Hannibal & St. Joseph R.R. Co. v. Shacklett

• Decision Date: 31 October 1860
• Citation: 30 Mo. 550
• Parties: HANNIBAL AND ST. JOSEPH RAILROAD COMPANY, Plaintiff in Error, v. SHACKLETT, Defendant in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

30 Mo. 550

HANNIBAL AND ST. JOSEPH RAILROAD COMPANY, Plaintiff in Error,

v.SHACKLETT, Defendant in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1860.

1. The exemption of the stock of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company from all state and county taxes, contained in the original charter of said company, is modified by the acceptance on the part of said company of the act of September 20, 1852; (Railroad Laws, p. 115; Sess. Acts, 1853, p. 15;) and the corporate property of said company, although representing the stock, is subject to taxation at the time and in the manner specifically provided for in the third section of said last mentioned act.

2. The road-bed, machinery and depots of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, and the other property used by said company in operating its road, are to be considered as part of and represented by the capital stock of said company, and are not liable to taxation under that provision of the general revenue law subjecting to taxation “all property owned by incorporated companies over and above their capital stock.” (R. C. 1855, p. 1322.)

Error to Marion Circuit Court.

This was a suit brought by the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company to recover back the sum of six hundred and fifteen dollars and eighty-six cents paid by the plaintiff to the defendant Shacklett as tax collector of Marion county, being the amount of state, county and asylum taxes levied and assessed on the property, real and personal, belonging to plaintiff in Marion county in the year 1858. The plaintiff sets forth in its petition the various pieces and kinds of property taxed, consisting of the road-bed, depot, machine shops, machinery and rolling stock, &c., and the assessed value of each and the amount of the taxes assessed; that all the property taxed was used and necessary to operate its road; that said property was exempt from taxation; that the assessment was illegal and void; that the collector demanded said taxes of plaintiff, and upon plaintiff's refusal, levied upon and seized personal property of plaintiff and was about to sell to make the tax; that to prevent a sale plaintiff paid said tax under protest.

The court sustained a demurrer to this petition.

Leonard, Lamb and Lakenan, for plaintiff in error.

I. It is manifest from the provisions of the revenue act that all corporate property shall be taxed but once, that none shall be doubly taxed. The road-beds, ties, rails, and other fixtures, together with the rolling stock necessary to the working of the road and actually used for that purpose, form part of the capital stock within the meaning of the provision of the revenue act. The capital stock is not merely the representative of this property, but it is this very property that constitutes the capital stock. (12 Gill & Jo. 117; Gordon v. City of Baltimore, 5 Gill, ___; Rome Railroad Co. v. Rome, 14 Georg. 275; The State v. Branniso, 3 Zabr. 485; State v. Bentley, Id. 540; State v. Ferris, Id. 546.) When the law subjects the stock, eo nomine, to taxation, the road-bed and necessary appendages are by construction excepted out of the words of the general law. (B. & P. R. R. Co. v. Harris, 21 Mo. 533; Salem Iron Factory v. Inhabitants of Danvers, 10 Mass. 518; Smith v. Burley, 9 N. H. 427.) All this is upon the principle that the capital stock represents the real and personal property that is necessarily and permanently employed in carrying on the business for which the company was incorporated. There should be no double taxation.

Dryden & Lipscomb, for defendant in error.

I. If plaintiff relies upon any thing in the charter exempting its property from taxation, then the charter should have been pleaded. There is nothing in the charter giving the exemption claimed. It is not exempted by the provision contained in the twenty-fourth section of the charter of the Louisiana and Columbia Railroad Company, to the effect that the “stock of said company shall be exempt from all state and county taxes.” This is an exemption from taxes on ““stock.” This exemption was for the benefit of the stockholders rather than the corporation. This exemption was not, therefore, one of the privileges, rights or immunities conferred by the charter of plaintiff. There is no consideration for the exemption if it existed, and it was subject to repeal. The provisions of the revenue law of 1855 distinguished between capital stock and property of the corporation.

NAPTON, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The question in this case is whether the property of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company in the county of Marion--consisting of the road-bed, depot, cars, locomotives, and all the real and personal property necessary for the operations of the road--is liable to taxation under the general revenue law of the state.

That law, among other objects of taxation, enumerates “shares of stock in banks and other incorporated companies, excepting manufacturing companies, the property of which alone shall be taxed;” and “ all property owned by incorporated companies over and above their capital stock.” Under this last clause, the assessor of Marion county, under the direction of the county court, assessed the tax in question for state and county purposes.

The charter of this company was granted in 1849. The act of incorporation adopted the provisions of an act to incorporate the Louisiana and Columbia Railroad, which had been passed by the legislature in 1837. In the twenty-fourth section of this last named act is a clause declaring that “every person who shall cease to be a shareholder shall also cease to be a member of said company; and the stock of said company shall be exempt from all state and county taxes.”

In 1852, September 20, an act was passed to give this company the benefit of the donation of lands made by Congress during the same year. The third section of this law is as follows: “In consideration of the grants and privileges herein conferred upon said company, the said company shall, on the first Monday in December of each year, after said road is completed, opened and in operation, and declares a dividend, pay into the treasury of the state a sum of money equal to the amount of the state tax on other real and personal property of like value, for that year, upon the actual value of the road-bed, buildings, machinery, engines, cars and other property of said company, which shall be as a consideration to the state for the execution of the trust reposed in the state by an act of Congress of the United States, approved June 10, 1852, entitled ‘An act granting the right of way,’ &c. and for the purpose of ascertaining the value of the same, it shall be the duty of the president of said company, on the first day of February in each year after said road is completed, opened and put in operation, and declares a dividend, to furnish to the auditor of the state a statement under his oath, made before and certified by some officer authorized to administer oaths, the actual value of the road-bed, buildings, machinery, engines, cars and other property of said company; and from said statement so furnished the auditor shall charge said company with the amount appearing to be due the state, according to the statement furnished, as herein required, by the president of said company; and in case said company shall fail to pay into the state treasury, within thirty days after the first day of December in each year, the amount charged against said company as aforesaid, said company shall forfeit and pay to the state of Missouri in addition to the sum with which said company stands charged by the auditor, ten per cent. per month on the amount charged to said company; which sum charged against said company, together with the ten per cent. per month hereinbefore specified, may be recovered in the name of the state of Missouri, by civil action, in any court of competent jurisdiction. And should the president of said company fail to make out and furnish to the auditor of the state a statement as herein required, said company shall forfeit and pay to the state ten thousand dollars for each failure, which may be recovered, in the name of the state of Missouri, in any court of competent jurisdiction: Provided, that if said company shall fail, for the period of two years after said road shall be completed and put in operation, to declare a dividend, that then said company shall no longer be exempt from the payment of said sum of money in this section required to be paid into the state treasury on the first Monday in December of each year by said company, nor from the forfeitures and penalties in this section imposed.” (Railroad Laws, p. 116.)

The act of December 25, 1852--which was passed for the purpose of applying a portion of the same donation of Congress to the Pacific Railroad Company-- contains this provision: “The said Pacific Railroad and the said South-western Branch Railroad shall be exempt from taxation respectively until the same shall be completed, opened and in operation, and shall declare a dividend, when the road-bed, buildings, machinery, engines, cars and other property...