Conn. Val. Lumber Co. v. Town of Monroe

• Decision Date: 30 June 1902
• Parties: CONNECTICUT VAL. LUMBER CO. v. TOWN OF MONROE.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

52 A. 940

71 N.H. 473

CONNECTICUT VAL. LUMBER CO.

v. TOWN OF MONROE.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Grafton.

June 30, 1902.

Transferred from superior court; Young, Judge.

Petition by the Connecticut Valley Lumber Company against the town of Monroe for abatement of taxes. Case discharged.

The plaintiffs are organized as a corporation under the laws of Connecticut, and do business in this state. Their principal business is cutting, transporting, sawing, and selling lumber. They own real estate in Monroe in this county, including a sawmill, and annually float down the Connecticut river logs cut in this state, in Vermont, and in Canada, some of which are usually held in booms at Monroe. The logs usually arrive there about June loth of each year, and are there manufactured by the plaintiffs during the summer and succeeding winter, and the product, as fast as sawed, is stored in the plaintiffs' mill yard in Vermont. The logs held in the booms have been heretofore taxed to the plaintiffs as stock in trade. In November, 1900, the plaintiffs' mill was shut down, and has not been run since then, except that a part of the mill was run about two days in May, 1901. The plaintiffs have continued to do business elsewhere in this state, and were then, and are now, manufacturing lumber in Massachusetts. They had no logs in their boom and no other stock in trade in Monroe April 1, 1901, nor at any time since. Upon that date the plaintiffs were taxed upon real estate valued at $30,000 and stock in trade valued at $35,000. They ask an abatement of the tax assessed upon stock in trade. For the year preceding April 1, 1901, 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 feet of lumber were manufactured at the plaintiffs' mill, worth, when manufactured, from $50,000 to $60,000. The defendant offered to show that the average value equaled the amount at which the plaintiffs' stock in trade was appraised. The plaintiffs did not file any inventory. They offer to show that they paid taxes upon all logs owned by them April 1, 1900 and 1901, at the places where they then were. The defendant offered to prove that the whole tax assessed against the plaintiffs was not more than should have been assessed upon their real estate alone, upon a valuation in proportion to other property in the town. Other questions of evidence suggested are stated in the opinion.

Hosford & Wright and Drew, Jordan & Buckley, for plaintiffs.

Smith & Smith and Batchellor & Mitchell, for defendant.

PARSONS, J. A case presented to this court upon an agreed statement of fact should contain some provision by which the conclusions of law arrived at upon the facts may be specially applied by an order from this court. "It is no part of the business of the court to pronounce opinions upon abstract questions of law." State v. Stevens, 36 N. H. 59, 61. Neither will the court pass upon legal questions presented by an agreed case which may not be presented at the trial. Sceva v. True, 53 N. H. 627, 630. It is not usually advisable to pass upon unnecessary or hypothetical cases (State v. Baron, 64 N. H. 612, 5 Atl. 718; Scheer v. Bedford, 62 N. H. 691, 692); or to decide difficult questions, which may not arise when all the facts are found, the decision of which is therefore not material to the rights of the parties (State v. Manchester & L. R. Co., 70 N. H. 421, 435, 48 Atl. 1103; Fellows v. Fellows, 68 N. H. 611, 612, 44 Atl. 752; State v. Morin, 65 N. H. 667, 23 Atl. 529). Some of the questions, however, argued in this case are essential to the rights in dispute in any view of the facts, and the decision of them at this time may aid in the trial, and possibly may render one unnecessary. They have therefore been considered.

The plaintiffs are a foreign corporation, engaged in the manufacture of lumber, and doing business in this state. They are required by statute to conform to the laws of this state as to returns and taxation, as domestic corporations are. Pub. St. c. 148, § 21. By the act of July 7, 1827 (Laws 1830, p. 555, § 6), it was declared to be "the duty of the clerk, agent, or directors of any manufacturing company or corporation in this state, annually to exhibit to the selectmen of the town in which such manufacturing establishment is situated a true and just account of all the ratable estate of which such company or corporation shall be possessed on the first day of April in each year." In the revision of 1842 this provision was changed to a requirement that such corporations should furnish the same account on application by any selectmen at their principal place of business. Rev. St c. 41, § 7; Gen. St. c. 51, § 8. In Cocheco Mfg. Co. v. Town of Strafford, 51 N. H. 455, 470, 471, it was determined that a corporation taxable only for real estate, and having its principal place of business elsewhere, was not required by the statute to exhibit an account of their taxable estate to the selectmen of the town in which such real estate was located, as a prerequisite to the maintenance of a petition for tax abatement; and that the expression "persons liable to be taxed" included inhabitants only, and not nonresidents; in such case the tax being assessed against the land, and not against the owners. Dewey v. Stratford, 42 N. H. 282, 286. Section 6, c. 57, Pub. St., requires selectmen to cause copies of the blank inventories provided under the statute "to be given to all persons and corporations within their respective towns who are taxable therein for any real or personal estate"; while section 8 of the same chapter requires that "every * * * corporation, by its president or other principal officer, shall fill out the blank inventory in all respects according to its requirements, * * * and shall deliver such inventory to the selectmen." The same construction has been given to these provisions as was given to the earlier provisions providing for the exhibition of an account of ratable estate, and nonresidents are not required to file an inventory. Kent v. Town of Exeter, 68 N. H. 469, 470, 44 Atl. 607; Town of Farmington v. Downing, 67 N. H. 441, 442, 30 Atl. 345. The plaintiffs claim they were taxable April 1, 1901, in Monroe, only for the real estate owned by them upon that day. "Stock in trade employed in any town, owned by a person not resident therein, shall be taxed in such town, to the owner or person having the care thereof, on the first day of April, whether such person be a resident of the town or not." Pub. St. c. 56, § 10. Whether a nonresident, taxable for stock in trade employed in a town, is within the reason of the interpretation excusing nonresidents from the obligation to file an inventory or furnish an account, need not be determined at this stage of the case. It is clear that a nonresident, whether a person or corporation, who is taxable only for real estate, is not under that obligation. The substantial question, upon the merits, is whether the plaintiffs were taxable for stock in trade in Monroe April 1, 1901. If they were not, the fact that they did not file an inventory does not prevent their maintenance of this petition. If they were so taxable, as the question thus far presented appears to be one of right, and not of erroneous appraisal, the question of technical right to maintain a petition unsustainable on the merits is not of practical importance. The tax was assessed upon the plaintiffs' logs held during a part of the year in their booms in Monroe. The plaintiffs offer to show that the same logs were taxed in the towns where they were on April 1st in this state, in Vermont, and in Canada, and that they have paid such taxes for the years 1900 and 1901 upon all logs owned by them therein in those years.

Logs and lumber may be taxable as stock in trade. Pub. St. c. 55, § 7, cl. 6. The same species of property is taxable in the town in which it is situate or to which it is nearest April 1st (Pub. St....