State ex rel. Kemper v. St. Louis, K.C. & N. Ry. Co.
Decision Date | 08 February 1881 |
Citation | 9 Mo.App. 532 |
Parties | STATE OF MISSOURI, EX REL. HENRY KEMPER, Respondent, v. THE ST. LOUIS, KANSAS CITY, AND NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant. |
Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
1. Where a municipal corporation has, in the due exercise of a power conferred upon it by the Legislature, assessed and levied a tax upon certain property within its limits, the Legislature may, by an act retrospective in its terms, and which takes effect before such tax becomes due, annul the assessment so made, and vest in another body the power to make the assessment for that year.
2. The act " to provide for the assessment and collection of taxes on bridges owned by joint-stock companies, and property and franchises owned by telegraph and express companies," is not a special law within the meaning of the constitutional inhibition against the passage of local or special laws.
3 Sect. 15 of the Bill of Rights was not intended to prohibit the passage of retrospective acts which do not disturb rights of a private character.
APPEAL from the St. Charles Circuit Court, EDWARDS, J.
Reversed, and judgment.
WELLS H. BLODGETT and GEORGE S. GROVER, for the appellant: The purposes for which counties and cities may levy and collect taxes, and the time and manner in which property may be assessed and taxed by municipal authorities, are under the absolute control of the Legislature, and no city or county can acquire any vested right to any particular portion of its revenue, or to any particular assessment, or method of assessment, which cannot be controlled, modified, or taken away by the Legislature.--Dill. on Mun. Corp. 147, 148 sects. 35, 36; Cooley on Tax. 34; Burr. on Tax. 2; Hill. on Tax. 3, 4, sect. 3; Blanding v. Burr, 13 Cal. 343; Augusta Bank v. Augusta, 49 Me. 507; Guilford v Chenango County, 13 N.Y. 149; The People v. Mayor, 4 Comst. 419; The State ex rel. v. Severance, 55 Mo. 378; Pacific R. Co. v. Watson, 61 Mo. 57.
C. DAUDT, T. S. CUNNINGHAM, and F. W. HINMAN, for the respondent: Retrospective enactments are not valid.--Const., Art. II., sect. 15. The passage of special laws is prohibited.--Const., Art. IV., sect. 53. When the power of taxation has been once conferred on a corporation, the corporate authorities alone have the right to exercise it, and the Legislature creating the corporation cannot vest the whole or any part of that taxing power in any other body.--Dill. on Mun. Corp., chap. 5, sect. 64; Railroad Co. v. Alexandria, 17 Gratt. 176; Richmond v. Daniel, 14 Gratt. 387. When the General Assembly has authorized a municipal corporation to acquire revenue by taxation for its local and corporate needs, its (the General Assembly) constitutional power over local taxation in that political subdivision of the State has been exhausted, and all taxes levied and collected for the use of that municipality must be levied and collected by the local authorities.-- Const. Mo., Art. X., sects. 1, 10; Howard v. Drainage Co., 51 Ill. 130; Dill. on Mun. Corp., chap. 19, sects. 590, 592; chap. 4, sect. 38; chap. 5, sects. 55, 64.
This statute contained no emergency clause, and hence did not take effect until July 30, 1877; but it is perceived that it took effect two days before August 1, 1877--that is, before the taxes thus levied by the local authorities of St. Charles city and county became payable. The taxes so levied upon the assessment aforesaid were not paid by the Bridge Company, nor by the St. Louis, Kansas City, and Northern Railway Company, which became the owner of the property so assessed. In the month of May of the following year (1878), the State board of equalization, proceeding under the statute before set out, made a new assessment of the property in question for the year 1877, at a valuation of $150,000. On July 23d of the same year the County Court of St. Charles levied taxes for State and county purposes, and municipal purposes as to the city of St. Charles, upon the assessment thus made by the State board of equalization. The taxes so levied were paid in full by the defendant, the St. Louis, Kansas City, and Northern Railway Company. Notwithstanding they have done this, the county collector brings this suit to recover the difference between the county and municipal taxes for the year 1877, extended on the valuation of $200,000, as fixed in the first assessment, and the tax which the defendant paid upon the valuation of $150,000, as fixed by the State board of equalization. The parties have filed a stipulation setting forth, in substance, the above facts, and agreeing that if the former assessment shall be adjudged valid the judgment shall be entered for the plaintiff, whereas if the latter assessment is adjudged valid it shall be entered for the defendant.
We are therefore to decide whether the latter assessment superseded the former; and in support of his position that it did not the plaintiff presses upon us three considerations: First, that the act of April 21, 1877, cannot be allowed to have the effect of vacating the antecedent assessment and levy, because to give it this effect would make it obnoxious to that clause of the Constitution of the State which forbids the passage of retrospective laws. Const., Art. II., sect. 15. Second, that the act in question is obnoxious to that clause of the Constitution which forbids special legislati...
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