, 67 Mich. 146, 34 N.W. 530,11 Am.St.Rep. 570, Mr. Justice Campbell again writing the opinion. This case involved directly the question as to whether abstract books were taxable. The court referred to the provision of the then Constitution requiring assessments to be made on property at its cash value. This constitutional provision was retained as article 10, § 7, of the present Constitution. The court said, referring to that provision: ‘This means not only what may be put to valuable uses, but what has a recognizable...