Pierce v. Green

• Decision Date: 24 September 1940
• Docket Number: 45167.
• Citation: 294 N.W. 237,229 Iowa 22
• Parties: PIERCE v. GREEN et al.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

294 N.W. 237

229 Iowa 22

PIERCE v. GREEN et al.

No. 45167.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

September 24, 1940

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; John J. Halloran, Judge.

An action for a writ of mandamus ordering the defendants, as members of the State Tax Commission, to convene and directing them to use their honest discretion in assessing all property, which the commission is required by law to assess at what is, in their best judgment, its actual value, and to adjust the valuations of property, assessed by local assessors, in the counties of the State, using their honest discretion, so that said property will be assessed at what is, in their best judgment, its actual value. The court having sustained the defendants' motion to dismiss, and plaintiff having elected to plead no further but to stand upon the ruling of the court, the court rendered judgment dismissing plaintiff's substituted petition. From the ruling and judgment, plaintiff has appealed.

Reversed and remanded.

Hirschburg & Reynolds, of Ames, and Newell Cadwell, of Marshalltown, for appellant.

Fred D. Everett, Atty. Gen., and John E. Mulroney, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees.

BLISS Justice.

Since all facts properly pleaded are conceded by the defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's substituted petition, the question for determination is the sufficiency of those facts to entitle the plaintiff to the relief prayed for. In substance, the substituted petition, filed September 16, 1939, alleges: That the plaintiff is a resident and taxpayer of the city of Marshalltown, Iowa, owning both real and personal property, which is located in said city, and brings this suit in his own behalf and in behalf of all other taxpayers similarly situated in Iowa; that since the filing of his petition on June 28, 1939, the defendant, Nelson, succeeded Louis E. Roddewig as a member of the commission, and took part in the assessments complained of; that at various meetings of the commission in July and August, 1939, the defendant members made all of. the original assessments required by law to be made by them, including the property owned by electric light and power companies, railroad companies and telegraph and telephone companies; that said companies furnished to the commission all information necessary to enable it to make a legal and equitable assessment of their properties, but said commission ignored said information, and failed to exercise its discretion based on the information, and made arbitrary, fraudulent, dishonest and illegal assessments contrary to the statutes of the State; that the commission granted plaintiff a hearing in June, 1939, at which time he presented evidence that assessments by the commission had caused him to pay more taxes than he should have paid, if the members of the commission had performed their duties; that at said hearing the defendants stated that they were familiar with law, and that they had not complied with the law and did not intend to, giving as a reason that they would not change a method which had always been used, even though it might be wrong, and admitted that in some counties farm land was assessed as high as one hundred percent and in other counties was assessed as low as fifty percent; that plaintiff at the hearing presented proper evidence showing that defendants in the past had not made assessments at anything approaching actual value, all of which each of said defendants admitted, but refused, on demand of the plaintiff to make the assessments for the year 1939, or at any future years, at what they deemed to be actual value; that thereafter in July and August, 1939, the defendants met and assessed all properties required by law to be assessed by them, at values that were but a small percentage of their actual value, and in making the said assessments the defendants did not use their discretion, but arbitrarily, intentionally, fraudulently, dishonestly and illegally assessed said properties at grossly inadequate sums; that when making said assessments the defendants had before them information and facts from three different sources, showing the actual value of the taxable property of each company, first, by statements prepared by competent engineers employed by the commission to ascertain the actual value of the property of each company, whose property they were required to assess; second, by statements prepared and sworn to by each company and filed with the commission as required by law; third, by the estimates of actual value based upon the net earnings of each company capitalized; that a comparison of the assessed values fixed by defendants with any or all of the estimates of actual value from the three sources, show conclusively that defendants in making said assessments did not use their honest discretion, but arbitrarily, intentionally, fraudulently, dishonestly and illegally assessed said properties at a grossly inadequate sum; that defendants have full knowledge of the law requiring them to assess all such properties at their actual value; that they admitted that said properties have been intentionally and knowingly assessed at from 14 to 82.5 percent of the actual value thereof, or an average of 61.3 percent below actual value, all of which they then knew and now know to be in violation of the statutes of the State; that defendants in so assessing said property, at values that were but a small percentage of the actual value, caused plaintiff and all other taxpayers, similarly situated in Iowa, to pay much more than their equitable share of county, school, and state taxes; that at the meetings of the commission, in July, 1939, or at other times in that year, the defendants made assessments of properties of the percentages of actual values of companies, as herein set out, towit:

Name of Company Assessed Value Actual Value Percentage

Iowa Public Service Co. $8,820,478 $29,927,675 29.4

Iowa Electric Light & Power Co. 7,916,342 31,289,506 25.3

Des Moines Electric Company 4,084,688 18,000,000 22.6

Iowa Power & Light Co. 6,457,909 18,984,787 30.3

Council Bluffs Gas Co. 1,063,000 2,395,765 30.8

that in making all of said assessments the defendants refused to use their honest discretion, but knowingly, intentionally, arbitrarily, fraudulently, dishonestly and illegally assessed said properties at the values above stated, well knowing that they were not the actual values, but were only the percentages thereof set forth; that the statutes of the State provide that the commission shall adjust the valuations of property in the various counties of the state by adding to or deducting from the valuation of each kind or class of property such percentage in each case as will bring the property to be assessed to its actual value; that the plaintiff at said hearing in June, 1939, presented proper evidence that, in accordance with specific instructions from the defendants, all local assessors in the State assessed property, required by law to be assessed by them at sixty percent of its actual value, all in violation of the laws of the State; that at said hearing the defendants admitted that they had instructed the local assessors to assess property at sixty percent of its actual value, and further stated that they knew that property in some counties was assessed at one hundred percent of its actual value, while property in other counties was assessed at only fifty percent of its actual value; that defendants at said time refused to and have since refused to make any adjustments of said valuations, all in violation of the statutes of the State; that the defendants, at the time they made assessments and adjustments in July and August, 1939, had in their possession from the county auditors all necessary information to enable them to adjust valuations of property in the several counties so that it would be assessed at the actual value thereof, but without using their honest discretion, they intentionally, arbitrarily, fraudulently, dishonestly and illegally neglected and refused to make any adjustments, and allowed said assessments to remain unchanged, well knowing that some counties were assessed at one hundred percent of actual value while others were assessed at only fifty percent of actual value; that defendants, as a result of their said actions, have caused taxes to be levied against and paid by plaintiff that are confiscatory and inequitable in violation of the statutes and the State and Federal constitutions; that he has no plain, speedy and adequate remedies at law. In addition to specific relief heretofore stated, the plaintiff prayed for general equitable relief.

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss this petition upon grounds in substance as follows:

" 1. That the action was an action against the State of Iowa without its consent.

2. That the action constituted an effort to subject the executive department of government to interference by the judicial department of government.

3. That the plaintiff does not have a direct interest in the subject matter of the action.

4. That the question involved in the action is moot in that the petition showed that the assessments had already been made.

5. That the petition failed to state any default on the part of defendants that resulted in plaintiff's damage and it did seek to control the future actions of the defendants, and it was therefore premature.

6. That plaintiff had a plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law.

7. That the petition failed to allege that uniformity or equality of assessment would result if the writ were granted and petition showed that inequality of assessment...