Graham v. Lasater
| Decision Date | 25 April 1894 |
| Citation | 26 S.W. 472 |
| Parties | GRAHAM v. LASATER, Tax Collector. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from district court, Young county; George E. Miller, Judge.
Action by E. S. Graham against M. L. Lasater, sheriff and tax collector. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Johnson & Aiken, B. H. Bassett, and Kearby & Muse, for appellant. R. F. Arnold, for appellee.
Conclusions of Law and Fact.
This suit was instituted by appellant, Graham, to enjoin the appellee, Lasater, as sheriff and tax collector of Young county, from the collection of a portion of the taxes assessed upon his real estate. The grounds relied upon for the injunction may be briefly stated as follows: (1) Fraud on the part of the board of equalization in raising the valuation of appellant's property; (2) that the board has no power to sit for the equalization of property after the 1st day of July of each year; (3) insufficiency of the notice given appellant of the sitting of the board; (4) failure on the part of the board to classify appellant's land as required by law. The general judgment in favor of appellee imports a finding that the evidence failed to establish the charge of fraud made against the board of equalization, and, as we think this finding is amply sustained by the evidence, we need not consider the question as to whether or not this allegation, if established, would have been sufficient to authorize the granting of an injunction in a suit brought against the tax collector alone. It may be added, however, that ordinarily fraud only renders a judgment voidable, and not void, and that an attack upon this ground must be in a direct proceeding to vacate the judgment, and cannot be made available in a collateral attack to prevent its enforcement.
By the first subdivision of article 1517a, 1 Sayles' Civ. St., it is provided: "The county commissioners' courts of the several counties of this state shall convene and sit as a board of equalization on the second Monday in June of each year, or as soon thereafter as practicable before the 1st day of July, to receive all the assessment lists or books of the assessors of their counties for their inspection, correction, equalization, and approval." It will thus be seen that the purpose of the meeting which is thus required to be held in June is to receive the lists and books from the assessor, and that it is not expressly stipulated that the work of the board in making the inspection and correction required of it shall be completed within the time named in this section. In the case of Swenson v. McLaren, 2 Tex. Civ. App. 334, 21 S. W. 300, we quoted with approval somewhat at length from section 448 in Sutherland on Statutory Construction, where it is held that ordinarily statutes of this kind are, as to the time specified within which an act is to be done, only directory, and do not prevent its performance after the expiration thereof. We find nothing in this section of the statute which leads us to conclude that the legislature intended that the commissioners' court should not only meet in June for the purpose of receiving the lists from the assessor, but should be restricted to that month in giving the notices required to the taxpayer, and in the performance of the duties required of them in hearing the different parties. We can easily see how, under some circumstances, such time would be wholly inadequate for the purpose intended to be accomplished. We therefore conclude that the action of the board of equalization sitting after the 1st day of July, which in this case seems to have been a continuation of the June meeting, is not for that reason a nullity.
It perhaps will be conceded that the legislature would have no power to provide for the assessment of a citizen's property for taxation by a board of equalization without requiring proper notice to be given to the one thus to be affected. Cooley, Tax'n, p. 361 et seq. Our legislature has not attempted to do this. On the contrary, it has provided for double notice. Subdivision 7 of article 1517a, supra, provides: ...
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Tax Assessments Against Pocahontas Land Co., In re
...v. Ellis, 227 Or. 467, 362 P.2d 705 (1961); Polk County v. State Board of Equalization, 484 S.W.2d 49 (Tenn.App.1972); Graham v. Lasater, 26 S.W. 472 (Tex.Civ.App.1894); Annot., 105 A.L.R. 624 We believe that two defects occurred in the hearing before the Board which compels us to uphold th......
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...submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of the Board of Equalization. Victory v. State, 138 Tex. 285, 158 S.W.2d 760; Graham v. Lasater, Tex.Civ.App., 26 S.W. 472, no writ history. See also 24 A.L.R. 331 and 84 A.L.R. 197. They stand in the same position as the taxpayers in the first categ......
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Cobb v. Downing
...appear that the plaintiffs were without notice provided by law. Article 7564, Vernon's Sayles' Annotated Civil Statutes; Graham v. Lasater (Tex. Civ. App.) 26 S. W. 472; Swenson v. McLaren, 2 Tex. Civ. App. 331, 21 S. W. 300; Clawson Lumber Co. v. Jones, 20 Tex. Civ. App. 208, 49 S. W. 909.......
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Victory v. State
...to give the board jurisdiction. Particularly is this true when the agent appeared before the board of equalization. Graham v. Lasater, Tex.Civ.App., 26 S.W. 472. The notice given by the board to Rose Dorothy Victory for the year 1934 was in substantial compliance with the statute. True, she......