St. Louis Electric Bridge Company v. Koeln

• Decision Date: 30 July 1926
• Docket Number: 25462
• Citation: St. Louis Electric Bridge Company v. Koeln, 287 S.W. 427, 315 Mo. 424 (Mo. 1926)
• Parties: St. Louis Electric Bridge Company, Appellant, v. Edmond Koeln, Collector of the Revenue
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

287 S.W. 427

315 Mo. 424

St. Louis Electric Bridge Company, Appellant, v. Edmond Koeln, Collector of the Revenue

No. 25462

Supreme Court of Missouri

July 30, 1926

Motion for Rehearing Denied October 11, 1926.

Appeal from Circuit Court of City of St. Louis; Hon. Frank Landwehr, Judge.

Affirmed.

Burton & Hamilton and Carter, Nortoni & Jones for appellant.

(1) The right of the plaintiff to maintain a bill in equity to enjoin the collection of taxes alleged to be excessive and so illegal as to amount to fraud in law is well established in Missouri and follows the rule in many other jurisdictions including the Federal courts.Overall v. Ruenzi,67 Mo. 203;Black v. McGonigle,103 Mo. 192;St Louis, I. M. & S. Railroad Co. v. Anthony,73 Mo. 431;Arnold v. Hawkins,95 Mo. 569;K. C., Ft. Scott & M. Ry. Co. v. Chapin,162 Mo. 409;St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co. v. Epperson,97 Mo. 300;State ex rel. v. W. U. Tel. Co.,165 Mo. 502affirmed in190 U.S. 412;Johnson v. Wells-Fargo & Co.,239 U.S. 234;Stanley v. Supervisors of Albany,121 U.S. 535;Green v. Railroad Co.,244 U.S. 499;Nevada-California Power Co. v. Hamilton,235 F. 342;Raymond v. Chicago Union Tr. Co.,207 U.S. 20;37 Cyc. 1263, 1267, 1269.(2)A party feeling himself aggrieved cannot, when sued in an action at law to collect the amount of taxes, collaterally attack the judgment of the Board of Equalization or other taxing body; his endeavors must be reached by direct attack, in equity, and then only upon the condition precedent that he pays or tenders the amount justly due and only asks to have the collection of the excess restrained.State ex rel. v. W. U. Tel. Co.,165 Mo. 502;State ex rel. Johnson v. Bank,279 Mo. 228.(3) The law contemplates that for purposes of taxation, property shall be assessed at is true value in money.Mo. Constitution, art. 10, sec. 74;Secs. 12802, 12855, R. S. 1919;State ex rel. v. W. U. Tel. Co.,165 Mo. 516.(4) When part of a bridge is in Missouri and part in another state, such part as is in Missouri only shall be subject to assessment and taxation in Missouri.Sec. 13058, R. S. 1919.(5) The excessive valuation for tax purposes of the property of appellant in Missouri by the Tax Commission and Board of Equalization deprives appellant of its property without due process of law in violation of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and deprives appellant of the equal protection of the laws in violation of said Section 1.Raymond v. Chicago Union Tr. Co.,207 U.S. 20, 52 L.Ed. 78;Green v. L. & I. Ry. Co., 244 U.S. 499, 61 L.Ed. 1280.

Edw. W. Foristel and Frank H. Haskins for respondent.

(1)A court of equity will not set aside an assessment solely on the ground that it is excessive.State ex rel. Gottlieb v. Western Union,165 Mo. 517;Taylor v. Secor,92 U.S. 575;Raymond v. Traction Co.,207 U.S. 38;3 Cooley on Taxation (4 Ed.) sec. 1144.(2) The action of the State Tax Commission and State Board of Equalization is judicial.It creates something more than a presumption and cannot be overthrown by the testimony of two or three witnesses that the valuation is other than that fixed by the board.Pittsburg Ry. v. Backus,154 U.S. 435;Adams Express Co. v. Ohio,165 U.S. 229.(3) The State Tax Commission has the exclusive power of original assessment of bridges, subject only to the rights given by the Constitution to the State Board of Equalization.R. S. 1919, sec. 12847, par. 6.(4) Bridges are to be assessed in the same manner as railroad property.R. S. 1919, sec. 13056.(5) In assessing, adjusting and equalizing any railroad property for any year or years the State Board may arrive at its finding, conclusion and judgment upon its knowledge or such information as may be before it and shall not be governed in its findings, conclusions and judgment by the testimony which may be adduced further than to give to it such weight as the board may think it is entitled to.R. S. 1919, sec. 13007.In assessing a bridge, it is not necessary that the assessor employ experts to determine value.Keokuk Bridge Co. v. People,161 Ill. 514.(6) All property shall be assessed at its real value.R. S. 1919, sec. 12855.(7) The franchise of a bridge is subject to taxation and is to be listed under the designation "all other property."R. S. 1919, secs. 12999, 13000;State ex rel. Hagerman v. Electric Railway,279 Mo. 616, 256 U.S. 314;State ex rel. Gottlieb v. Western Union,165 Mo. 502, 190 U.S. 412.(8) Evidence cannot be given of the comparative value of separate pieces of property and the assessment on each.Town of Potosi v. Casey,27 Mo. 372.(9) An assessment in excess of the real value, however great the excess may be, is not evidence of fraud.Hamilton v. Rosenblatt, 8 Mo.App. 237.

Ragland, P. J.All concur, except Graves, J., absent.

OPINION

RAGLAND

Plaintiff is the owner of a bridge extending across the Mississippi River from Venice, Illinois, to the city of St. Louis, which is used for electric car, vehicular and pedestrian traffic.In 1921 the State Tax Commission and the State Board of Equalization assessed for purposes of taxation that part of the bridge property which is located within this State at the sum of $ 1,443,750.Plaintiff instituted this action, a suit in equity, to cancel and set aside such assessment and to enjoin the collection of the tax based thereon.As grounds for such relief the petition alleges, in substance, that the value of the plaintiff's property was not determined by the members of the State Tax Commission and the State Board of Equalization through the exercise of judgment, either individual or collective, but that without evidence and without reference to the fair cash value of said property, they arbitrarily assessed it at a sum shockingly in excess of its actual value; and that in making such assessment they employed a higher basis than the one used by them in assessing other bridges of the same class and character.With these as its premises the plaintiff charges: that the assessment is fraudulent in law; that it violates Section 3, Article X, of the Constitution of Missouri, which requires that taxation shall be uniform on the same class of subjects; and that it deprives plaintiff of its property without due process of law and denies to it the equal protection of the law, both in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

The 1921 assessment of the portion of the bridge located in Missouri was an increase of seventy-five per cent over that of 1920.Plaintiff contending that the property did not exceed in value $ 825,000, the sum at which it was assessed in 1920, at the time it instituted this suit paid into court for the use of defendant collector a sum sufficient to cover the 1921 taxes if based on the 1920 valuation.

For many years prior to the making of the assessment in question taxation in this State had been based on what are termed fractional assessments, that is, assessments representing only a portion of the value of the property assessed.In 1921, however, the State Tax Commission and the State Board of Equalization determined that all taxable property in the State should be assessed at its full value conformably to the statutory provision (as they interpreted it) which requires all property to be assessed according to its true value in money.Pursuant to that purpose the assessments of all classes of property were greatly increased over those of preceding years, the assessments of farm lands, for example, being increased to the extent of one hundred and forty per cent.The assessments of the bridges in the class to which plaintiff's belongs were made by taking the 1920 assessments of those properties and applying to them a horizontal raise of seventy-five per cent.This method of increasing the assessments did not violate the principle of uniformity, nor did it discriminate against any taxpayer.If there were any inequalities in the bridge assessments made in 1921, it was because they existed in the assessments of 1920, and with respect to those assessments there was and is no criticism.However, there was some evidence to the effect that other bridges across the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, of equal or greater length and of the same general construction and which were used as facilities for steam railroads as well as to accommodate vehicular and pedestrian traffic, were assessed at lower values in 1921 than that placed upon plaintiff's.But these meager facts, mere generalizations at best, afford no basis for a finding that the value placed upon the bridge in question was as compared with those put on other bridges of the same class unduly high.Such a finding if made, however, would be no ground for equitable relief.[State ex rel. v. Western Union Tel. Co., 165 Mo. 502.]

Plaintiff's bridge is described in the statement and brief...