State v. Brintle

• Decision Date: 11 February 1922
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 388.
• Citation: 93 So. 429,207 Ala. 500
• Parties: STATE ET AL. v. BRINTLE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

93 So. 429

207 Ala. 500

STATE ET AL. v. BRINTLE.

6 Div. 388.

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 11, 1922

Rehearing Denied May 11, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; A. E. Gamble, Judge.

Proceeding to assess property of S. J. Brintle for taxation. From a judgment fixing valuation, the State of Alabama and the County of Jefferson appeal. Affirmed

Weatherly & Birch, of Birmingham, for appellants.

London Yancey & Brower, of Birmingham, for appellee.

McCLELLAN J.

This proceeding originated in the assessment for taxation-under the Revenue Law of 1919-of appellee's (defendant's) certain improved lot in the city of Birmingham. The board of tax adjusters fixed the taxable value of the property at $12,000 for the tax year beginning and as of October 1, 1919. Appellee, Brintle, appealed from valuation by the adjusters to the county board of revenue, which authority, on trial de novo, fixed the valuation at $9,000. From this judgment of the board of revenue the state, the plaintiff, appealed to the circuit court, where, on trial de novo, the jury fixed the valuation at $9,000, as "sixty per cent. of the reasonable cash value of the property."

The system provided by the Revenue Law of 1919 (Gen. Acts, pp 282, 296, et seq., 308 et seq.) requires, among other things the taxpayer to list his property or properties with the assessor and to give that official an "estimate," without oath, of the value of each item on the list. Revenue Law,§ 47. The affixing of valuations for taxation is made the duty of the county adjuster, or board of adjusters. The assessor does not perform this function. Sections 86, 87. After publication by the assessor of notice of the completion of valuations by the adjusters, the adjusters are required to sit on the first Monday in June of every year to correct errors in assessments or valuations, and to hear "objections" by taxpayers to assessments or valuations theretofore made. Sections 88, 89; Mooring v. State (Ala. Sup.) 91 So. 869. At such annual hearings before the adjusters the inquiry is initiated and instituted by the "objection" of the taxpayer, and he is assured the right to "produce evidence in support" of his objections. Section 89. The taxpayer is the actor on such hearing, and upon him rests the obligation and burden initially to support his objections. The adjusters may then examine the complaining taxpayer, and take other evidence, with a view to ascertaining the reasonable cash value of the subject of the objection, increasing or diminishing the valuation, and affixing the taxable valuation at 60 per cent. of the reasonable cash value of the property. Section 89. If the taxpayer offers no evidential support to his "objection," the valuation originally affixed by the adjuster or board of adjusters stands as the taxable value of the property. If the taxpayer's objection is overruled by the adjuster or board of adjusters, the taxpayer may appeal to the county board of revenue or the court of county commissioners, where the trial is de novo, anew. Sections 99, 104, 107.

The trial de novo on such appeal includes, initially, the inquiry presented and determined by the adjuster or board of adjusters, viz. that initiated and instituted by the "objection" of the taxpayer; the taxpayer being there, as on the hearing before the adjuster or board of adjusters, the actor upon whom rests the obligation and burden initially to support with evidence the objection he interposes to the valuation affixed by the adjuster or board of adjusters. This is the meaning and effect of the system's provision for a trial de novo of the issue or inquiry originating before the adjuster or board of adjusters on a taxpayer's objection to the valuation of his property. Sullivan v. State, 110 Ala. 95, 20 So. 452; State v. S. S. S. & I. Co., 162 Ala. 234, 238, 50 So. 366; 4 Words and Phrases, Second Series, p. 1011. On the appeal of the taxpayer to the court of county commissioners or board of revenue, the valuation determined on the hearing of the taxpayer's objection is the object of the taxpayer's complaint (section 99); and, for the purposes of the trial de novo on such appeal, that valuation is to be treated and considered as affording the basis and object of the taxpayer's complaint, which it is the taxpayer's obligation to support with evidence at least tending to show that the valuation found by the adjuster or board of adjusters is excessive. The valuation the taxpayer would revise, through his appeal to the court of county commissioners or board of revenue, is but an element of the issue raised by the taxpayer's "objection," and not a fact or matter which the law invests with an evidential effect called a rebuttable presumption.

The system created by the Revenue Law of 1919 intends, evidently, the procedure and process stated, and so defines the inquiry and the issue in its initial stage. On such appeal the state, in its turn, is not bound by the adjuster's valuation; the members of the court of county commissioners or board of revenue being specially sworn to "fix the valuation of all property *** submitted for valuation *** at sixty per cent. of its reasonable cash value," etc. Section 100, Sections 104 and 105 conclude to a like effect. Though differing in some respects from the statutory status considered in T. C. I. Co. v. State, 141 Ala. 103, 108, 37 So. 433, the substance of the there-given definition of that system is generally applicable and authoritative under the present system.

On appeal, by either the state or the taxpayer, to the circuit court, from the action of the court of county commissioners or board of revenue, the like procedure, process, and inquiry is designed by the provisions of section 108 of the Revenue Law of 1919; the trial there being de novo, and referable to the original status without any regard to the judgment of the court of county commissioners or board of revenue in the premises. T. C. I. Co. v. State, 141 Ala. p. 108, 37 So. 433. In both courts, to which appeals may be taken, the papers and books used or made by or that were before the adjuster or board of adjusters are admissible for their service in disclosing the issue and pointing the inquiry, which is, ultimately: What was the reasonable cash value of the property on the 1st day of the preceding October?

Special charges 1 and 2, given at the instance of the...