Standard Coal Co. v. Indep. Dist. of Angus

• Decision Date: 28 October 1887
• Citation: 34 N.W. 870,73 Iowa 304
• Parties: STANDARD COAL CO. AND OTHERS v. INDEPENDENT DIST. OF ANGUS AND OTHERS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

73 Iowa 304

34 N.W. 870

STANDARD COAL CO. AND OTHERS

v.INDEPENDENT DIST. OF ANGUS AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

October 28, 1887.

Appeal from district court, Boone county.

Action for an injunction to restrain the collection of a school tax. A decree was granted in accordance with the prayer of the petition. The defendants appeal.Hull & Bicksler, for appellants.

Clayton Harrington, for appellees.

ADAMS, C. J.

The independent district of Angus is part in Greene county, and part in Boone county. In 1886 the directors of the district, thinking that the property in the Boone county part had not in the past years sustained its share of the taxation, voted a tax of 50 mills on a dollar upon that property, and at the same time voted a tax of only 24 mills on a dollar on the property in the Greene county part. The tax so voted was certified to the respective boards of supervisors, and the tax was by each duly levied. The plaintiffs are property owners in the Boone county part. They feel aggrieved by the levy of so large a tax, and they bring this action to prevent the collection of the same. They aver that it is void. One of the grounds upon which they aver that it is void is that it was not levied by the board of directors within the time within which they had the power to levy it. The fact appears to be that the action of the board was had on the twenty-fifth day of May, 1886. The statute upon which the plaintiffs rely is section 1738 of the Code, which provides that “no tax shall be levied by the board after the third Monday in May;” and it appears that the third Monday was the seventeenth. Negative and restrictive words being used in the statute, it appears to us that we must treat it as mandatory, and hold that the plaintiffs' position in respect to a want of power on the part of the board of directors, on the twenty-fifth day of May, must be sustained.

The defendants' position is that it is not necessary for the board of directors to levy the tax at all, but merely to determine the amount, and cause the same to be certified to the board of supervisors, and that the tax is to be levied by them. They rely upon section 1777 of the Code. It is not, perhaps, very material what the action of the board of directors is called by which the amount of tax is determined by them. In section 1738 of the Code it seems to be treated as the levying of the tax, though it is clear enough from section 1777 that the tax must be levied by the board of...