Jackson & Perkins Co. v. Stanislaus County Bd. of Sup'rs

• Decision Date: 10 March 1959
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: JACKSON & PERKINS CO. of California, a corporation, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. STANISLAUS COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, Milo F. Bradshaw, John B. Melugin, Clinton C. Wilson, Kenneth C. Ables and John Delphia; Ed Whitmore, Stanislaus County Tax Collector and Stanislaus County Treasurer; Steve Hossli, Stanislaus County Auditor; K. V. Broadwell, Stanislaus County Assessor; Newman School District; West Stanislaus Fire District; Newman Sanitary District, and Westside Mosquito District, Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 9515.

Page 976

335 P.2d 976

168 Cal.App.2d 559

JACKSON & PERKINS CO. of California, a corporation, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. STANISLAUS COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, Milo F. Bradshaw, John B. Melugin, Clinton C. Wilson, Kenneth C. Ables and John Delphia; Ed Whitmore, Stanislaus County Tax Collector and Stanislaus County Treasurer; Steve Hossli, Stanislaus County Auditor; K. V. Broadwell, Stanislaus County Assessor; Newman School District; West Stanislaus Fire District; Newman Sanitary District, and Westside Mosquito District, Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 9515.

District Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

March 10, 1959.

Ralph M. Brown of Brown, Brown & Bacon, Modesto, for appellant.

Frederick W. Reyland, Jr., Stanislaus County Counsel, Modesto, and Associate Counsel, J. F. Coakley, Dist. Atty., and R. Robert Hunter, Chief Asst. Dist. Atty., Oakland, for respondents.

VAN DYKE, Presiding Justice.

Appellant corporation appeals from a judgment adverse to it rendered in an action brought by it against respondents to recover ad valorem taxes paid under protest.

Appellant is a Delaware corporation, which does business in California and elsewhere. It is in the nursery business and has approximately 10,000 acres of land in cultivation in various states. In its nurseries it principally raises and sells all types of products produced and sold by such a business, including rose plants. For the latter purpose it operates about 800 acres of land in Stanislaus County. Its president, Mr. Clarence Perkins, testified as follows: Although it is possible to plant rose bushes from seed, that method is followed only for a few varieties because generally roses do not come true from seed. It is necessary to adopt the method of budding on wild stocks and this method has been common for at least 50 years. The nurseryman intending to raise roses first prepares the ground after testing the soil for fertility content. The ground must be leveled for irrigation, must be sub-soiled and pre-irrigated. It is then furrowed and planted to cuttings taken from wild stock. The cutting is first deeyed by removing the bottom eyes to keep the cutting from throwing out wild shoots. The cuttings are about 8 inches in length, are planted in rows 4 feet apart and are placed 5 to 8 inches apart in the row. This work is completed in the fall. During the winter the land is kept weeded. In the spring and through the summer the cuttings are budded to the specific types of roses desired. It takes from one to two years to complete the plants to the point where they are salable. Plants intended for greenhouse culture to produce cut flowers are matured in about a year. Those intended for open air planting are ready in two years. If the plants stay in the ground longer they become commercially valueless. The plants require constant care up to harvest. When land has been used to produce rose plants and the plants have been taken off another crop is put in the land to fertilize the soil before it is again used for roses. During culture the plants are subject to many hazards, such as spring winds that dry cuttings, frost, excessive rain, drought, adverse soil conditions, nematodes, vernacular, wilt, Crown gall and the like. Appellant's experience in one year showed that out of two and one-half million plants about one-half million were lost during the growing season. Nurserymen plant, cultivate and propagate plants for sale rather than seeking profit from the product of the plants. Harvesting is done with a machine called a digger that is hooked on the back of a tractor. It has a large U-shaped blade that goes into the ground about 2 1/2 feet. It has a lifter on the blade which lifts the plants and soil up as the machine runs and from there they are pulled out of the soil by hand. The plants are then bundled and sold. They are dormant when harvested.

Article XIII, Section 1, of the California Constitution provides that all property in the state not exempt under the laws of the United States shall be taxed in proportion to its value except that 'growing crops' shall not be taxed.

The Constitution makes no effort to give specific definition to the phrase 'growing crops'. The 1849 Constitution contained no provisions for exemption of any private property from taxation. It provided simply that taxation should be equal and uniform throughout the state and that all property in the state should be taxed in proportion to its value. During the period from 1849 to 1879 the legislature enacted various exemption statutes, including a statute enacted in 1854 exempting mining claims and growing crops from taxation. The statute was held unconstitutional and void in so far as it exempted growing crops in the case of People v. Gerke, 35 Cal. 677. Said the court:

'In the case of People v. McCreery, 34 Cal. 432, 433, we held the Revenue Laws of this State to be unconstitutional, so far as they exempt private property from taxation. It follows that, in reading those laws, all parts thereof relating to the exemption of private property must be disregarded.

'The property in question in this case was private property, and was therefore taxable.'

In 1884, the Supreme Court decided the case of Cottle v. Spitzer, 65 Cal. 456, 4 P. 435, holding that growing fruit trees were not within the meaning of the phrase 'growing crops' as used in the Constitution. Said the Supreme Court, adopting an opinion rendered at trial of the cause by Judge Belden, 65 Cal. at page 461, 4 P. at page 438 "* * * What, then, was understood by the convention which framed our present constitution, and by the people who ratified it, by the term 'growing crops?'

"By lexicographers 'crop' is defined as, 'that which is gathered from a single field, or of a single kind of grain or fruit, for a single season; 'specially the valuable product of what is planted in the earth; fruit; harvest.' [Webster.] 'That which is gathered as fruit; the harvest.' [Worcester.] In popular parlance the word has the same universal meaning, and the phrases 'cropping contracts,' 'interest in crops,' 'harvesting crop,' and the like are used in the precise sense in which they are defined in the dictionaries. This phrase has also received a practical and general construction in the action of public officials. In 1851 the legislature attempted, with other classes of property, to exempt 'growing crops' from taxation and from that time until the decision in People v. McGreery, in 1867, this exemption was conceded by the assessors. During all this period it is a matter of universal knowledge that this exemption was only asserted and allowed for annual and immature crops, and it was never pretended that trees or vines of perennial growth came within it.

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