State Bd. of Tax Com'rs v. Stanley

• Decision Date: 15 May 1952
• Docket Number: No. 18281,18281
• Citation: 105 N.E.2d 830,123 Ind.App. 64
• Parties: STATE BOARD OF TAX COM'RS et al. v. STANLEY et al.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 830

105 N.E.2d 830

123 Ind.App. 64

STATE BOARD OF TAX COM'RS et al. v. STANLEY et al.

No. 18281.

Appellate Court of Indiana, in Banc.

May 15, 1952.

J. Emmett McManamon, Atty. Gen., Walter O. Lewis, Deputy Atty. Gen., Oliver Zeiher, Indianapolis, State Bd. of Tax Commissioners, of counsel for appellants.

A. B. Chipman, Roy Sheneman, Plymouth, for appellees.

CRUMPACKER, Judge.

This is a class action instituted by the appellees on behalf of themselves and all other owners of taxable real estate in Marshall County, Indiana. Its purpose is to enjoin the appellants Fred H. Kuhn and Harold E. Rose, as auditor and treasurer respectively of said county, from levying and collecting taxes for the year 1950 on all real estate therein based on a valuation fixed by an administrative order of the appellant State Board of Tax Commissioners made on August 8, 1950. The State Board came into the case upon a petition to intervene as a party defendant after the appellants Kuhn and Rose had demurred to the complainant and had been overruled. The finding and judgment is for the taxpayers and the State Board appeals making Kuhn and Rose, in their official capacity, nominal appellants. They filed no briefs and are in no way complaining of the judgment and under the circumstances should have been joined as appellees rather than appellants. This is of little consequence and would require no comment except for the first assignment of error which is as follows: 'The trial court erred in overruling appellants' demurrer to appellees' amended complaint.' The demurrer in question was filed by Kuhn and Rose alone and if they were actual appellants said assignment would present a question for determination. They are not asserting it, however, and any error involved is not available to the appellant State Board because such error, if any, was committed against its coparties only. Wiley, Trustee, v. Coovert, 1891, 127 Ind. 559, 27 N.E. 173; Marsh v. Morris, 1893, 133 Ind. 548, 33 N.E. 290.

The evidence tends to prove the following facts: Pursuant to Ch. 225 of the Acts of the General Assembly of Indiana for the year 1949, the same being 'An Act concerning the reassessment of real estate and improvements thereon for taxation purposes', Burns' Stat. § 64-1019, the various township assessors in Marshall County duly reassessed all the real estate and improvements thereon in said county effective as of March 1, 1950, on which to base taxes for the year 1950, payable in 1951. Said reassessment was made under the general supervision of the State Board of Tax Commissioners pursuant to rules, regulations, forms and standards adopted by said board under authority of § 64-1019, supra. Each of said township assessors completed his work within the time provided by the Act and made return thereof to the auditor of Marshall County. The aggregate value of all lands and the improvements thereof in the county, as shown by said returns, is $53,103,398. The County Board of Review of Marshall County, in special session on March 14, 1950, ordered a horizontal reduction of 10 percent in the value of all lands and improvements thereon in the county as fixed by said assessors, thus reducing the aggregate assessment to $47,793,059.

On July 25, 1950, pursuant to due notice, the appellant State Board of Tax Commissioners held a public hearing in the state house at Indianapolis at which time, according to its records, 'the assessments as to lands and improvements in all the counties, local taxing units and subdivisions thereof in the entire state were considered for the purpose of equalizing the same with respect to other counties throughout the state and within the local taxing units and subdivisions thereof.' As a result of this hearing the appellant State Board found and determined 'that it was necessary to modify or change some assessments for the purpose of obtaining a proper and just equalization throughout the entire state and within said counties' and to that end, on August 8, 1950, ordered that the assessments of the lands and improvements thereon in Marshall County, as fixed by its Board of Review in the sum of $47,793,059, be increased 10 percent, thereby restoring them to the total originally determined by the assessors.

The appellees predicate their right to relief on the alleged invalidity of this order on the basis of which the appellants Kuhn and Rose, as auditor and treasurer respectively of Marshall County, were levying and collecting taxes when enjoined by the...