In re Apportionment of the Railroab Sch. Tax of 1875 & 1876, in Caddwell Cnty.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1883
• Citation: 78 Mo. 596
• Parties: IN THE MATTER OF THE APPORTIONMENT OF THE RAILROAB SCHOOL TAX OF 1875 AND 1876, in Caddwell County.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

78 Mo. 596

IN THE MATTER OF THE APPORTIONMENT OF THE RAILROAB SCHOOL TAX OF 1875 AND 1876, in Caddwell County.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1883.

Appeal from Caldwell Circuit Court.--HON. E. J. BROADDUS, Judge.

REVERSED.

Crosby Johnson for appellant.

J. A. Holliday for respondent.

HENRY, J.

The following are the agreed facts: The Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad Company paid to the collector of Caldwell county the sum of $5,737.47 as and for the school taxes on the value of railroad property apportioned to Caldwell county for the years 1875 and 1876. There are in the county sixty-nine school districts. Through twelve of these districts the road runs; and there are fiftyseven districts through which the road does not run. Plaintiffs filed their motion asking that all the school tax be distributed to the districts through which the road runs. The county court overruled the motion, and distributed the whole tax to the districts in the county in the proportion that the number of school children in such districts bore to the whole number in the county. Plaintiffs appealed to the circuit court. That court, on a hearing of the cause, ordered the school tax to be distributed as follows: (1) To the district in which the same are situated, all tax arising from lands, workshops, depots, etc., owned by railroad company. (2) To the districts through which said railroad runs, in proportion to their respective mileage, all tax arising on the valuation of the road-bed and railroad track apportioned to the county. (3) To all the districts in the county in the proportion that their school children severally bear to the whole number of school children in the county, all tax arising from all other property of the railroad company, except lands, workshops, depots, buildings and road-bed.

From this judgment an appeal has been prosecuted to this court. The transcript in the cause was lost or mislaid, and has recently been supplied, and we give the title of the cause, as it appears in the papers supplied. The distribution was made under the act of 1875. Section 8 of that act is as follows: “The board shall apportion the value of all lands, workshops, depots and other buildings belonging to or under the control of each railroad company, to the counties, municipal townships, cities or incorporated towns in which such lands, workshops, depots and other buildings are situate; and the aggregate value of all other property of each railroad company shall be apportioned to each county, municipal township, city or incorporated town, in which such road shall be located, according to the ratio which the number of miles of such road completed in such county, municipal township, city or incorporated town shall bear to the whole length of such railroad.”

The road-bed is not land, within the meaning of the first clause of that section. The apportionment of railroad taxes to counties through which the road passes, is based upon aggregate values. The road-bed is chiefly valuable as an entirety. In no county is the tax apportioned in proportion to the value of that portion of the road-bed lying within the county. No means are provided for ascertaining it, nor is it anywhere in the section above copied, or in section 12 of the act of 1875, in relation to the distribution of the school tax, contemplated that the value of the road-bed in the respective counties shall be ascertained. Section 12 is as follows: “For the purpose of levying school taxes in the several counties on railroad property, the several county courts shall ascertain from the returns in the office of the clerk of the county court the average rate of taxation levied for school purposes by the several local school boards or authorities of the several school districts through which each...