Dickson v. Rouse

• Decision Date: 31 October 1883
• Citation: 80 Mo. 224
• Parties: DICKSON v. ROUSE, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

80 Mo. 224

DICKSON

v.ROUSE, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1883.

Appeal from Hannibal Court of Common Pleas.--HON. JOHN T. REDD, Judge.

REVERSED.

Orr, Johnson & Foreman for appellant.

The list of taxable property is sufficient. R. S. of Ill. 1874, p. 870, § 78. The assessment having been made, the judgment rendered and the warrant being in the hands of the collector, it was his duty to execute it. He could not constitute himself a court of correction. The laws of Illinois provide a remedy for the assessed. Feisenthal v. Johnson, 104 Ill. 21. The warrant was not defective because there was no descriptive list in the tax-book of the personal property. Chinigny v. People, 78 Ill. 574. The warrant protected the collector just as an execution would a sheriff. Hill v. Figby, 25 Ill. 156; 23 Ill. 574; Herman on Execution, §§ 151, 152.

Thos. P. Gatts and Geo. A. Mahan for respondent.

Defendant was acting under the warrant addressed to Wm. Gatts and acted wholly without authority. Ill. St. 1874, chap. 120, §§ 132, 136; Ill. St. 1874, p. 883, § 153, also p. 879, § 133. The warrant must strictly conform to the statute and be fair on its face. Cooley on Tax., p. ____. The tax-book was illegal, because it did not contain on its face a list or description of the property or any part thereof upon which the tax was claimed. Ill. St. 1874, chap. 120, § 123; Ill. St. 1874, chap. 120, § 25; Cooley on Tax., pp. 258, 259; 54 N. Y. 62; 15 N. Y. 316. Unless defendant can justify under his alleged warrant, he was a trespasser. Cooley on Torts, 461; 5 Wend. 240; 1 Otto 153; Cooley on Tax., p. 292. Plaintiff and his partner were doing business in Adams county, Illinois, and the cord-wood on which the tax was assessed could not be taxed in Pike county, Illinois, although situate in the latter county. Cooley on Tax., p. 271; St. Louis v. Ferry Co., 11 Wall. 423; Morgan v. Parham, 16 Wall. 471; 8 B. Mon. 1, 2; King v. McD., 31 Ill. 418; 14 Ill. 163. The assessment and levy was in violation of law. 81 Ill. 324.

MARTIN, C.

This was a suit before a justice of the peace to recover the value of a three-horse breaking plow, a two-horse cultivator and a double-hinged harrow alleged to have been wrongfully taken by defendant. The suit was dismissed by the justice for want of jurisdiction. On appeal to the Hannibal court of common pleas the case was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury. The defendant admitted the taking and carrying away of the property. He then proved that he was the collector of Levee township, Pike county, Illinois, and that in his capacity as such he seized the property in question in said township under and by virtue of the collector's tax-books of said township, and a warrant thereto annexed, commanding him to collect the personal tax appearing in said tax-books against plaintiff; that in pursuance with said authority the property sued for was seized and sold, and the proceeds applied to the payment of the tax.

It was objected at the trial that the tax-book given in evidence did not contain upon its face a descriptive list of the personal property upon which the tax was claimed, and that the book which constituted a part of his authority was for this reason not in conformity with the statute of Illinois, and, therefore, no justification for the levy. It was claimed by plaintiff that the collector's book should contain an enumeration or list of the different kinds of personal property possessed by the tax-payer as fully as given into the assesssor by the tax-payer, and that the statement of the aggregate amount or value was not sufficient. In this case the statement was of an aggregate sum or value, and was not a statement of kind or quality in detail. The learned judge deciding the case seems to have given it a very deliberate investigation, which is evidenced by a written opinion copied into the record. The conclusion reached by him was that the books, by reason of the defect objected to, did not conform with the requirements of the statutes of Illinois, and that the defendant was without authority or justification in making the seizure. I am unable to agree with the learned judge in this conclusion. There was nothing in the books to show that the property so assessed and certified to the collector was illegally assessed, or that the tax or its valuation was not authorized by law. If it be true that the statute required the books to show the property of the tax-payer in detail, and the officers whose duty it was to make out and certify the books had departed from this direction, and entered the property in one aggregate sum or valuation, this, I think, would be only an irregularity which could not avoid the tax-book as a warrant of authority in the hands of the collector. It was, nevertheless, the genuine act of the officers who had full authority to make out and certify the books of warrant and seizure. It was a matter of which they had jurisdiction, and an...