Board of State Tax Com'rs v. Board of Assessors of City of Grand Rapids

• Decision Date: 19 June 1900
• Citation: 124 Mich. 491,83 N.W. 209
• Parties: BOARD OF STATE TAX COM'RS v. BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

83 N.W. 209

124 Mich. 491

BOARD OF STATE TAX COM'RS v. BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS.

Supreme Court of Michigan

June 19, 1900

Application for mandamus, on the relation of the board of state tax commissioners, against the board of assessors of the city of Grand Rapids. Granted.

Grant J., dissents in part.

Horace M. Oren, Atty. Gen. (Russell C. Ostrander of counsel), for relator.

Lant K Salsbury, City Atty. (Willard Kingsley, Edgar A. Maher Kanappen & Kleinhans, and H. M. Campbell, of counsel), for respondent.

MONTGOMERY C.J.

This is an application for a mandamus to require the respondent board to deliver the assessment roll to relator, to enable the board to add to the roll assessments which have been omitted therefrom, and to add certain assessments made by the local assessors, pursuant to the provisions of Act No. 154 of 1899. The answer of respondent states three grounds for its refusal to comply with the request made by relator, that the books be delivered to it for the purpose stated: First, that the act is unconstitutional; second, that the act, if valid, does not apply to Grand Rapids; third, that the relator was too late in attempting to make an alteration of the roll.

It is insisted that the act is unconstitutional, and for the reason that it interferes with local self-government in cities and townships. The particular provisions which are said to invade the right of local self-government are those empowering the state board to revise the assessment of property of an individual in any township or city in the state. It is conceded that under the constitution of 1835 the state legislature possessed all the legislative powers of the British parliament, and was not limited, either expressly or impliedly, in any such degree as is the legislature under the constitution of 1850. We think it must be conceded that, in the absence of constitutional limitation, the state may, by its legislature, prescribe the limits of taxation and agencies to be employed. The rule is stated in Dill. Mun. Corp. � 737, note 2: 'Subject to constitutional restrictions, it is within the power of the legislature of a state to ascertain the public burdens to be borne, and the persons or classes of persons who ought to bear them; and its determination, within the limits of the constitution, is not judicially reviewable.' The question recurs, is there an express or plainly implied inhibition against the employment of a state agency to supervise assessment rolls? It is manifest that the question is quite different from the one presented when an attempt may be made by the state to impose upon a municipality a burden, or to compel such local body to enter into a contract. No burden is imposed upon the local municipalities by this legislation. No right of local self-government is infringed, unless it be a right to determine, in practice, what property may be assessed on a particular roll. It is clear that the municipality has no right to determine this question, in theory; for the state may, within costitutional limits, prescribe what persons and property may be assessable. It gets down, then, to the question whether the exclusive agency for making such assessments is, under our constitution, some officer of the municipality whose acts are final and conclusive as well to the state as to the municipality; for it is to be kept in view that both at the time of the adoption of the constitution and at the present the taxes levied for state purposes are based on the same assessment as are those collected for local use. It is urged that as supervisors of townships were, under the law in force at the time of the adoption of the constitution, authorized to make assessments, and as supervisors were provided for by the constitution, it must be considered that the intention was to invest in such officers the functions which they were then exercising, and this is to the exclusion of a state board.

Much of the force of this contention is taken away by the fact that under the tax law in force in 1850 the supervisor was not made the sole assessor, but the electors might elect two assessors, who had co-ordinate power. Rev. St. 1846. p. 85. Section 1, art. 11, of the constitution provides that 'there shall be elected annually on the first Monday in April in each organized township, one supervisor one township clerk, one commissioner of highways, one school inspector, not exceeding four constables and one overseer of highways for each highway district, whose powers and duties shall be prescribed by law.' It is contended that, inasmuch as the duty of making assessments was at this time reposed in the supervisor, this function cannot now be withholden from him and reposed in the state board. It may be said that the act does not withdraw wholly from the supervisor this duty. It only provides for supervision of his work and correction of errors, and, as already pointed out, the supervisor was not the only person who, under the law as it existed at the time, was authorized to make assessments in townships. Reliance is placed on the two cases of Hubbard v. Board, 25 Mich. 153, and Davies v. Board, 89 Mich. 295, 50 N.W. 862. In the latter case very broad language is used in speaking of the sacredness of the functions exercised by officers when the constitution was adopted. This language must be understood as applying to the case in hand, which was one in which an attempt had been made to withdraw from the control of the highway commissioner and overseer of highways all control of certain highways in their respective jurisdictions. This was not a modification of their functions; it was an abrogation of them; and not only this, but there was an attempt to impose a burden upon the locality,--an interference with local self-government. That it was not intended by the decision in the Davies Case to hold that the legisature can in no case modify the functions of township officers as they existed when the constitution was adopted is evidenced by the fact that Hubbard v. Board, 25 Mich. 153, was quoted with approval, in which case it was said: 'The constitution requires an election every year of a township commissioner of highways and an overseer of highways for every highway district. Their powers were subject to legislative modifications, but no legislation could abolish the officers or take away all their functions.' The real gist of these two decisions is that the provision for the appointment of these officers indicates that the control of highways was, by clear implication, treated as a matter of local concern, and by as clear implication vested in the officers named. The very title of the officers indicated this. Can it be said that by providing for the election of a supervisor, 'whose duties shall be prescribed by law,' there is evidence of a purpose of treating assessments upon which both local and state taxes are to be assessed as a matter of purely local concern, and that the duties of the supervisor to make such assessment are so far implied by this provision as to be beyond legislative control? There is nothing in the title of the office, as used in the constitution, to indicate that he is to be given any authority to make assessments, and not only might this right in large part be taken...