State ex rel. Rosenblatt v. New Lindell Hotel Co.

• Decision Date: 25 January 1881
• Citation: 9 Mo.App. 450
• Parties: STATE OF MISSOURI, EX REL. M. A. ROSENBLATT, Respondent, v. NEW LINDELL HOTEL COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

9 Mo.App. 450

STATE OF MISSOURI, EX REL. M. A. ROSENBLATT, Respondent,

v.NEW LINDELL HOTEL COMPANY, Appellant.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Jan. 25, 1881.

1. Under the revenue law of 1872 real estate in St. Louis county was assessable annually.

2. Under that law the Court of Appeals of St. Louis County had the power to raise the assessment for taxation of real estate, without giving actual personal notice to the owner of the realty assessed.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, WICKHAM, J.

Affirmed.

BROADHEAD, SLAYBACK & HAEUSSLER, for the appellant.

M. B. JONAS, for the respondent.

THOMPSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

According to an agreed statement of facts on file, the record shows that the respondent, plaintiff below, brought suit under the statutes in such case made and provided, upon the tax-bill mentioned in the petition, for the unpaid taxes of the year 1876 on the property of the defendant (appellant), the New Lindell Hotel Company, therein described.

To this petition the defendant filed an answer, which is in words and figures as follows: “Defendant, the New Lindell Hotel Company, for answer to plaintiff's petition, says that on the first day of August, 1874, there was begun, as provided by law, an assessment of all property, real and personal, in the county of St. Louis, for the purpose of levying the taxes provided by law, and that at said assessment the real estate in plaintiff's petition described and owned by defendant was duly assessed at the sum of $394,080,--its true value August 1, 1874,--in just proportion to the assessed value of other property in St. Louis; and that all taxes levied for the purposes aforesaid, for the year A. D. 1875, on said real estate, amounted to the sum of $13,629.13 /2 and was by defendant duly paid. Defendant further says that afterward said assessment of said real estate made as aforesaid, was, without the knowledge or consent of, and without notice to this petitioner, changed and raised to the sum of $480,980, and was so changed and raised as aforesaid after the first day of August, 1875, and before the first day of August, 1876.”

To this answer the plaintiff demurred for the reason that the same as stated was not sufficient in law to bar the plaintiff's action; and said demurrer was sustained by the court, and the defendant declining to plead further, the court gave judgment upon the pleadings and proof for the plaintiff.

The defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment, for the reason that the court erred in sustaining the plaintiff's demurrer to the answer, and also a motion for a new trial, which motions were overruled and exceptions taken; and the defendant, the New Lindell Hotel Company, now brings the case here by appeal.

This precise assessment was passed upon and declared valid by this court two years ago, in the case of The Stateex rel. v. Adreon, 7 Mo. App. 565. That was an application for mandamus, to compel E. L. Adreon, comptroller of the City of St. Louis, under the power conferred upon him by the charter, to correct this assessment. This relief was denied below, and the judgment was affirmed. We might stop here, and affirm the judgment below in this case on the authority of that case, especially since the conclusion there reached has found support in the views of Hough, J., in the case of The State ex rel. v. Powers, 68 Mo. 320, 326; but, owing to the importance of the question, we have thought it right to reassure ourselves by a second and independent examination of the subject.

The act of the Legislature in force at that time, the provisions of which must be looked to as governing this case, was adopted on the 30th of March, 1872. See Sess. Acts, 1872, p. 92. This act was designed as a revision of the entire revenue law of the State, which previously existed in many detached and fragmentary enactments. Sect. 48 of this statute provides as follows: “Real estate shall be assessed at the assessment which shall commence on the first day of August, 1872, and shall only be required to be assessed every two years thereafter. Each assessment of real estate so made shall be the basis of taxation on the same for the two years next succeeding.” If there were no other provision the case would not admit of argument.

But it is perfectly obvious from an inspection of the statute that it provides for two schemes of assessment: one for the whole State, and one for St. Louis County. Sect. 48, which provides that real estate shall only be required to be assessed once in two years is among the provisions applicable to the State generally. A separate scheme for St. Louis County is found embodied in sects. 74 (73) to 88 (87) inclusive. In sect. 76 (75) it is expressly provided that the Board of Assessors in St. Louis County “shall commence their assessment on the first day of September in each year, and complete the same, and make their final return to the president of the Board of Assessors on or before the first Monday of January in each year.” Sect. 78 (77) provides how the assessment books shall be made up and completed: “the same to be completed on or before the third Monday of March of each year.” Sect. 79 (78) provides that “As soon as said assessment books are completed, the president of the Board of Assessors shall give notice in three daily newspapers, one of which shall be printed in German, to be published one week, and by hand-bills, to be distributed throughout the county in public places by the district assessors, that said books are open for inspection, and also stating the time when the Court of Appeals will be in session.” Then follows sect. 80 (79), which provides, among other things, that “the Court of Appeals shall meet on the second Monday of April in each year, to sit as such court, and shall remain in session for two weeks, if the business before them requires it, and no longer. Said Court of Appeals shall hear and determine all appeals in a summary manner, and correct and adjust the assessment-books accordingly; they shall determine, as far as possible, whether the property contained in said books has been assessed at its true value in cash, and in just proportion to the assessed value of other property; and to this end shall increase or diminish the assessed value of any property, real, personal, or mixed.”

It is a familiar principle of statutory construction that general provisions are controlled by special provisions in the same statute relating to the same subject matter. The general provision contained in sect. 48 was displaced, so far as St. Louis County was concerned, by the special provisions just quoted.

It is perfectly consistent with the allegations of the defendant's answer that its property in question was assessed for taxes as having, on the first day of August, 1874, the value of $394,080, as there stated; that the defendant paid the taxes levied on this valuation as stated; that it was again assessed in conformity with sect. 76 (75) of the act of 1872, between the 1st of September, 1875, and the 1st of January, 1876, and that the assessors, in making the new assessment for the year 1876, increased its valuation from $394,080, the valuation of the previous year, to the sum of $480,980. It is also consistent with the answer that the district assessors, in making the annual assessment for 1876, re-assessed the property at the same valuation which had been put upon it for the previous year, and that the Court of Appeals, meeting on the first Monday in April, 1876, changed the valuation thus put upon it by the district assessors, to the sum of $480,980. In either case, the valuation may have been made by the proper assessing body in strict conformity with law. If so, their action was conclusive; and whether they placed too high, or too low, a valuation upon the property, is not open to inquiry in the judicial courts.

A more serious question raised by the demurrer is, whether the Board of Equalization for the County of St. Louis, called the Court of Appeals, which must have acted upon this matter, had power to raise the assessment of property without notice to the owner. The statute nowhere requires actual notice to be given, although it fixes a time for the meetings of the board, prescribes when its sessions shall begin and end, requires general public notice of these meetings in three newspapers and by the distribution of hand-bills, and thus imparts general notice to all, of the time and place when it will exercise its functions, and gives all an opportunity to be heard.

We may concede that such tribunals, being of special and limited jurisdiction, must exercise their powers in strict conformity with the provisions of the statute...