Columbia Irr. Dist. v. Benton County

• Decision Date: 03 October 1928
• Docket Number: 21140.
• Parties: COLUMBIA IRR. DIST v. BENTON COUNTY et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

270 P. 813

149 Wash. 234

COLUMBIA IRR. DIST v. BENTON COUNTY et al.

No. 21140.

Supreme Court of Washington

October 3, 1928

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, Benton County; Truax, Judge.

Action by the Columbia Irrigation District against Benton County, a municipal corporation, and others. From the judgment dismissing the action, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

p>Page M. M. Moulton, of Kennewick, for appellant.

Geo. O Beardsley, of Prosser, for respondents.

John H Dunbar and B. B. Adams, both of Olympia, and Williamson & La Berge, of Yakima, amici curiae.

MAIN J.

The plaintiff, an irrigation district, brought this action to restrain the collection of general taxes upon farm property within the boundaries of the district the title of which was in the district. To the complaint a demurrer was interposed and sustained. The plaintiff elected to stand upon its demurrer and refused to plead further. Judgment was entered dismissing the action, from which plaintiff appeals.

By reason of the failure of certain owners of property within the boundaries of the appellant district to pay their assessments, title was acquired as provided by statute by the district. Thereafter general taxes were levied upon this property, and the present action, as stated, is to restrain their collection.

The first question is whether land property within an irrigation district, the title of which is in the district, is subject to general taxes. Section 2 of art. 7 of the Constitution of this state, after stating that the Legislature shall provide by law a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation on all the property of the state, according to its value in money, and shall prescribe such regulation by general law as shall secure a just valuation for taxation of all property provides:

'That the property of the United States, and of the state, counties, school districts, and other municipal corporations, * * * shall be exempt from taxation.'

The precise question is whether irrigation districts are within the designation of 'other municipal corporations.' A 'municipal corporation,' in its strict and proper sense, is a body politic established by law partly as an agency of the state to assist in the civil government of the country, but chiefly to regulate and administer the local and internal affairs of the city, town, or district which is incorporated. Sometimes the term 'municipal corporation' is used in a broader sense and includes public quasi corporations, the principal purpose of whose creation is an instrumentality of the state but not for the regulation of local and special affairs of a compact community. Dillon on Municipal Corporations (5th Ed.) vol. 1 §§ 31 and 32.

In Board of Directors of Middle Kittitas Irr. Dist. v. Peterson, 4 Wash. 147, 29 [149 Wash. 236] P. 995, it was held that an irrigation district was not a municipal corporation within the meaning of article 8, § 6, of the Constitution, which provides that no county, city, town, school district, or 'other municipal corporation' shall for any purpose become indebted in any manner to an amount exceeding 1 1/2 per centum of the taxable property therein without the assent of three-fifths of the voters therein voting at an election to be held for that purpose. It was there said:

'It does not follow, however, that every corporation, which may be constituted by the state as an agency in the performance of some public or quasi public duty, comes within said definition. One of the essentials of a municipal corporation is that for the purposes for which it is organized it must affect all within its boundaries alike, and this is true even although such corporation is constituted for a single purpose; for instance, a school district, though organized only for the purpose of providing means and furnishing facilities for the education of its children, yet affects all the taxpayers of such district alike. The same may be said of a county. It has only limited powers, it is true, but those powers are to be exercised in the interest of all the inhabitants of the county alike. Such is not the case with corporations formed under the provisions of the act in question, for, while it is true that its powers and privileges are subject to the will of the majority of the electros therein, yet when it acts thereunder it does not equally affect all of its inhabitants. The act does not provide that its purposes shall be carried out by means of a tax on all the property within the district, but on the contrary expressly limits it to the real estate situated therein, and which is judged to be benefited by the improvement contemplated. It will thus be seen that even if we are to hold that every corporation which the legislature sees fit to make use of for the purpose of aiding in the government of any district or locality, or providing for the inhabitants thereof, any right or privilege common to them all, were municipal corporations within the inhibition of said constitutional provision, yet it would not follow that corporations of the kind contemplated by this act were also municipal corporations. The powers conferred upon these irrigation districts are not primarily that of government or regulation, or even of taxation, though such are conferred to a limited degree as necessarily incident to the main power conferred. The primary and main power thus conferred is that of local improvement of the real estate therein for the benefit of its owners, and at their expense. In one sense the district thus constituted is not a public corporation at all; its object has no connection with any of the public duties which the state owes to its inhabitants. In a certain sense it is only the purely private interest of the freeholders that is sought to be subserved.'

In the case of In re Riverside Irrigation District, 129 Wash. 627, 225 P. 636, it was held that an irrigation district was not a public or quasi municipal corporation possessing such powers and functions as to prohibit one district from overlapping the territory of another district. In that case the prior cited case was referred to and quoted from with approval, after which it was said:

'This was said when irrigation districts came nearer possessing power of general taxation than they do now. Since then this court has recognized irrigation districts as municipal corporations, using that term in a limited sense meaning only that they are legal entities of that nature for certain limited purposes.

'As already suggested, we think it needs nothing more than a casual reading of the statutes above referred to to demonstrate that these irrigation districts are limited in their power to the construction of works and the acquisition and furnishing of water for irrigation of lands within their respective territorial limits looking to the increasing of the productiveness of such

...