Darnell v. Johnson State Revenue Agent

• Decision Date: 14 June 1915
• Citation: 68 So. 780,109 Miss. 570
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: DARNELL v. JOHNSON STATE REVENUE AGENT

68 So. 780

109 Miss. 570

DARNELL v. JOHNSON STATE REVENUE AGENT

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 14, 1915

March 1915

APPEAL from the circuit court of Quitman county. HON. W. A. ALCORN Judge.

Action by J. C. Johnson, State Revenue Agent, against R. J. Darnell.

From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Chapter 89, Laws of 1912, provides the following form of assessment roll, and directs the state auditor to furnish same to each county assessor:

"What Caption of Roll shall Show.--Number of assessment; name of owner; division of section; section; township; range; east or west; number of acres and valuation of cultivated lands number of acres and valuation of wild and uncultivated land excluding timber; estimated number of feet of timber thereon and valuation of the timber; total number of acres of country lands; valuation of land in cities, towns and villages, excluding improvements and buildings thereon; valuation of improvements and buildings on property in cities, towns and villages; grand total valuation; number of acres and valuation of lands belonging to the state; acreage and valuation of lands subject to levee taxes; valuation of land subject to separate school taxes; number of acres of vacant land not taxable; number of acres of school lands not taxable; number of tax receipts for 191 ; number of tax receipt for 191 ."

The state revenue agent, finding that certain timber belonging to appellant situated on section 3, township 26, range 1 east, Quitman county, had not been returned for assessment, and that a gross underestimate of the timber on section 11 had been returned to the assessor, proceeded to direct the tax collector of said county to assess the timber on both of said sections which had escaped taxation.

The defense set up by the appellant was: First, that the Law of 1912 (chapter 89, Laws 1912) was unconstitutional, in that it discriminated against timber lands; and, second, that the assessment, having been approved by the board of supervisors, was res adjudicata, and could not be reopened.

Section 4281, Code of 1906, referred to in the opinion of the court, is as follows:

"Land shall be assessed according to its intrinsic value, to be judged of by the owner or person having possession or charge thereof, taking into consideration the improvements, the proximity to navigation, to a railroad, to a city, town, village or road, and any other circumstance that tends to enhance its value, and not at what it might bring at a forced sale, but what the owner would be willing to accept and expect to get for it if he were disposed to sell it; and if any person shall deliver or disclose to an assessor or deputy assessor, a list, statement, or return in regard to his land which, in the opinion of the assessor or deputy assessor, is false or fraudulent, or contains any under-statement or undervaluation, the assessor or deputy assessor shall make an assessment of the land at a valuation equal to the highest rate per acre for any lands adjoining that so undervalued. Lands not given in by any person shall be valued in the same manner by the assessor; and should there be a difference in the value of different parcels of a tract, the several parcels shall be separately assessed."

Section 112 of the Constitution of 1890 is as follows:

"Taxation shall be uniform and equal throughout the state. Property shall be taxed in proportion to its value. The legislature may, however, impose a tax per capita upon such domestic animals as from their nature and habits are destructive of other property. Property shall be assessed for taxes under general laws, and by uniform rules, according to its true value. But the legislature may provide for a special mode of valuation and assessment for railroads, and railroad and other corporate property, or for particular species of property belonging to persons, corporations, or associations not situated wholly in one county. But all such property shall be assessed at its true value, and no county shall be denied the right to levy county and special taxes upon such assessment as in other cases of property situated and assessed in the county."

All other facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment disapproved in part. Judgment affirmed in part.

Tim E. Cooper and St. John Waddell, for appellant.

James R. McDowell and Cutrer & Johnston, for appellee.

COOK J. SMITH, C. J., (dissenting in part).

OPINION

COOK, J.

The revenue agent, proceeding under sections 4738 and 4740 of the Code of 1906, sought to have the board of supervisors to reassess certain lands in Quitman county, described as the south half and the east half of the northeast quarter of section 3, and all of section 11, in township 26, range 1 east, belonging to R. J. Darnell, the appellant. The board of supervisors refused to reassess the land in question, and the revenue agent appealed to the circuit court, which court decided that all the land had escaped taxation and should have been assessed by the board of supervisors. From this judgment the owner of the land appeals to this court.

It is contended by appellant that chapter 89, Laws of 1912, violates section 112 of the Constitution, and, further, that the lands in question have been properly and legally assessed for taxation, and the assessment approved by the board of supervisors, and, no appeal having been taken from the order of the board, the entire matter is res adjudicata. This court, of course, has nothing to do with or concern in the policy or impolicy of legislation. It is our function to interpret legislation, and when we have discovered the will of the law-making department it is our duty to apply and make effectual the statute, unless it violates some principle of constitutional law. A fundamental rule of construction admonishes the courts to square statutes with the Constitution, if it may be done without doing violence to the language employed and the intentions of the legislature as expressed in the law under consideration.

The indispensable postulate in the argument of counsel for appellant, whereby they undertake to demonstrate the unconstitutionality of chapter 89, Laws of 1912, lies in the assumption that, by necessary implication, the provisions of chapter 89 repeal section 4281, Code of 1906. In order to substantiate their contention that chapter 89, Laws of 1912, in legal effect, commands the board of supervisors to omit from their valuation of rural or cultivated lands all improvements, it is important to get rid of section 4281, and so they say that this section is necessarily repealed by chapter 89, Laws of 1912. So, with this premise, it is argued that part of section 112 which reads, "Property shall be assessed for taxes under general laws, and by uniform rules, according to its value," is violated by chapter 89, Laws of 1912. This conclusion is reached by pointing out that, while the last-named act requires that in assessing urban lands the value of the improvements thereon shall be separately assessed, the act does not require that improvements on rural lands shall be separately assessed, and failing in this the court will impute to the legislature an intention to discriminate between rural and urban lands.

In our opinion, unless it can be said that chapter 89, Laws of 1912, repeals section 4281 of the Code, the entire superstructure of appellant's argument upon the alleged infringement of the Constitution is swept away. If section 4281 can be read in connection with the act under review all real or imaginary lack of uniformity and equality disappears. In the first place, as has been done many times before, the legislature has added new headings to assessment rolls, and, so far as we have been advised, this procedure has never been questioned. The evident thought is and has always been to list all property for taxation, and to adopt a form of listing calculated to aid the board of supervisors in assessing all property "according to its true value." The act in question merely supplements other laws along this line, and the necessity for continued changes in the form of assessment rolls is brought about by experience.

Uncultivated land may be of little or no value, either because of the sparsity of the timber growth thereon, or because the timber thereon is of that sort which has no merchantable value at all. On the other hand, the land without the timber may be, and frequently is, practically worthless, because the soil is so poor that it does not pay to cultivate it. The legislature knew all this, and knew, further, that large bodies of uncultivated lands, heavily timbered with pine, oak, and other valuable woods, were listed as uncultivated lands at a valuation of the soil itself denuded of the timber--the timber being worth many times the value of the land itself. So it was this form of assessment was adopted, in order that, in arriving at the true value of uncultivated lands, the board of supervisors should have before them a valuation of the timber standing on the land--which element may, or not, be the chief element of value.

Owners of large tracts of valuable timber lands may have cause of complaint against the law; but owners of uncultivated lands in small tracts, where the timber forms an insignificant portion of the value of the land, or is so isolated that it will not pay to market it, will be benefited by the separate assessment. It is not unreasonable to say that there is no necessity for separately valuing improvements on cultivated or farming lands. The improvements on farms are so nearly uniform in character and value that the legislature did not deem it necessary to have the improvements separately valued. It does not follow, however, that improvements shall not be taken into...