Getchell v. Supervisors of Polk Cnty.

• Decision Date: 26 April 1879
• Citation: 51 Iowa 107,50 N.W. 574
• Parties: GETCHELL ET AL. v. SUPERVISORS OF POLK COUNTY.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

51 Iowa 107

50 N.W. 574

GETCHELL ET AL.

v.SUPERVISORS OF POLK COUNTY.¹

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 26, 1879.

Appeal from circuit court, Polk county.

The board of supervisors of Polk county raised the assessment of Des Moines township 10 per cent. The plaintiffs, who are the owners of a large amount of real estate in the township, appealed from the action of the board to the circuit court, by which the action of the board was reversed. From the judgment of the circuit court the defendants appeal.W. E. Miller, for appellants.

C. C. Cole and Curtis Bates, for appellees.

ADAMS, J.

The townships of Des Moines and Lee, in Polk county, are both embraced within the city of Des Moines. The former lies upon the west side of the Des Moines river, and the latter upon the east. Both together constitute one assessorial district, and have but one assessor. Chapter 6, Acts 16th Gen. Assem. The board of supervisors did not raise the assessment of Lee township. In raising the assessment of a part only of the city of Des Moines, to-wit, Des Moines township, it is claimed by appellees that the action of the board was illegal. The board relies for its justification upon section 832 of the Code, which provides that the board of supervisors shall constitute a county board of equalization, and shall equalize the assessments of the several townships, cities, and incorporated towns of their county. This would seem to confer the authority claimed but for the fact that where a township is embraced with other territory within a city, and becomes thereby, in connection with other territory, a single assessorial district, the township as an assessorial district disappears, and can no longer be dealt with as such. This will appear more clearly by considering the true functions of the board of supervisors as an equalizing board. It is not their function to correct the various errors of assessors in the assessment of specific pieces of property, but a general error arising from their general estimate of all property or a class of property assessed by them. The board is to secure, as far as practicable, the same uniformity of estimate which might be expected if all the property in the county were assessed by one assessor. This is to be done, of course, not by changing specific assessments of an assessor, but his entire assessment of a given class or classes. His errors in specific assessments are to be rectified by the equalizing board of his assessorial district....