Kennedy v. St. Louis

• Decision Date: 31 January 1872
• Citation: 1872 WL 8058,62 Ill. 395
• Parties: THOMAS H. KENNEDY, assessor, etc.,v.ST. LOUIS, VANDALIA & TERRE HAUTE R. R. COMPANY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

62 Ill. 395

1872 WL 8058 (Ill.)

THOMAS H. KENNEDY, assessor, etc.,

v.ST. LOUIS, VANDALIA & TERRE HAUTE R. R. COMPANY.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1872.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Madison County; the Hon. J. GILLESPIE, Judge, presiding.

Messrs. IRWIN & KROME, for the appellant.

Mr. JOHN SCHOLFIELD, for the appellee.

Mr. JUSTICE SHELDON delivered the opinion of the Court:

In proceeding to consider the question whether the sleeping cars in question are subject to taxation as a portion of the rolling stock belonging to the appellee, it may not be amiss to recur to the decisions of this court and the legislation of the State upon the subject of taxing the rolling stock of railroad companies.

In the case of Sangamon & Morgan Railroad Company v. County of Morgan, 14 Ill. 164, the rule was laid down to be that, with certain qualifications, personal property follows the residence of the owner and is there taxable; that a railroad track is real property, but that the rolling stock of a railroad company is personal property, and it was held that the residence of the Sangamon & Morgan Railroad Company must be taken to be in Sangamon County, where its principal office was, and that the rolling stock of its railroad, extending from Naples to Springfield, fifty-five miles, and running twenty-seven miles through the county of Morgan, could not be rightfully assessed for taxes in Morgan County.

Thereafter, in 1855, the legislature passed an act to amend the assessment and revenue laws, which contains the following provision:

“The list (the schedule which a previous section required railroad companies to return to the county clerk for assessment) shall contain an inventory of the rolling stock belonging to said company, with the value thereof; said rolling stock shall be denominated ‘personal property;’ also a statement of the value of all other personal property owned by said company in each county, city, and town.

The length of the whole of the main track, within this State, and the total value of the rolling stock shall be set forth in said list. The rolling stock shall be listed and taxed in the several counties, towns, and cities, pro rata, in proportion as the length of the main track in such county, town, or city bears to the whole length of the road. All other property shall be listed and taxed in the county, town, or city where the same is located or used.”

Subsequently, the case of Cook County v. C. B. & Q. R. R. Co., 35 Ill. 461, came before the court, where, it was held, in view of the above provision of the statute of 1855, that the C. B. & Q. R. R. Co., which ran its trains from Junction into the city of Chicago, twenty-eight miles of the distance in Cook County, over the track of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company, under a contract of lease by which the former had agreed to pay the latter a stipulated rent for the right and privilege of using its road for that purpose, was not liable to be assessed for its rolling stock in the county of Cook; that the privilege of so running trains, according to the allegations of the bill in that case, imported no more than an easement or license, and no vested interest in the road; and that a road over which a company occasionally runs its trains under a mere easement or license, is not any part of its main track; at the same time declaring that it was not prepared to say that a leased road might not be a part of the main track of the lessee within the meaning of the statute.

Following this decision was the act of April 9, 1869, entitled, “An act for the collection of railroad taxes in certain counties, cities, and towns,” as follows:

SECTION 1. “Whenever any railroad, or any part thereof, shall be used or operated under any lease, contract, or arrangement, by any railroad company or other...