Laird, Norton Co. v. County of Pine

• Decision Date: 02 June 1898
• Docket Number: Nos. 11,035 - (67).,s. 11,035 - (67).
• Citation: 72 Minn. 409
• Parties: LAIRD, NORTON COMPANY v. COUNTY OF PINE and Another.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 409

72 Minn. 409

LAIRD, NORTON COMPANY v. COUNTY OF PINE and Another.

Nos. 11,035 - (67).

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 2, 1898.

Appeal by defendants from an order of the district court for Pine county, Williston, J., overruling defendants' demurrer to the complaint. Reversed.

The fourth paragraph of the complaint, referred to in the opinion, was as follows:

"Fourth: This plaintiff further alleges that on the first day of April, 1896, a warrant for the collection of said tax was placed in the hands of the sheriff of said Pine county, the above-named defendant James McLaughlin. That this plaintiff now has a large quantity of logs in said Kettle river and Sand and Bear creeks within the limits of Pine county aforesaid, and that said defendant James McLaughlin threatens to levy upon said logs to collect said pretended tax; that said logs are situate in and along said Kettle river and said creeks, and are so intermixed and intermingled that in order to enable the defendant McLaughlin to levy upon a sufficient number to realize the amount of said warrant, it would be necessary to levy upon a quantity of logs in value several times in excess of said sum. That this plaintiff now has logs in and along said Kettle river and Sand and Bear creeks within the county of Pine of the value of not less than $50,000, and that said logs are so intermixed and intermingled that said sheriff, if he makes said levy in good faith, would be obliged to levy upon logs in the aggregate of the value of not less than $50,000; that said levy would detain said logs and prevent this plaintiff from driving the same down said Kettle river and said creeks. That said Kettle river and said creeks are navigable for logs only at high water, and that the logs of this plaintiff can only be driven down said Kettle river and said creeks by taking advantage of the high water in said river in the spring time, and that to levy upon said logs would not only be to detain a quantity sufficient to satisfy said warrant, but a quantity vastly in excess thereof, and that this plaintiff would not only be unable to take advantage of the high water and drive said logs to the Mississippi river at this season, but that said logs having been partially damaged by fire, the same will greatly deteriorate in value, unless speedily manufactured into lumber; and the levy and detention of said logs would be to render the same almost worthless, and would be a great and irreparable injury to this plaintiff, for which this plaintiff has no adequate remedy by proceedings at law."

L. H. McKusick and Robt. C. Saunders, for appellant.

Clapp & Macartney, for respondent.

BUCK, J.

Appeal from an order overruling a demurrer to the plaintiff's complaint.

The plaintiff is a corporation engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling lumber at the city of Winona, that being its principal place of business, and where its sawmills, factories, and its offices are located and its entire manufacturing business and selling of such manufactured product are done. In 1894 a great fire in the county of Pine partially destroyed a vast amount of timber therein belonging to plaintiff, of which the logs mentioned in the complaint were part, whereby it became necessary for plaintiff to cut and dispose of the same at once; and, to this end, the plaintiff in 1895, while engaged in said business, cut a large quantity of pine logs in said county, with the intention and for the sole purpose of floating them down the tributaries of the Mississippi, and down said river from said county, to the said city of Winona, to be sawed and manufactured into lumber by the plaintiff, said logs so cut amounting to about fifty million feet.

In said year 1895, after said logs were cut, and while in said tributaries of the Mississippi river to be floated to Winona, as aforesaid, the assessor of the town of Hinckley, in said county, threatened to assess and list for taxation as personal property said pine logs then in said streams; and plaintiff, having notice thereof, objected against any such assessment being made, upon the ground that said logs pertained to the business of a manufacturing plant, the business of this plaintiff, and that said business was by it carried on at said city of Winona aforesaid, and that the said logs were not subject to be listed and assessed in the said town of Hinckley, in said county of Pine; whereupon plaintiff was notified that the matter would be referred to the attorney general of the state, and that his decision thereon should be communicated to plaintiff, but no such proceeding was had, and the first intimation that said logs were assessed in said town of Hinckley was a receipt of notice from the county treasurer of Pine county on January 15, 1896, advising plaintiff of said assessment, levy, and return of said tax, and requesting this plaintiff to pay the same, which it did not do.

On April 1, 1896, a warrant for the collection of said tax was placed in the hands of the sheriff of Pine county, the above-named defendant James McLaughlin, and he threatens to levy upon...