Sanford Realty Co. v. City of Knoxville

• Decision Date: 27 November 1937
• Citation: 110 S.W.2d 325,172 Tenn. 125
• Parties: SANFORD REALTY CO. v. CITY OF KNOXVILLE et al. SANFORD v. SAME. BAKER v. SAME.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

110 S.W.2d 325

172 Tenn. 125

SANFORD REALTY CO. v. CITY OF KNOXVILLE et al.

SANFORD v. SAME.

BAKER v. SAME.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 27, 1937

Appeal from Chancery Court, Knox County; A. E. Mitchell, Chancellor.

Certiorari proceedings by the Sanford Realty Company, Hugh W. Sanford and Mary Ross Baker, respectively, for relief from additional tax assessments made by the Tax Assessor of the City of Knoxville and approved by the Director of Finance and Tax Commission. From a decree for petitioners, the City of Knoxville and others appeal.

Affirmed.

DeHAVEN Justice.

The above three suits involve identical questions. Petitioners are property owners and taxpayers of the City of Knoxville. It appears that the respective properties of petitioners were assessed for taxation for the year 1936, on or prior to February 10, 1936, by the regular Tax Assessor of the City of Knoxville, and thereafter, on or about February 15, 1936, a new Tax Assessor, who had just come into office a few days before, increased the assessments of petitioners' properties, as shown by the stipulations filed in the causes.

Petitioners duly filed with the Director of Finance, who is also the Tax Assessor, and the Tax Commission a protest against the last assessments, one ground of which was that neither the Tax Assessor nor the Tax Commission had the legal right or authority to increase the 1936 assessments of the respective properties after February 10, 1936. Thereafter, the Director of Finance and the Tax Commission ruled that the increased assessments should stand; whereupon, petitioners filed their respective petitions for certiorari to the chancery court of Knox county seeking relief from the additional assessments which they asserted had been unlawfully made by the city for the reasons hereinafter set forth.

The defendants answered and admitted the assessments were made as averred; but denied the same were in violation of law, or of the charter or ordinance of the city.

On the hearing the chancellor delivered a written opinion in which he found the issues involved in favor of petitioners.

From a decree in accordance with the findings of the chancellor defendants have appealed to this court. The question made by the assignments of error can be stated as follows: Was the Tax Assessor or the Tax Commission authorized to increase a tax assessment on property after February 10th where the regular Tax Assessor had made the assessment on or before February 10th?

It is contended by petitioners that the City of Knoxville was without legal right or authority to increase the assessments upon their properties after February 10, 1936, because:

(1) The charter of the City of Knoxville provides (section 88, chapter 412, Private Acts 1923, as amended by chapter 119, section 5, Private Acts 1931): "Assessments of all property in the City of Knoxville shall be made as of January 10th in each calendar year and shall be fully completed on or before the 10th day of February in each year, except for the year 1931; thereafter assessments shall be continuous and revisions may be made from time to time by the Tax Assessor and/or the Tax Commission so that the final assessment for succeeding calendar years shall be fixed prior to February 10th of all succeeding calendar years."

(2) The ordinance of the City of Knoxville provides in section 2, in part, as follows: "The revision and equalization of all assessments for the year 1932, and all succeeding years shall be fixed and fully completed prior to February 10th in each year."

(3) Section 1497 of the Code of 1932 provides: "It shall not be lawful for any back assessment or reassessment to be made against any property which has been assessed by the regularly constituted assessing authorities; provided, however, that nothing in this section shall prevent the back assessment or reassessment of any property, real or personal, which shall have entirely escaped assessment and taxation, or shall have been inadequately assessed by reason of the connivance or fraud of the tax debtor."

(4) The charter of the City of Knoxville provides (section 83, chapter 412, Private Acts 1923): "That any property, real, personal or mixed, lying within the corporate limits which shall have been omitted from the regular tax assessment books, or are so described therein as to make assessment thereof uncertain or imperfect, may, in either event, be assessed for taxation by the Director of Finance for the current year and for the three years next preceding, by entering on the tax books for the current year a description thereof."

Petitioners insist that the provisions of the charter and ordinance requiring tax assessments to be made and fully completed by both the Tax Assessor and the Tax Commission on or before February 10th in each year are mandatory. It is further insisted that under Code, § 1497, there can be no reassessment of property which has been assessed by the regularly constituted assessing authorities, unless inadequately assessed by reason of the connivance or fraud of the tax debtor, and that under the charter and ordinance of the City of Knoxville no provisions are made for the reassessment of property.

Defendants insist that the provisions of the charter and ordinance above referred to are merely directory, and that a literal compliance therewith is not necessary as a condition precedent to a valid assessment; that such enactments were not intended for the benefit or protection of the taxpayers but were designed for the information, convenience, and guidance of the taxing authorities; and that there was a substantial compliance with such provisions in making the assessments complained of by petitioners. It is further insisted that the taxing authorities of the city had at all times interpreted the charter provisions as being merely directory, and had made assessments without regard to the time limit prescribed therein, and that such practice has been uniform and continuous since the passage of the act. And, further, that petitioners had had their day in that they had perfected their appeals to the Tax Commission where the action of the Tax Assessor was affirmed, and their...