Mackle Co. v. Metropolitan Dade County, 68--611

• Decision Date: 18 March 1969
• Docket Number: No. 68--611,68--611
• Citation: 220 So.2d 422
• Parties: The MACKLE COMPANY, Inc., a Florida corporation, et al., Appellants, v. METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY, etc., et al., Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 422

220 So.2d 422

The MACKLE COMPANY, Inc., a Florida corporation, et al., Appellants, v. METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY, etc., et al., Appellees.

No. 68--611.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

March 18, 1969.

Williams, Salomon & Kenney and Vincent E. Damian, Jr., Miami, for appellants.

Thomas C. Britton, County Atty., and Gerald T. Wetherington and Roy S. Wood, Jr., Asst. County Attys., for appellees.

Before CHARLES CARROLL, C.J., and PEARSON and HENDRY, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Appellants seek reversal of an adverse declaratory judgment holding that certain real estate was not entitled to be assessed as agricultural land, under § 193.11(3) Fla.Stat., F.S.A., for the tax year 1967.

On June 1, 1965, the appellants leased a 320 acre tract to John W. Campbell for a term of three years. The lease provided that the land was to be used by the lessee for agricultural purposes. In prior years the land had not been so used.

In 1967 the appellants, as owners of the property, filed timely return of the 320 acres as being used for agricultural purposes under a lease, listing the name of the lessee. On June 12, 1967, the owners were informed by letter from the tax assessor's office that a 'field check' (made by an assistant assessor on February 16, 1967) indicated that the north half (160 acres) of the leased tract 'was not being farmed,' and that it was being assessed at $1,400 an acre, and that the south 160 acres were being assessed as agricultural lands at $340 per acre. The assessment was so made. Objection by the owners through administrative channels was rejected, and on November 2, 1967, they filed this suit against Dade County, the county commissioners, tax assessor, tax collector, county manager and state comptroller, seeking relief against the assessment on the ground that the entire 320 acre tract should have been assessed as agricultural lands under the statute.

The record reveals that the lessee Campbell farms between six and seven thousand acres on lands to which the property involved in this case is adjacent. The farming on said lands is principally concerned with the raising of tomatoes, which customarily are planted near the end of a calendar year and harvested sometime after the commencement of the succeeding calendar year.

The plaintiffs' allegations of use of the land in question for agricultural purposes in 1967 were denied by answer of the defendants. Following trial of the cause before the court, the judgment referred...