Capital Const. Co. v. City of Des Moines

• Citation: 235 N.W. 476,211 Iowa 1228
• Decision Date: 17 March 1931
• Docket Number: 40642
• Parties: CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, Appellant, v. CITY OF DES MOINES et al., Appellees
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

235 N.W. 476

211 Iowa 1228

CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, Appellant, v. CITY OF DES MOINES et al., Appellees

No. 40642

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

March 17, 1931

Appeal from Polk District Court.--LOY LADD, Judge.

This action is to enjoin the defendants from enforcing the collection of certain taxes assessed against the property of the plaintiff, and asking for a decree to expunge and annul said tax from the records of Polk County, and for general equitable relief. From a decree for the defendants, the plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Stipp Perry, Bannister & Starzinger, for appellant.

Carl Missildine, Alex Miller, Charles Hutchinson, F. T. Van Liew and C. A. Weaver, for appellees.

ALBERT J. FAVILLE, C. J., and STEVENS, DE GRAFF, and WAGNER, JJ., concur.

OPINION

ALBERT, J.

Plaintiff is a corporation for pecuniary profit, organized under the laws of the state of Iowa, with its principal place of business in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa. Its business is the "manufacture of roads, pavements, and bridges," and in connection therewith, it owns and uses certain machinery and equipment, such as cement mixers, graders, conveying equipment, etc. The assessor of the city of Des Moines returned on his assessment roll an item of $ 14,000 against the plaintiff. This assessment roll purported to assess the property of said company as of January 1, 1929.

The claim of the plaintiff is that this item cannot be the basis of assessment in the assessment district of the city of Des Moines, and is void and uncollectible, and the assessor had no right, jurisdiction, or authority to assess the same, because said machinery and equipment were never in Polk County, Iowa, and on January 1, 1929, and for six months prior to said date, said machinery was in Henderson County, Illinois, being used in connection with the business of said company in making and constructing concrete roadways.

We are furnished with a very able brief and argument on the first question raised in this case: to wit, that the state of Iowa had no jurisdiction to tax tangible personal property located in other states. For the purposes of this case, we accept such statement as a correct statement of the law; but with the application of this doctrine to the fact situation in this case, we do not agree.

In 1928, plaintiff was engaged in constructing a concrete pavement in the counties of Jackson and Clinton in this state, and about July 1st of that year, having obtained a contract for pavement in the state of Illinois, shipped this machinery to Henderson County in that state, where it was kept until about July, 1929. The evidence shows that the moving of this machinery to the state of Illinois was for the temporary purpose of completing a contract for pavement, and upon completion of the same, the machinery was returned to Iowa for another job, near Creston, in Union County. The absence of the machinery from the state of Iowa, therefore was only temporary, and not of a permanent nature. This being true, the contention of the appellant as to taxing tangible property located in another state has no application. Were the rule otherwise, the owner of tangible personal property could move it beyond the limits of the...