State v. Empanger

• Decision Date: 14 July 1898
• Docket Number: 11,176 - (24)
• Citation: 76 N.W. 53,73 Minn. 337
• Parties: STATE v. J. H. EMPANGER
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

76 N.W. 53

73 Minn. 337

STATE v. J. H. EMPANGER

Nos. 11,176 - (24)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

July 14, 1898

Case certified from district court for Hennepin county, Johnson J., after ordering judgment for defendant. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Taxes -- State Board of Equalization -- Real Property -- Increase of Valuation of Acre Property.

Under the provisions of G.S. 1894, § 1555, the state board of equalization has no authority to increase or decrease the valuation, as returned to it by the county auditor, of one kind or class of real property within a town or a village or a city, such as acre property, without increasing or decreasing in the same ratio the valuation of all real property within the same political subdivision, such as lands platted into town lots.

H. W Childs, Attorney General, and Jas. A. Peterson, County Attorney of Hennepin County, for the State.

C. H. Rossman, for defendant.

OPINION

COLLINS, J.

In proceedings in district court to enforce payment of taxes remaining delinquent on real estate in the town of Minnetonka, Hennepin county, on the first Monday in January, 1897, the defendant appeared and interposed an answer as to the lands in question, of which he was the owner. A trial was had by the court, and judgment ordered for defendant. The court then certified several questions, raised on the trial, to this court, for its determination, and of these we have to decide but one, which is: Did the state board of equalization have authority, under the law in force when it exercised such authority (G.S. 1894, § 1555), to increase the assessable value of acre property in the town, then village, of Minnetonka, without increasing at the same time the assessable value of all real property in said town in the same ratio?

There was in said town acre property and property which had been platted into village lots, and by the action of the state board the value of acre property was increased 50 per centum, but the value of lands platted into village lots was not increased.

We must answer this question in the negative. The board is a statutory tribunal of limited jurisdiction, having the powers expressly conferred by statute. It can exercise its jurisdiction only within the limits of the law which prescribes its duties and restricts its authority.

Prior to the enactment of Laws 1897, c. 134, and consequently when the action was taken herein involved, its duty and authority were...