Schleman v. Connecticut General Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 10 July 1942 |
| Citation | 151 Fla. 96,9 So.2d 197 |
| Parties | SCHLEMAN, Tax Collector Hillsborough County, et al. v. CONNECTICUT GENERAL LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Luther W. Cobbey and Oliver C. Maxwell, both of Tampa, and Lewis H. Tribble, of Tallahassee, for petitioners.
Gibbons, Vega & Gibbons and Paul Game, all of Tampa, for respondent.
Petition for certiorari has been filed by the parties who were defendants in the court below to review the order of the chancellor striking interrogatories and certain parts of the answer. At the outset we will give briefly the contents of the bill of complaint and a resume of the portions of the answer held insufficient. It was alleged in the bill that property of the plaintiff was valued by the assessor for the year 1941 at approximately $222,000 although the 'full cash value' of it on January 1, of that year was but $75,000. It was charged that this value was excessive and unjust and amounted to the practice of a legal fraud upon the pleader. It was further averred that a protest had been made to the board of county commissioners acting as equalizers and that they refused relief. The plaintiff tendered the amount of taxes computed on the valuation of $75,000 and prayed for an injunction against the tax collector to prevent the collection of taxes on the value the assessor had fixed.
In the bill there was contained the express statement that all state and county taxes against the property theretofore assessed had been paid.
The feature of the bill which will grow in significance as this opinion develops is that there was no mention whatever made of valuations of other properties of the plaintiff or of properties of other taxpayers in the county.
The substance of the portion of the answer stricken on motion, or so much of it as is necessary to a determination of the question involved, is: (1) that the property of the plaintiff was assessed on the same basis as other property of like character; and (2) that the plaintiff was the owner of other real estate in the county some of which was not assessed at all and some at less than its full cash value. The discussion of the first of these phases will evolve the primary question involved in this controversy. The chancellor sustained the plaintiff in his position, that the former clause was inadequate, on the theory that proof of an assessment of his property at three hundred per cent of its full cash value would entitle him to relief without allegations or evidence that there had been any discrimination against him and without any inquiry whether other property in the same category had been valued on the same basis.
To confirm the chancellor it is necessary to hold that a taxpayer may be successful in his quest for relief against an overassessment to the extent alleged solely because of the disparity between the full cash value of the property and the amount of the assessment, despite the contention of appellants that if all property in the county is likewise excessively valued he would not be paying any more than his proportionate share of the tax burden. Parenthetically, it may be observed that no particular innovation was offered by the legislature in Section 2 of Chapter 20722, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1941 where it is provided that the tax assessor must 'assess all property at its full cash value' because Section 905 C.G.L.1927, contained a similar mandate. In our examination of the decisions of this and other courts on the subject there will be, therefore, no need to differentiate between cases decided before the passage of the former and those decided afterwards.
It is well to bear in mind the provisions of Section 1 of Article IX of the Constitution which places upon the legislature the duty to provide a 'uniform and equal rate of taxation' and to 'prescribe such regulations as shall secure a just valuation of all property, both real and personal * * *.'
As has been announced by this court (Rorick et al. v. Reconstruction Finance Corp. et al., 144 Fla. 539, 198 So. 494), the former provision applies solely to the rate of taxation. The latter deals with valuation and the legislature, in the two acts already mentioned, adopted the measure of 'full cash value' as the guide which the taxing official should follow. It is urged by the appellants that the appellee can show no injury by the assessment, even assuming that the valuation is more than the full cash value, if other property similarly situated has been assessed on the same basis. It is true that in ordinary circumstances where there is no limit on the millage for any particular fund or exemption to be reckoned with, there could be no injury to an individual taxpayer by an equal overassessment of all property on the tax roll because the determinant is the amount to be raised as shown in the budget and so long as that remains static the proceeds of the levy would be the same, hence, if all property were assessed at three hundred per cent of its value the millage would be thirded. This, of course, would not be the case if there is a ceiling of millage for a stipulated fund. For instance, it is provided in the constitution (Section 8 of Article XII) that not 'more than ten (10) mills on the dollar on all taxable property * * *' shall be assessed for the support of the public free schools. This limitation could be increased to thirty mills by simply tripling the assessed valuation. Another illustration of a limit which might be enlarged by overvaluation will appear from an examination of Section 2826, C.G.L.1927, providing for a levy of not more than two mills to defray the expenses of criminal prosecutions. As the chancellor has so aptly pointed out the ratio between contribution and tax burden of the owner of a homestead could not be maintained in circumstances where there had been an overvaluation because the exemption, as in the case of a limitation of taxes for a particular purpose, is fixed therefore if a homestead were assessed at three times its cash value the exemption could not be tripled and the owner of the homestead would pay much more proportionately than in the case of assessment according to the standard prescribed by the legislature.
Let us suppose a situation where two pieces of property of the exact full cash value of $10,000 each are located side by side and are assessed on that basis, with all other property in the county, against which it is necessary to levy thirty mills to meet the budget. If the assessment of each of them is raised to $30,000, or three times the cash value, a levy of only ten mills would be...
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...1940, 144 Fla. 539, 198 So. 494. This principle was reaffirmed by the Florida Supreme Court in Schleman v. Connecticut General Life Ins. Co., 1942, 151 Fla. 96, 9 So.2d 197. However, see the language appearing as dictum in Armstrong v. State ex rel. Beaty, Fla.1954, 69 So.2d 319 at 321, whe......
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