Fulton County v. Wright

• Decision Date: 14 February 1917
• Docket Number: 241.
• Citation: 91 S.E. 487,146 Ga. 447
• Parties: FULTON COUNTY ET AL. v. WRIGHT, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, ET AL.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

91 S.E. 487

146 Ga. 447

FULTON COUNTY ET AL. v. WRIGHT, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, ET AL.

No. 241.

Supreme Court of Georgia

February 14, 1917

Syllabus by the Court.

Money placed on general deposit in a bank by a railroad corporation, subject to check, creates a chose in action, and is taxable for county and municipal purposes in the county and municipality wherein the principal office of such corporation is located by its charter or by law. "Such property is 'located' property in the meaning of the law of this state providing the machinery for distributing the property of railroad companies for county and municipal taxation."

The court did not err in refusing the mandamus.

Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; W. D. Ellis, Judge.

Petition for mandamus by Fulton County and other counties and by the City of Atlanta and other cities, against W. A. Wright Comptroller General. Judgment for defendant, and petitioners bring error. Affirmed.

Saml. H. Sibley, of Union Point, for plaintiffs in error.

Pierce Bros., C. Henry Cohen, and Isaac S. Peebles, Jr., all of Augusta, and Clifford Walker, Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.

HILL J. (after stating the facts as above).

This case is controlled by the principle decided in the case of Greene County v. Wright, 126 Ga. 504, 54 S.E. 951.

That case is so thoroughly reasoned out that we will not undertake to cover the same territory again. In the view we take of the case, it is only necessary to point out wherein that decision is controlling in the instant case. In that case the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company, a domestic corporation whose railroad is wholly within this state, and which was shown to run through the territorial limits of each of the counties and municipalities which were the petitioners (the same counties being petitioners in that case as in this), owned in the state of Georgia 15,000 shares of the capital stock of the Western Railway of Alabama, a corporation of the state of Alabama. In that case it was held that:

"Stock in a nonresident railroad corporation owned by a domestic railroad company is taxable for county and municipal purposes in that county and city wherein the principal office of such corporation is fixed by its charter or by-law. Such property is 'located' property in the meaning of the law of this state providing the machinery for distributing the property of railroad companies for county and municipal taxation."

In the instant case the Georgia Railroad returned for taxation among other things $92,728.20 as "cash on hand and amounts due from other railroads." This money so returned, according to the agreed statement of facts, came from freight and passenger earnings, mail pay, and miscellaneous earnings on hand at certain dates after expenditures were made in the operation of the railroad. The Georgia Railroad is operated by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company and the Atlantic...