State v. Multnomah County

• Decision Date: 22 March 1886
• Parties: STATE v. COUNTY OF MULTNOMAH.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

10 P. 635

13 Or. 287

STATE v. COUNTY OF MULTNOMAH.

Supreme Court of Oregon

March 22, 1886

Raleigh Stott and Samuel Stott, for appellant.

P.L Willis, for the State.

THAYER, J.

This appeal comes here from the circuit court for the county of Multnomah, from a judgment rendered in that court, upon an agreed case, in which the respondent was plaintiff and the appellant defendant. The following are the facts agreed upon between the said parties to said case:

"In the year A.D.1883, at the time prescribed by law therefor, the defendant caused its assessor to duly make out an assessment roll of the taxpayers and taxable property in said Multnomah county, according to the provisions of the statutes of this state relating thereto, to serve and be used as a basis of taxation for revenue for the purposes of both of the parties hereto. for said year, and the county court duly examined, corrected, and approved said assessment roll; and thereafter said county court levied a tax upon the taxable property of said county for state purposes, for said year of 1883, which tax amounted to the sum of $98,857.38, and a tax which amounted to the sum of $176,531.05, upon said property, for county purposes, for said year; and thereafter, and prior to the twenty-sixth day of December, 1883, the county clerk of said county, as by law in such cases provided, transmitted to the secretary of state of the plaintiff a certified copy of said assessment roll under the seal of said county court; that on and by said assessment roll, after it was so corrected and approved, it appeared that the taxable property then in said Multnomah county was $17,653,105; that upon receiving said copy said secretary of state duly estimated and ascertained the amount of tax to be collected in said county of Multnomah, for state purposes, for said year of 1883, and thereby found such amount to be $98,875.38, and, as by law in such cases provided, made a statement thereof, and thereafter, on the twenty-sixth day of December, 1883, at Salem, Oregon, duly delivered a certified copy of such statement to the treasurer of state of the plaintiff, who recorded the same in a book kept for that purpose, and also then and there charged the defendant with $98,875.38, the amount of tax so ascertained to be raised in said county of Multnomah; that prior to the first Monday of April, 1884, there had been duly collected and paid in to the county treasurer of said county of said tax by said county court levied, more than the said sum of $98,875.38; that no part of said tax has been paid by the defendant to the plaintiff, except the sum of $92,647.51 that the aggregate amount of the taxable property in the state of Oregon, as it appeared on the assessment rolls of the several counties for the year 1883, certified to the secretary of state by the clerks of the several counties, was $75,306,953; the total amount of tax necessary to meet and pay all the appropriations made by the legislative assembly of the state of Oregon for said fiscal year 1883 was $392,500; that on the said assessment roll of 1883, upon which the said charge of state tax against the county of Multnomah was made by the state treasurer on the twenty-sixth day of December, 1883, for state purposes, for the fiscal year 1883, there were double assessments against land, by the same land being more than once assessed by said assessor in making said assessment roll; that the amount of state tax charged and levied against the said property so more than once assessed was $356.72; that the sheriff and tax collector of Multnomah county, as provided by law, upon the discovery of said double assessment, collected only the taxes justly due thereon, and collected no tax thereon; that in making said assessment and assessment roll the assessor of said county, by mistake, returned as taxable property a greater amount than should have been assessed to certain persons therein named; that the state tax levied and charged in said roll against the property of said persons in excess of what should have been assessed against them amounted to $91.23 that the sheriff and county court of said county prior to this date, and at the time appointed by law duly remitted the said sum upon the said persons so overassessed, upon said persons duly making and filing their affidavits and lists of property liable to taxation in said county as provided by law; that the sheriff of said county was, on the fifteenth day of March, 1884, duly restrained by an order of the circuit court of the United States for the district of Oregon from collecting $1,188.10 in said roll assessed and charged as state tax for the fiscal year 1883 against the Dundee Mortgage & Trust Investment Company, in a suit wherein said company was plaintiff and the sheriff of said county and others were defendants, and was so restrained until the fourth day of September, 1884, and on said day said court duly decreed and perpetually enjoined this defendant from collecting said tax; that the defendant has proceeded, at the times and in the manner provided by law, to collect the state tax levied and charged against property in Multnomah county in said assessment roll for the year 1883, and has in all things complied with the statutes in that behalf, and after due diligence, and exhausting all legal remedies in such cases provided by law, has collected of said tax only $92,647.51, which said sum has been paid to the state of Oregon by the county treasurer of Multnomah county long prior to this date; that after having complied with the law in all things as aforesaid, the sheriff and tax collectors of Multnomah county, on the first Monday in April, 1884, made out a statement, duly verified, of the taxes assessed on said roll then remaining unpaid, including therein a description of the land doubly assessed; that at the date of said sheriff's statement there remained due and unpaid and delinquent of the said state tax $9,269.88; that thereafter the county clerk made from said delinquent tax roll a true and correct list of the taxes returned as unpaid, and a description of the lands and property therein assessed, and the names of the persons to whom said taxes were charged, and on the twenty-second day of April, 1884, delivered the same to the sheriff with a writ attached thereto, under his hand and seal of the county court as by law required; that thereafter said sheriff proceeded under said writ as by law required, and duly levied upon all the personal property that could be found belonging to said delinquents, and upon the real property of the said delinquent tax-payers in said delinquent list described and duly advertised, and sold the same in accordance with law prior to the first Monday in July, 1884; that after having sold said property as aforesaid, and used due diligence in the execution of said writ, there remained unpaid and uncollected, and still remains unpaid and uncollected, of said state tax as levied and charged in said roll, $6,209.87; and that no other property can be found by this defendant from which to collect said taxes."

Upon these facts ...