State v. Marion County

• Decision Date: 29 January 1900
• Citation: 36 Or. 371,59 P. 814
• Parties: STATE v. MARION COUNTY.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

59 P. 814

36 Or. 371

STATE v. MARION COUNTY.

Supreme Court of Oregon

January 29, 1900

Appeal from circuit court, Marion county; George H. Burnett, Judge.

Action by the state of Oregon, plaintiff, against Marion county, in said state, to recover interest upon state taxes apportioned to defendant, and remaining unpaid after the 1st day of March of succeeding years for which they were apportioned. From a judgment for defendant, the state appeals. Affirmed.

D.R.N Blackburn, Atty. Gen., and John McCourt, for the State.

George G. Bingham, for respondent.

BEAN J.

This is an action to recover interest upon state taxes apportioned to the defendant county for the years 1895, 1896, and 1897 for the time they remained unpaid after the 1st day of March of the succeeding years. The case was tried upon a stipulation of facts, from which it appears that the county assessment roll for the year 1895 was placed in the hands of the sheriff for the collection of taxes in March, 1896, which was the earliest date possible, and that, as fast as the taxes were collected, they were paid by the sheriff to the treasurer and by such officer immediately paid over to the plaintiff until the whole amount of the state tax was paid; and it is agreed that the facts are substantially the same for the years 1896 and 1897. The court below held that the plaintiff could not recover interest on the deferred payments, because it was impossible for the defendant to collect the money with which to pay the state tax within the time required by the law then in force. Section 2813 of the statute (Hill's Ann.Laws), at the time this cause of action accrued, provided that on or before the first Monday of February in each year the county treasurers of certain counties (including Marion) should pay to the state the amount of the state taxes charged to their respective counties out of the first moneys collected and paid into the county treasury. And section 2790, as amended in 1893 (Laws 1893, p. 47), provides that if any county shall fail to pay its entire tax within 30 days from the date prescribed in section 2813, the unpaid balance shall become delinquent, and the county shall pay interest thereon from such date until paid. At the time of the enactment of section 2813 the law required the tax levy to be made by the county court at its September term in each year, and the county clerk, within 15 days thereafter, to deliver to the sheriff a transcript of the assessment roll, with a warrant attached commanding him to collect the taxes charged thereon. Title 4, c. 53, Comp.Laws 1845-64. The sheriff therefore had four months at least in which to collect sufficient money with which to pay the state tax before it became delinquent. Since that time the revenue law has been so modified and changed by the amendment of particular sections--apparently without regard to other provisions of the law--that it is now impossible for the assessment roll to reach the hands of the sheriff before the 15th of February, and therefore, in the very nature of things, he is unable to collect any moneys out of which the state taxes are to be paid prior to the time they became due under section 2813. Thus, in 1891, the legislature created a state board of equalization, and required it to assemble at the...