Merrill v. Humphrey

• Decision Date: 29 November 1871
• Citation: 24 Mich. 170
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Charles Merrill v. William Humphrey, Auditor-General, and others

24 Mich. 170

Charles Merrill v. William Humphrey, Auditor-General, and others

Supreme Court of Michigan

November 29, 1871

Heard November 3, 1871

Appeal in chancery from Osceola circuit.

Decree reversed, order the bill dismissed without prejudice. Defendant recover his costs of both courts.

C. C Fuller and F. H. Canfield, for complainant.

S. F Dwight and Dwight May, Attorney-General, for defendants.

OPINION

Cooley J.:

A short statement of this case is, that it is a bill filed to restrain the auditor-general and the county treasurer of Osceola county from proceeding to sell the lands of complainant, situated in said county, for the taxes assessed thereon for the year 1869. The complainant alleges that the supervisors of the several townships in which his lands are situated, fraudulently assessed them above their value, and relatively very much beyond the assessment of other property, for the purpose of relieving resident taxpayers from their proportion of the taxes. He avers that he has ever been ready and willing, and by his bill offers, to pay his just proportion of said taxes whenever the same shall be properly and legally assessed, but he submits that the tax so assessed is unjust, inequitable, and illegal, and he prays a perpetual injunction against proceedings for their collection. The attorney-general demurred to the bill, and the court below overruled the demurrer, and made a decree that the tax complained of be set aside, canceled and declared void, and that the lands be declared free from the lien thereof.

It is impossible to sustain this decree. Accepting to the fullest extent, as we must upon demurrer, the truth of the matters alleged in the bill, there is no equity in relieving the complainant altogether from the payment of taxes upon his lands. He owes to the state, county and township the same duty, and is under the same obligation with every other property-owner therein; and the attempt by an official to exact from him more than is just, will not excuse him from bearing the burden so far as it is just. The state must give him a remedy against oppression, but it is not bound to reward him because a wrong has been meditated which had him for its object. The state cannot warrant the integrity of every inferior municipal officer, in whose selection the citizens generally have had no choice; and if it could, its responsibility ought not to exceed that which an individual would be under in the like circumstances, which could only be to make good to the party what he may have suffered by the wrong; which, in this case, at the time the decree was rendered, was nothing. Certainly, the offer of the complainant to pay what is just, cannot excuse him altogether from making any payment. The most that he can claim under any circumstances, is that the state shall prevent the meditated injury, and relieve his land when its proper burden shall have been discharged. It follows that the decree appealed from must be reversed.

It remains to be seen whether the case made by the bill would have entitled the complainant to any relief whatever; for if it would, it may be proper to shape our decree differently from what we otherwise should. The attorney-general insists than an assessment for the purposes of taxation is a proceeding quasi judicial in its nature; the valuation being confided to the judgment and discretion of the assessor; and that, as the statute has provided for no review of his decision by the courts, it is not competent to appeal to them for redress, upon allegations impugning the fairness of his conclusions. And he very properly and strongly sets forth the evils that may arise if the process of injunction shall be employed to stay the collection of the public revenue whenever the judgment of the tax-payer regarding relative values may so far differ from that of the assessor that he is led to suspect favoritism and partiality.

That this process may be employed to an extent that shall prove embarrassing to the public authorities is quite possible; and that fact should make us hesitate long and consider the subject fully in all its bearings, before sustaining a jurisdiction that shall appear in the least doubtful or unnecessary to the due protection of individual rights.

And we agree fully with the attorney-general, that the courts cannot sit in judgment upon supposed errors of the assessor, and substitute their own opinions for the conclusions he has drawn, where it is his judgment, and not theirs, to which the subject has been confided by the law.

But it remains to be seen whether what is sought here is a review of the assessor's judgment. The charge is, that the several supervisors have purposely assessed the property of the complainant beyond its value, and above the assessment of other persons, with a fraudulent intent to compel the payment by him of an undue proportion of the public taxes. The demurrer confesses the charge, so that we are not troubled with any collateral questions or inquiries into matters of fact. It is admitted that the supervisors have not brought their judgment...