Eversole v. Cook

• Decision Date: 13 December 1883
• Docket Number: 10,580
• Parties: Eversole, Marshal, et al. v. Cook et al
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

92 Ind. 222

Eversole, Marshal, et al. v. Cook et al

No. 10,580

Supreme Court of Indiana

December 13, 1883

From the Clark Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed, at the appellants' costs.

J. K Marsh, for appellants.

J. G Howard, J. F. Reed and --- Stannard, for appellees.

OPINION

Best C.

This action was brought to enjoin William Eversole, marshal of the town of Port Fulton, and said town from selling certain personal property belonging to the appellees, for taxes assessed upon it by said town.

A demurrer for the want of facts was overruled to the complaint, and the appellants declining to answer, final judgment was rendered against them. This ruling is assigned as error, and presents the only question in the record.

The assessment in question was made in 1880, and the appellant contends that it is controlled by the act of December 21st 1872. The last clause of the 24th section of that act provides that "All persons, companies and corporations in the State owning steamboats, sailing vessels, wharf boats, barges and other water-craft, shall be required to list the same for assessment and taxation in the county, township, city or town in which the same may belong or be enrolled, registered or licensed, or kept when not enrolled, registered or licensed."

A portion of the property assessed consisted of two steam harbor boats plying in the waters of the Ohio river, and as it was not averred that these were not "enrolled, registered or licensed" in the town of Port Fulton, where the appellees resided during the year the assessment was made, it is insisted that the complaint was insufficient.

That portion of the complaint upon which this question turns is in these words: "The said plaintiffs further say that they are, and for more than five years last before the commencement of this suit they have been, partners in business under the firm name of "Cook &amp Hoffman," and engaged in running boats and attending to coal fleets on the Ohio river, and as such firm own, and have ever since the existence thereof owned, partnership property, consisting of boats, machinery, ropes, etc., to wit, one shanty boat on the Ohio river permanently situated at Cook & Hoffman's coal harbor at Indiana shore of said river, about two miles east of said town of Port Fulton; one steam pump, situated at said point; two steam harbor boats, known as tug boats, and plying on the waters of said river from said harbor...