People ex rel. Long Island R. Co. v. State Bd. of Tax Com'rs

• Decision Date: 31 May 1921
• Citation: 131 N.E. 896,231 N.Y. 221
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. LONG ISLAND R. CO. v. STATE BOARD OF TAX COM'RS (CITY OF NEW YORK, Intervener).
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

231 N.Y. 221

131 N.E. 896

PEOPLE ex rel. LONG ISLAND R. CO.

v.STATE BOARD OF TAX COM'RS (CITY OF NEW YORK, Intervener).

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 31, 1921.

Certiorari proceeding by the People, on relation of the Long Island Railroad Company, against the State Board of Tax Commissioners to review an assessment for taxation for the year 1908, in which the City of New York intervened. From an order of the Appellate Division, Second Department (193 App. Div. 297,183 N. Y. Supp. 733), modifying an order of the Special Term, the relator and the defendant and intervener bring cross-appeals. Reversed, and order of the Special Term affirmed.

Cardozo, Pound, and Andrews, JJ., dissenting in part.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Alfred A. Gardner, and Joseph F. Keany, both of New York City, for relator.

Charles D. Newton, Atty. Gen., (Martin Saxe and Charles R. McSparren, both of New York City, of counsel), for state board of tax com'rs.

John P. O'Brien, Corp. Counsel, of New York City (William H. King, Eugene Fay and Paul F. Lorzer, all of New York City, of counsel), for city of New York.

McLAUGHLIN, J.

Cross-appeals from an order of the Appellate Division, Second Department, modifying an order of the Special Term in a certiorari proceeding to review an assessment for taxation for the year 1908 upon the relator's special franchise to maintain and operate its railroad across streets and highways in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

The validity of the assessment was challenged upon the grounds: (a) Overvaluation; (b) inequality; (c) that the assessment in certain cases included the value of bridges carrying highways over the railroad tracks; and (d) prior occupation by relator of certain crossings. The court at Special Term sustained the relator's claim as to (a), (b), (c), and disallowed its claim as to (d). Each of the parties appealed. The Appellate Division modified the order of the Special Term by reversing certain conclusions of law relating to the relator's claim of inequality and found, in lieu thereof, other conclusions of law disallowing such claim. The state board of tax commissioners and the city of New York appeal from the order, claiming that the assessment as originally made should be confirmed without reduction. The relator appeals because the Appellate Division modified the order of the Special Term by disallowing the claim for inequality, and also because the Special Term and Appellate Division refused to reduce the assessment by eliminating the valuation for certain crossings on the ground of prior occupation.

[1] The principal contention of the state board of tax commissioners and the city of New York is that the protests and complaints filed by the relator on grievance day, and the petition for the writ of certiorari to review the assessment, did not comply with the statute permittingsuch review. The statute provides that the complaint on grievance day shall specify the respect in which the assessment complained of is incorrect (Tax Law [Consol. Laws, c. 60], § 37); that the petition for the writ, if the claim be illegality, shall specify the grounds; if erroneous by reason of overvaluation, the extent thereof; and, if unequal, the instances in which such inequality exists, the extent thereof, and that the relator is or will be injured thereby (Tax Law, § 290). These statutory provisions, as pointed out by Justice Blackmar in his opinion at the Appellate Division, applied to assessments for local taxation in the different tax districts of the state, and, when the system of taxation of special franchises was adopted, these requirements were made applicable to proceedings to review assessments therein only ‘so far as practicable’ (Laws of 1899, c. 712, §§ 44, 45; Laws of 1896, c. 908, §§ 36, 250), and upon the facts here presented the statute could not be strictly complied with. This conclusion seems to me to be entirely correct. The state board of tax commissioners did not give the assessment for each crossing separately, but in the aggregate for certain groups. The result of that way of making the assessment was that the relator did not know, until the return to the writ was made, the amount of the assessment on each special franchise, nor how much was due to the valuation of the tangible property and how much to the intangible right. It did not know what the valuation was, either when it made its protest on grievance day, or when it presented the petition for the writ of certiorari. It could not, therefore, specify in its complaint or petition the respect in which the assessment was incorrect as to valuation, and it is difficult to see how it could do any more than it did. The impossible was not required. In its complaint it stated:

‘That the assessment of its property is excessive and erroneous by reason of overvaluation, and that it is...