Pacific Spruce Corporation v. Lincoln County, Or.
| Decision Date | 19 September 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 8906.,8906. |
| Citation | 21 F.2d 586 |
| Parties | PACIFIC SPRUCE CORPORATION v. LINCOLN COUNTY, OR., et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Oregon |
McCamant & Thompson, of Portland, Or., for plaintiff.
Martin L. Pipes, John M. Pipes, and George A. Pipes, all of Portland, Or., for defendants.
This is a suit to enjoin the defendants from the levy and enforcement of a tax upon timber land, a mill site, and other properties in Lincoln county, Or.
The case is before the court upon a motion of the defendants to dismiss the bill of complaint, for the reason that it does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of suit.
It appears that Congress created a public corporation known as the United States Spruce Production Corporation, and caused it to acquire, and it now holds, the legal title to said properties, in trust for the use and benefit of the United States. Thereafter a contract was entered into whereby the corporation agreed to convey said properties to the plaintiff in consideration of $2,000,000. Approximately $1,000,000 of the purchase price has been paid, and the balance is to be paid in installments, the last of which will become due in 1932. The contract contains the usual forfeiture clause, and gives to the plaintiff the right to the possession of the properties, with the privilege of cutting and disposing of the timber thereon.
In 1921 the defendants assessed the right, title, and interest of the plaintiff in the properties, subject to the paramount title therein of the United States. Counsel for the defendants state the basis upon which said assessments were made, as follows:
"The legal effect of the contract pleaded by equitable conversion is to vest in the plaintiff the beneficial ownership of all the property, and that the legal title in the United States Spruce Production Corporation is a security for the purchase price; that such an interest is real property and would pass to the heir and not to the executor; that under the statute of the state of Oregon that interest, being real property less than the fee-simple title, is taxable, and that by the terms of the assessment set out it is only that interest, so vested in the plaintiff, that is assessed and taxed, subject to the rights of the United States Spruce Production Corporation and of the United States."
Chapter 166 of the Session Laws of Oregon for 1919, pertaining to assessment and taxation, provides:
"The terms land, real estate and real property, as used in this act, shall be construed to include the land itself; * * * also any estate, right, title or interest whatever in land or real property, less than the fee simple."
Under this enactment, the legal title to real estate alone is the subject of taxation, and all lesser estates are merged therein for such purpose. Nehalem Timber Co. v. Columbia County, 97 Or. 100, 189 P. 212, 191 P. 318.
This state has inserted in its general tax laws the following...
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Bancroft Inv. Corp. v. City of Jacksonville
... 27 So.2d 162 157 Fla. 546 BANCROFT INV. CORPORATION v. CITY OF JACKSONVILLE et al. Florida Supreme Court ... Appeal from Circuit ... Court, Duval County; DeWitt T. Gray, judge ... [157 Fla. 547] C ... v. Clallam County, D.C. 20 F.2d 202; Pac. Spruce ... Corp. v. Lincoln County, D.C. 21 F.2d 586; Lincoln ... ...
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Willamette Valley Lumber Co. v. United States
...relies principally on Nehalem Timber Co. v. Columbia County, 97 Or. 100, 189 P. 212, 191 P. 318 (1920) and Pacific Spruce Corp. v. Lincoln County (D.Or.1927), 21 F.2d 586, aff'd 26 F.2d 435 (9th Cir. 1928). There is language in Nehalem and in Pacific Spruce which supports the Government's p......
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Stuart Symington
... ... 117 U.S. 151; United States v. Power County, Idaho, ... 21 F.Supp. 684; cf. Pacific Spruce Corp. v. Lincoln ... County, 21 F.2d 586. This rule applies with equal ... 643; Mullen Renevelent Corporation v. United States, ... 290 U.S. 89; United States v ... ...
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Dear Senator Humphrey, B-150207
... ... 117 U.S. 151; United States v. Power County, Idaho, ... 21 F.Supp. 684; cf. Pacific Spruce Corp. v. Lincoln ... County, 21 F.2d 586. This rule applies with equal ... 643; Nullen Benevolent Corporation v. United States, ... 290 U.S. 89; United States v ... ...