City of Wichita Falls v. Cooper
| Decision Date | 26 March 1943 |
| Docket Number | No. 14507.,14507. |
| Citation | 170 S.W.2d 777 |
| Parties | CITY OF WICHITA FALLS v. COOPER. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Wichita County; Walter L. Morris, Judge Presiding on Exchange.
Suit by G. W. Cooper against the City of Wichita Falls to have an ordinance of the defendant declared void, and for a permanent injunction against defendant to restrain defendant from allowing tax exemption under ordinance and from issuing a certificate therefor to owners of homesteads. From an adverse judgment, defendant appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
Thelbert Martin, T. A. Hicks, C. M. McFarland, H. M. Muse, and Mathis & Caldwell, all of Wichita Falls, for appellant.
McDonald & Anderson, of Wichita Falls, for appellee.
Plaintiff G. W. Cooper instituted this suit against defendant, the City of Wichita Falls, to have declared void an ordinance passed by the city in 1933, effective January 1, 1934, exempting from all taxes $3,000 of the assessed taxable values of all residence homesteads situated within the corporate limits of the city; seeking also a permanent injunction against defendant from allowing such exemption and issuing a certificate therefor in the future to the owners of such residence homesteads.
Plaintiff filed and prosecuted the suit in his own name and for the use and benefit of all other residents of the City of Wichita Falls similarly situated. We will treat the action as a class suit. For convenience we shall refer to the parties as they appeared in the trial court, and when plaintiff is mentioned it will relate to all those for whom he purported to act.
Defendant is a Home Rule City of more than 40,000 population. It contains approximately 5,750 residence homesteads of taxable values of $3,000 or less, and since the passage of the ordinance, practically all owners have claimed and been allowed the exemption. The total assessed taxable values of property within the city is now, and has been since the ordinance was passed, approximately $35,000,000, of which sum about $7,000,000 assessed valuation is embraced in the homestead exemptions, leaving about $28,000,000 assessed taxable values to bear the entire tax burden of the municipality.
Plaintiff owned a homestead and a substantial amount of other property within the city limits, subject to taxation. He also owned one of defendant's outstanding bonds.
The ordinance was attacked as being in violation of the Constitution of the State of Texas. Allegations were made that the exempted homesteads comprised approximately one-fifth of the total assessed taxable property values and that when exempted by the ordinance, the remaining property would have to bear the entire tax burden to the detriment of such owners; that for the past several years the city had not levied and collected enough taxes to defray its expenses and accumulate necessary sinking funds to pay its maturing outstanding bonded indebtedness; that to meet its obligations, defendant would be forced to raise the prevailing tax rate on property not so declared to be exempt, or to repeal the exemption ordinance and collect taxes on the homestead properties theretofore declared to be exempt from taxation; that a tax on the homestead properties at the prevailing rate would raise sufficient revenue to meet defendant's said obligations.
Defendant answered with general denial, and specially that plaintiff should be denied the relief sought because, (1) he and those whom he represented were guilty of laches in that they had waited about eight years to complain of the ordinance, (2) that they were estopped to deny the validity of the ordinance, since for said eight years they had recognized its validity and accepted the benefits thereunder, (3) plaintiff did not allege that he would be injured or had suffered damages because of the provisions of the ordinance, and (4) that the ordinance was valid and binding on all tax payers within the corporate limits and not in violation of the State Constitution.
Because of the disqualification of the presiding judge of the 30th Judicial District, Hon. Walter L. Morris, Judge of the 67th District Court, was assigned to hear this cause. Trial was had to the court without a jury. By recitations in the judgment, the court found facts to support his conclusions that plaintiff and those represented by him were estopped to challenge the validity of the ordinance of exemption insofar as it affected exemptions and taxation for all years since its adoption up to and including the whole of the year 1942. The judgment effectively declares the exemption ordinance void and of no effect insofar as it will or may affect such exemptions and taxation in said city on and after January 1, 1943. Defendant excepted to the judgment and perfected its appeal.
It can no longer be seriously questioned that class suits, such as this, are recognized in this state, under our blended system of law and equity. Hovey et al. v. Shepherd, 105 Tex. 237, 147 S.W. 224; City of Dallas v. Armour & Co., Tex.Civ.App. 216 S.W. 222, writ refused; Southern Ornamental Iron Works v. Morrow, Tex.Civ. App., 101 S.W.2d 336, writ refused.
First two points relied upon by defendant for reversal are: (1) Error of the court in finding against its theory of laches, and (2) ruling against it on its plea of estoppel. There was no error in either holding. Without going into an extended discussion of the elements necessarily involved in laches and estoppel, we see neither in this record. It will suffice to say that the judgment precluded a possible readjustment of taxes and values for that purpose, that had occurred during the years 1934 to 1942, both inclusive. This ordinance, the annual assessment and taxation, constitute a recrudescence which must be met each and every succeeding year, and each such incident is independent of all those that had gone before. None of the former acts of either party foreclosed those to follow but must be observed or repudiated each time the condition arises, and this suit involves that identical situation.
We overrule the third point, which asserts in effect that plaintiff and those whom he purported to represent have failed to show that they had or would suffer any irreparable injury by the enforcement of the exemption ordinance. While it is undeniably true that plaintiff had received the benefit, if it could be called such, of the exemption from taxation of his homestead up to a $3,000 taxable valuation for several years, yet since he owned and paid taxes on a substantial amount of property over and above that exempted under the ordinance, and since sufficient taxes must be levied and collected from that part not exempt to defray the governmental expense and since approximately twenty per cent of the entire taxable values of all property was made exempt from taxation by the ordinance, it is obvious that the twenty per cent of taxes lost to the city by virtue of the exemptions must be added to and obtained from taxes on the remainder. The amount to meet such a deficiency will be governed by the amount of taxable property a tax payer owns over and above the homestead exemption. By such calculation it is easy to see how plaintiff and those similarly situated would sustain material losses in the future by a continued enforcement of the exemption of twenty per cent of property values from taxation.
Authorities cited by defendant claimed to support its theory of estoppel, in the main, pertain to a situation such as if it had acted on the ordinance and exempted the residence homestead properties for these eight years, and then conclude that the ordinance was void and later attempt to levy and collect the back-tax during the period covered. They are easily distinguished from conditions before us. In Young v. City of Colorado, Tex.Civ.App., 174 S.W. 986, writ refused, over a period of several years the City undertook organizations under various statutes; during the second period it issued bonds; that corporation was subsequently held to be void because...
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