Feltham v. Board of County Com'rs

• Decision Date: 13 June 1904
• Citation: 77 P. 332,10 Idaho 182
• Parties: FELTHAM v. BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, WASHINGTON COUNTY
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

77 P. 332

10 Idaho 182

FELTHAM v. BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, WASHINGTON COUNTY

Supreme Court of Idaho

June 13, 1904

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION-APPEAL FROM ORDER OF.

1. Section 1776, Revised Statutes, as amended at the Session of 1899, providing for appeals from the order of boards of county commissioners, does not authorize an appeal from an order of a board of equalization.

2. The county board of equalization is a constitutional board exercising powers and duties separate and distinct from those exercised by the board of county commissioners.

(Syllabus by the court.)

APPEAL from District Court in and for Washington County. Honorable George H. Stewart, Judge.

From an order made by the board of equalization directing the assessment of the capital stock of the Washington County Abstract Company against the stockholders thereof the stockholders appealed to the district court. The district court ordered the assessment canceled, and directed that the property (abstract-books) of the corporation be assessed to the corporation. From the judgment of the district court the abstract company appealed. Reversed.

Cause remanded, with direction. Costs of this appeal awarded to appellant.

Lot L Feltham, for Appellant.

The district court has not original jurisdiction over the matter of equalization of taxes. If objection is made by a person to the assessment of his property, he must first appear before the board of county commissioners, sitting as a board of equalization at a place and time fixed by statute, and there enter his protest. The board has exclusive original jurisdiction over the subject matter, and until they act no other court in this state has jurisdiction of the matter. When they act and decide the question submitted to them, then the aggrieved party may appeal from their decision in the matter and have the question retried in the district court. The jurisdiction of the district court then is purely appellate. In order for it to have jurisdiction over the subject matter, someone must bring the question up on appeal as provided for in the Session Laws of 1899, Pinney's edition, page 364. Said court cannot assume that the board of commissioners have erred in their action in some particular and then proceed to correct their decision. Its jurisdiction does not extend over such matters except when some party to the proceedings below or a taxpayer on behalf of the county perfects an appeal from such decision of the board and presents the question regularly before the district court on appeal. (Morse v. Presby, 25 N.H. 302; Northout v. Lemery, 8 Or. 317.) The court cannot act upon persons who are not legally before it, upon one who is not a party to the suit, upon a plaintiff who has not invoked its arbitrament, or upon a defendant who has never been notified of the proceeding. It cannot adjudicate upon a subject which does not fall within its province as defined or limited by law. Neither can it go beyond the issues and pass upon a matter which the parties neither submitted nor intended to submit for its determination. (1 Black on Judgments, 1891 ed., pp. 261, 267, 328, secs. 215, 219, 220, 270; Horner v. Doe, 1 Smith (Ind.), 10; Ford v. Doyle, 37 Cal. 346; McCoy v. Allen, 16 W.Va. 731; Shinn v Board of Education, 39 W.Va. 506, 20 S.E. 604; Freeman on Void Judicial Sales, pp. 8. 12, secs. 3, 5; People exrel Union Trust Co. v. Coleman, 126 N.Y. 433, 27 N.E 818, 12 L. R. A. 762; Desty on Taxation, sec. 74.)

John A. Bagley, Attorney General, for Respondent.

The appeal from the order of the board of equalization to the district court brought the entire record up for trial de novo, or it was an attempt to appeal from a nonappealable order and should have been dismissed. The entire record was before the court for a trial de novo. (Campbell v. Board of Commrs., 5 Idaho 53, 46 P. 1022.) The officers and stockholders of the appellant company, in the name of the company by Lot L. Feltham, their attorney, commenced this proceeding when it applied to the board of equalization to strike the assessment of their abstract-books from the assessment-roll. The district court had jurisdiction of the entire matter. (Pol. Code, secs. 1608-1611; Van Camp v. Board of Commrs., 2 Idaho 29, 2 P. 721; Rupert v. Board, 2 Idaho 19, 2 P. 718.) If the entire record was not before the district court, it was an attempt to appeal from a nonappealable order and should have been dismissed. The board of equalization had no authority to strike the assessment of the appellant company's books and records from the assessment-roll. Its order to have this done was void. The legislature has provided a system of levying, equalizing and collecting taxes. (Pol. Code, secs. 1311-1457, inclusive.) The system is complete and excludes all matters not included. The county board of equalization's duties are prescribed in the laws of this state. (Pol. Code, secs. 1372-1383.) No power is given to the board of equalization to strike property legally assessed from the assessment-roll. An appeal does not lie from an order of the county board of equalization to the district court. The board of county commissioners and the county board of equalization are two separate and distinct bodies, created by different acts of the legislature. The right of appeal given by the statute from an order of the board of commissioners does not imply the same right to appeal from the order and decision of the board of equalization. (General Custer Min. Co. v. Van Camp, 2 Idaho 40, 3 P. 20.)

AILSHIE, J. Sullivan, C. J., and Stockslager, J., concur.

OPINION

AILSHIE, J.

This appeal is prosecuted by the Washington County Abstract Company, Limited, a corporation organized and existing under the laws of this state. On the eighteenth day of July, 1903 the appellant, through its attorney, appeared before the board of commissioners of Washington county, then sitting as a board of equalization, and made application to the board to strike from the assessment-roll of the county for the year 1903 the assessment of the abstract-books belonging to the appellant and assessed at the sum of $ 1,000. After a hearing the board granted the petition and ordered the assessment stricken from the roll. On the same day the board of commissioners, sitting as a board of equalization, ordered that the individual stockholders of the capital stock of the appellant corporation be assessed according to the number of shares held by each in the aggregate sum of $ 1,000, which was the valuation placed upon the abstract-books, and thereupon ordered that notice of such action be given by the clerk to each of the stockholders. After the service of notice, and on the twenty-seventh day of July, 1903, the stockholders appeared before the board and filed their written application asking the board to strike from the assessment-roll the assessment made against them on their stock held in said corporation. This application was refused and denied, and the stockholders, five in number, appealed to the district court. When the matter was called for hearing in the district court the county attorney moved to dismiss the appeal upon two grounds, the second of which is, "That the court has no jurisdiction in said pretended matter of appeal for the reason that no appeal is allowed by law in the state of Idaho in any matter coming before and passed upon by the board of equalization." This motion was overruled by the court, to which ruling the county attorney took his exception. The court thereafter proceeded to hear the appeal upon its merits, and on the fourth day of November, 1903, made and filed his findings of fact and conclusions of law and entered a judgment directing that the order of the board of equalization assessing the stock of the corporation to the stockholders be vacated and set aside, and that the original assessment of $ 1,000 against the Washington County Abstract Company be reinstated as the assessment against said...