Henderson v. Pierce County

• Decision Date: 23 February 1905
• Citation: 37 Wash. 201,79 P. 617
• Parties: HENDERSON v. PIERCE COUNTY et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

79 P. 617

37 Wash. 201

HENDERSON v. PIERCE COUNTY et al.

Supreme Court of Washington

February 23, 1905

Appeal from Superior Court, Pierce County; Thad Huston, Judge.

Action by John P. Henderson against Pierce county, John B. Reed treasurer, and George B. Kandle and others, commissioners of Pierce county, to set aside an assessment for taxation. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

F Campbell, for appellants.

John C Hallcup, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

The respondent brought this action to cancel and have held for naught certain taxes levied and assessed against his property by the county of Pierce, which he alleges are fraudulent and void because based upon valuation grossly in excess of the actual value of the property, and in excess of the valuations of property of like kind owned by other persons and situated in that county. The complaint sets out in great detail the facts constituting the claimed discriminations and overvaluations, and is conceded to be sufficient under the rule announced by this court in the cases of Templeton v Pierce County, 25 Wash. 377, 65 P. 553, and Miller v. Pierce County, 28 Wash. 110, 68 P. 358. Issue was taken on the allegations of the complaint, and a trial had which resulted in a judgment canceling the taxes levied on payment of a sum determined by the court to be a just and legal amount to be paid as taxes on the property. The county appeals, and assigns as error that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the judgment. In Templeton v. Pierce County, supra, we held that it was no ground for relief against excessive valuation of property that the assessor had merely overvalued the property, if it appeared that his action was not arbitrary or capricious, and the property had been assessed in the same proportion as other like property within the jurisdiction of the assessing officer, and we held in that case that the evidence did not show any cause for declaring the assessment illegal. The appellant invokes the principle here, but we think the evidence much stronger in this case than on the one cited. The evidence here shows not only a gross overvaluation of the respondent's property but it shows a gross overvaluation, we think, when compared with other property of like kind within the assessor's jurisdiction. Of course, slight, or even considerable, differences in valuations are not sufficient, when honestly made, to authorize the...