Randals v. State
| Decision Date | 16 March 1929 |
| Docket Number | (No. 2289.) |
| Citation | 15 S.W.2d 715 |
| Parties | RANDALS et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Suit by the State of Texas against Ben Randals and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants bring error. Reversed and remanded.
H. G. Russell, of Pecos, for plaintiffs in error.
William L. Kerr, of Pecos, for the State.
Plaintiffs in error rendered sections Nos. 2, 10, and 12, in block 6, H. & G. N. Railway Company survey, situated in Reeves county, Tex., to the tax assessor of Reeves county at $1.25 per acre valuation for state and county taxes for the year 1927.
At the regular meeting of the board of equalization of Reeves county the valuation of said lands was raised to $350 per acre, and Randals was notified of that fact. Randals appeared and protested against said raise, but the board refused to reduce said valuation as raised.
On April 17, 1928, suit was filed by the county attorney of Reeves county to recover the taxes then delinquent on said property. Plaintiffs in error answered by general demurrer, general denial, and specially pleaded that the valuation had not been equalized according to law; that a blanket valuation had been placed on all river lands without regard to the value thereof; that the board had overvalued the land to almost three times its real, cash, or market value; that the tax is not equal and uniform; that the personal property in or near the land of plaintiffs in error was assessed at from its market value to less than one-half of same; and that the valuation so fixed by the board was unfair, it being erroneous, false, and fraudulent and so fixed in order to force plaintiffs in error to pay a greater amount of taxes than other people.
The case was tried before the court without a jury and resulted in a judgment in favor of defendant in error for $95.06, and Randals and wife have appealed to this court by writ of error.
Upon the trial it was developed that the board of equalization had fixed a valuation of $3.50 per acre on all watered land where it joined the river; that that was the only basis of assessment used by the board on such lands; that dry grazing land which did not adjoin the river was valued at $1.25 per acre; that alfalfa lands were valued at $25 per acre, row crop land at $15 per acre, cultivated land with alfalfa at $25 per acre, and land under the ditch but not in cultivation $10 per acre; that such rule was the only one used in fixing valuations all over the county by the board; that the board paid no attention to improvements; that bank stock was assessed at five-eighths of its book value; that personal property and town property were assessed at five-eighths of their reasonable value; that all the farm land in Reeves county is not of the same value; that there is some cotton land worth $75 per acre and some alfalfa land worth from $125 to $150 per acre; that there is as much as 500 acres of land in the county worth $75 per acre or more; that there is 5,000 acres of grazing land in the county worth $5 per acre or more; and that the land of plaintiffs in error was worth $8 or $8.50 per acre.
The above amounts and values were testified to by the tax assessor of Reeves county, and are uncontradicted except as to the value of the land of plaintiffs in error.
This question was settled, however, by the finding of the court that its value was $8 per acre.
To assess the property of one or a few owners at a materially higher percentage of its value than the percentage of the value at which the property of a great majority of the owners in the...
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