St. Joe Paper Co. v. Mickler, M-345

• Decision Date: 17 November 1970
• Docket Number: No. M-345,M-345
• Citation: 241 So.2d 415
• Parties: ST. JOE PAPER COMPANY, a Florida Corporation, Appellant, v. Dan F. MICKLER et al., Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 415

241 So.2d 415

ST. JOE PAPER COMPANY, a Florida Corporation, Appellant, v. Dan F. MICKLER et al., Appellee.

No. M-345.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

Nov. 17, 1970.

Kent, Durden & Kent, Jacksonville, for appellant.

Willard Howatt, St. Augustine, Harold M. Wayne, in pro per., and Marks, Gray, Yates, Conroy & Gibbs, Jacksonville, for appellees.

CARROLL, DONALD K., Acting Chief Judge.

The plaintiff in an action for declaratory and injunctive relief has appealed from an adverse final judgment entered by the Circuit Court for St. Johns County, holding that certain lands owned by the plaintiff were taxable as nonagricultural lands.

As phrased by the appellant, the sole question presented for our determination in this appeal is whether the denial of agricultural zoning for a part of a single tract of the plaintiff's lands by the County Agricultural Board of St. Johns County was arbitrary and contrary to the standards set in Section 193.461, Florida Statutes, F.S.A. A more precise statement of this question, as suggested by the defendants, is whether a 500-acre parcel owned by the plaintiff in the said county was used in a bona fide agricultural operation on January 1, 1968, and on January 1, 1969, as contemplated by the said statute.

The record establishes the following facts pertinent to the present consideration:

The plaintiff is the owner and operator of a paper mill in Port St. Joe, Florida, and owns extensive land holdings in Florida and Georgia, perhaps totalling as much as a million acres. These lands are devoted primarily, if not wholly, to forestry and timber operations.

Among the lands owned for at least a quarter century is a 4,300-acre tract in the northwest section of St. John County, known as the 'Hallowes Tract,' lying south of Switzerland, Florida, and north of Orangedale, bound on the west by the east bank of the St. Johns River. The eastern property line is several miles to the east from the river and located in a swampy, uninhabited area.

The entire Hallowes Tract had been classified as agricultural lands and taxed as such for up to and including 1967. State Road 13, which generally runs in a north-south direction passes through the tract. That part of the tract lying east of the said road contains about 3,800 acres, and that part lying west of the road and along the St. Johns River contains approximately 500 acres--this latter is the part directly involved in the present appeal.

The first critical question before us is whether the plaintiff was using the land in question in a bona fide forestry operation on January first of each of the taxable years 1968 and 1969. The plaintiff's tax return states that the land was 'being used primarily for agricultural purposes and in connection with a bona fide agricultural operation.'

The only testimony adduced by the plaintiff in an effort to prove a bona fide forestry operation was as follows:

A real estate appraiser, who was employed by the plaintiff to testify as to whether the said land was rural or urban, testified that it was 'typical forest, managed forest lands,' but he admitted that this statement was based simply on what he had been told and that he had 'made no studies or investigations as to whether they were managed or not * * * I made no cruise of this land, made no study.'

A registered forester testified for the plaintiff that it would be commercially feasible to cut the timber on the said land but did not think that it would be feasible or economically sound to plant trees on it. He also testified that, during his inspection of the land, he did not notice that there had been any cutting of hardwood during the last ten years and that he personally had cut no timber off the land; that he knew of no one in the business who had done so; and that he had not talked to anyone who did any management of the land and he did not observe any.

An industrial forester for another paper company testified on behalf of the plaintiff that he found the said land to be suitable for forestry operations and that it would be commercially feasible to cut the stand of timber now on the land. He further testified, however, that 'I don't think planting would be an indicated forestry operation again' and that he did not observe any evidence at all of management of the land.

On the other hand, the defendants adduced the following testimony on the issue of whether the plaintiff was carrying on a bona fide forestry operation on the said land on the dates in question:

One of the defendants, the county agricultural agent and a member of the steering committee of the said agricultural zoning board, testified that in his opinion agricultural zoning was denied because of lack of fire breaks on the land and because the land obstructed the growth of urban areas.

Another defense witness, who had been a county commissioner in 1968, testified that agricultural zoning was denied because the land impeded the development of three towns, because the land was not feasible for use as a forestry operation, and because:

'* * * there was no sign in this particular area of timber management. I did not find any fire lines and I have driven on several roads and I certainly did not find any sign of where there had been any management of a nature that I have always considered management over my own tract as being needed.'

A witness who had been the plaintiff's chief forester since June, 1968, testified that the land was suitable as timberland and the timber on it commercially feasible to cut. While he denied that good forestry practice requires the cutting of fire lines along the roads, he acknowledged that no roads were cut on the said land and that the plaintiff used no professional forester or 'equipment, fire fighting, cats, bulldozers' in connection with the land. He also testified that, while the plaintiff had a land management program, it had not 'shifted here' to St. Johns County. He admitted that it had become commercially feasible to cut the timber about ten years before and pulpwood in the last five years, yet the company records do not show such cutting, and he had observed no stumpage on the land. He finally testified that it was one of his duties to recommend to the plaintiff the purchase of lands for forestry operations but that he would not have recommended to the plaintiff the purchase of the said land for timberland and forestry purposes.

The foregoing testimony, while in some conflict as to the pivotal issue of whether the plaintiff was conducting a bona fide forestry operation on the said land on January 1, 1968, and 1969, was in our opinion, amply sufficient to support the finding of the chancellor, who was sitting as the trier of the facts, that the said land was not being used for a bona fide agricultural purpose on the said dates. This appellate court lacks the authority to substitute its judgment for that of the chancellor as to questions of fact where,...