Merchants' Transfer Co. v. Bd. of Review of Des Moines

• Decision Date: 15 November 1905
• Citation: 128 Iowa 732,105 N.W. 211
• Parties: MERCHANTS' TRANSFER CO. v. BOARD OF REVIEW OF CITY OF DES MOINES.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

128 Iowa 732

105 N.W. 211

MERCHANTS' TRANSFER CO.

v.BOARD OF REVIEW OF CITY OF DES MOINES.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Nov. 15, 1905.

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; Hugh Brennan, Judge.

Appeal from action of board of review in confirming the assessment to the plaintiff of certain personal property for the purposes of taxation. Affirmed.Parrish, Dowell & Parrish, for appellant.

W. H. Bremner, M. H. Cohen, and W. M. McLaughlin, for appellee.

WEAVER, J.

The plaintiff is a corporation engaged in the business of transferring, or hauling for hire, goods, wares, and merchandise from place to place in the city of Des Moines, upon the employment or at the direction of the owners of such property. It would appear, also, that in connection with or as an aid to such business the corporation keeps and makes use of one or more storehouses or places of deposit, where goods may, when so desired, be stored or preserved, subject to the order of the owner or shipper. In the year 1893 the city assessor assessed to the plaintiff for the purposes of taxation some 33 different items of merchandise, consisting mostly or entirely of farm implements and machinery. Plaintiff appeared before the board of review and resisted the assessment on the ground that none of the property belonged to it, and it was in no manner liable to or chargeable with the payment of taxes thereon. This objection being overruled, plaintiff appealed to the district court, where the ruling of the board of review was affirmed, and from said judgment as to nine of the assessed items it has appealed to this court.

It is not claimed that plaintiff was the actual owner of the property at the time of the assessment, but it is the theory of the appellee that the goods were in plaintiff's possession under circumstances rendering them taxable in its hands under the terms of Code, § 1318. The evidence tends to show that the nine items of goods in controversy came into the possession of the appellant in the following manner: The several owners are nonresident manufacturers, who sell goods in Iowa through local dealers. Orders are solicited and received each year, some considerable period before a delivery is desired and before the opening of the season when the retail demand is active. As there is an advantage in rates of trasportation to be had by shipping in car load lots, and as many of the local dealers order less than a car load, the manufacturers are accustomed to “bunch” a sufficient quantity of machinery or wares to cover the orders received and ship it in car load or train load lots to the city of Des Moines as a convenient central station or shipping point. These shipments are all consigned to the appellant transfer company, which thereafter, upon orders and directions received from the shipper, forwards to the several local dealers such smaller items or quantities as are required to fill their contracts. Sometimes repairs or articles of minor value are sent out by the shipper, which are not required to fill orders received; and at times orders for local dealers are canceled, thus bringing about an accumulation of goods for which no orders are outstanding; but the highest estimate of goods in this class in any one item assessed is 25 per cent. of the total value. As we understand the record (though this is probably not a controlling circumstance) when a car load or quantity of machinery is thus sent, no particular machine or implement is set apart marked and designated for any particular person or individual local dealer; but the shipper simply plans to send enough of each kind to the consignee at the transfer point to satisfy the outstanding orders as a whole, and relies upon that consignee to make the distribution when ordered or directed so to do. The large shipments to the transfer company are made in the latter part of the year in anticipation, as already stated of the opening of the selling season, and is stored in the appellant's warehouse until sent out upon the shipper's orders--a period ranging from three to seven months. It was shipments of this character which the assessor found in appellant'spossession on January 1, 1903, and upon which the contested assessment was made.

1. It is the contention of the appellant that its possession of the property was not of the character to make the property taxable in its hands. By Code, § 1314, merchants, assignees, and others having in their possession the taxable property of nonresidents are classed as owners for the purposes of assessment. In the same chapter, section 1318, the following provision is found: “Any person, firm or corporation owning or having in his possession or under his control within the state, with authority to sell the same any personal property purchased with a view of its being sold or which has been consigned to him from any place out of this state, to be sold within the same, or to be delivered or shipped by him within or without this state, shall be held to be a merchant for the purpose of this title.” Counsel argue that the reference here made to the property consigned to a person within the state “to be delivered or shipped by him within or without the state” should be construed as modified and limited by the preceding words, “with authority to sell,” and as the transfer company did not have authority to sell the goods they were not taxable under this section. We are very clear that this construction is unwarranted. If it was the intention of the Legislature to require the assessment of such property only as was held for sale by the party in possession that intent was fully expressed and effected by the preceding clause and there was no occasion for the use of the latter clause. Furthermore, when we speak of the possession by one person of the goods of another for the purposes of delivery or shipment, the idea thus expressed necessarily excludes the thought of power in the possessor to sell. Again, the language of the section is in the alternative, and the power is given to assess (1) property in possession within the state with power to sell, or (2) property purchased with a view of being sold, or (3) property which has been consigned to the holder to be delivered or shipped by him within or without the...