Hawkeye Portland Cement Co. v. Board of Review of Madison Township
| Decision Date | 07 February 1928 |
| Docket Number | 38694 |
| Parties | HAWKEYE PORTLAND CEMENT COMPANY, Appellee, v. BOARD OF REVIEW OF MADISON TOWNSHIP, Appellee; THOMAS COCHRAN, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Madison District Court.--W. G. VANDER PLOEG, Judge.
Appeal from decree of the district court reducing the assessment of certain real estate for taxation.
Affirmed.
C. E Hamilton, for appellant.
John A. and W. T. Guiher, for Hawkeye Portland Cement Company appellee.
The Hawkeye Portland Cement Company is the owner of approximately 940 acres of land, situated in Sections 16, 17, 18, and 21, all in Township 77 north, Range 28 west of the Fifth P. M., in Madison County. All of said real estate except the southeast quarter of Section 16 was assessed by the assessor for the year 1925 at $ 135 per acre. The assessment of the 160 acres mentioned in the foregoing exception is not involved herein. In conformity with the statutory law, the owner of the approximately 780 acres made complaint before the board of review of the township in which the real estate is situated, contending, in substance, that said real estate had been assessed by the assessor at an amount in excess of its actual or market value, and that the assessment thereon was so out of proportion with the assessment made on other real estate in said taxing district as to be unjust, inequitable, and discriminatory. The board of review granted no relief to the owner, and in due time an appeal was taken to the district court. Upon trial, the court reduced the assessment upon all of said real estate herein involved to the amount of $ 60 per acre. From this action by the trial court this appeal was taken.
With reference to the valuation to be placed upon property for assessment purposes, Section 7109, Code of 1924, provides:
Said section also provides that the burden of proof shall be upon any complainant attacking such valuation as excessive, inadequate, or inequitable. The board of review having confirmed the assessment as made by the assessor, the presumption is that the action of the board is correct. However, this presumption is one not of law, but of fact, and may be rebutted and overcome by evidence; but the burden rests upon the owner to show that the decision of the board is erroneous. Frost v. Board of Review, 114 Iowa 103; First Nat. Bank v. City Council, 136 Iowa 203, 112 N.W. 829; Benson v. Town of LeClaire, 185 Iowa 506. Has the appellee met the burden, and is the relief granted by the trial court such as should have been granted?
The real estate herein involved lies along a stream, the north branch of North River. The major portion of it is rough, rocky, broken land, and cut by ravines. A considerable portion of it is covered by scrubby oak timber and brush. Only a very small portion of the land is tillable, and such as is subject to cultivation lies in patches of irregular form. The major portion of the land lies north of the aforesaid stream, but a portion of it lies to the south thereof. From the creek or river bottom to the north side of these lands is a rise of about 140 feet. The rock outcrops on the hillside about 100 feet above the bottom. The land lying on the south side of the river consists of a bluff. Much of the land is underlaid with limestone, some of which is being quarried by the company and shipped to its mill near Des Moines, and used for the manufacture of cement. There is a spur track leading from the railroad to the quarry that is now being worked, and is situated upon the southwest quarter of Section 16. The quarry is extensively worked, the company employing at said work about 75 men. There are taken from the quarry about 350 carloads of limestone per week. The lower portion of the land is used as a dump ground for the refuse. The company has been engaged in the quarrying of rock for the last sixteen years, and there has been no quarrying done, except upon the southwest quarter of Section 16. During the aforesaid period, about 75 acres of said quarter section has been quarried. At the present rate of operation, it will require about ten years to exhaust the balance of the supply of stone in said quarter section. It is shown by the record that the probability is that, when the supply on the aforesaid quarter section is exhausted, the company will then engage in quarrying upon the 160 acres immediately east thereof,--the assessment on which 160 acres is not herein involved,--and that it would require 30 to 35 years to exhaust the supply of rock thereon. It is thus shown by the record that the probability is that many years will elapse before any quarrying is done upon any of the real estate herein involved, other than the 160 acres hereinbefore mentioned.
It is shown that, according to the geological survey, the same formation of limestone runs down through Stuart, Earlham Winterset, Peru, and clear down to the Missouri state line. The assessor assessed all lands other than that owned by the Hawkeye Portland Cement Company at what he believed to be 50 per cent of the market value, but assessed all the lands owned by said company,--no matter where located, or whether underlaid with stone,--at $ 135 per acre. He testified that he knew, at the time when he made the assessment, that the land owned by the company would not sell for $ 135 per acre, but that he was directed by the board of trustees to assess it at that figure. We shall refer to some of the assessments of adjoining tracts of real estate. The southeast quarter of Section 16, now owned by the company, but the major portion of which, at the time of the assessment, was owned by a farmer, was assessed at $ 96 per acre. For agricultural purposes, it is by far the best land owned by the company, and it is shown that 100 acres of the same is underlaid with the same kind of limestone as the 160 acres immediately west, where the quarry is located. The land to the north of the appellee's real estate is good farming land, and assessed at $ 93 to $ 112 per acre. The northeast quarter of the northwest quarter and the north half of the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 21, which is not underlaid by limestone, and which is owned by the company, is assessed at $ 135 per acre; while adjoining tracts of land are assessed at $ 28 to $ 35 per acre. The company is the owner of the southeast quarter of Section 18 and the east half of the southwest quarter of Section 17, and 320 acres immediately east thereof, all of which is assessed at $ 135 per acre; while the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 17, which...
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