State v. Spencer

• Decision Date: 14 March 1893
• Citation: 21 S.W. 837,114 Mo. 574
• Parties: STATE ex rel. ZIEGENHEIN, City Collector, v. SPENCER et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

21 S.W. 837

114 Mo. 574

STATE ex rel. ZIEGENHEIN, City Collector, v. SPENCER et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

March 14, 1893.

TAXATION — RAISING ASSESSED VALUATION — NOTICE.

Where a taxpayer has made due return of his personal property without any objection being made to the valuation, the assessor cannot raise it without notice to the taxpayer, even though the statutes contain no provision expressly requiring such notice.

Appeal from St. Louis circuit court; Daniel Dillon, Judge.

Suit by the state of Missouri, at the relation and to the use of Henry Ziegenhein, collector of the city of St. Louis, in the state of Missouri, against Horatio N. Spencer and Selden P. Spencer, to recover from defendants the amount of a back tax bill on personal property. Defendants obtained judgment. Plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Rassieur & Schnurmacher, for appellant. Selden P. Spencer, for respondents.

SHERWOOD, J.

Action by the collector of the city of St. Louis, under section 7626, Rev. St. 1889, against defendants upon a delinquent tax bill, amounting to $1,100, on personal property assessed at $50,000, and alleged to have been in their care and custody as trustees under the will of Lucy L. Keitland, deceased. The undisputed evidence shows that the defendants in proper time and manner made return to the assessor of the property in their custody, valuing the same at $33,853.69, — its correct valuation; that afterwards, without notice to them, this valuation was raised to the sum of $50,000, and the assessment raised accordingly; and that defendants knew nothing of this until the tax bill in suit was presented to them for payment, long after the time for appealing from the unjust assessment was past. Under the provisions of sections 7532, 7535, Rev. St. 1889, if no list be delivered to the assessor in proper time and manner, "the assessor shall himself make out the list," etc. The failure of the taxpayer to give in his list is the basis and condition precedent to any authority in the asssesor "to make out the list" for him. In this case, then, the act of the assessor was jurisdictionless and void, inasmuch as a proper list had already been returned by the defendants, and consequently no basis for the exercise of the assumed power existed. When the defendants in this cause delivered their list to the assessor without objection from him, they had the right to presume, and the law justified them in that presumption, that their valuation of the property was accepted, and would remain as delivered; and even if the assessor had authority to raise the assessment, he could not do this without notice to the party to be affected thereby. On this point an eminent jurist observes: "Provision for notice is therefore part of the `due process of law' which it has been customary to provide for these summary proceedings; and it is not to be lightly assumed that constitutional provisions, carefully framed for the protection of property rights, were intended or could be construed to sanction legislation under which officers might secretly assess the citizen for any amount in their discretion, without giving him an opportunity to contest the justice of the assessment. It has often been very pointedly and emphatically declared that it is contrary to the first principles of justice that one should be condemned unheard; and it has also been justly observed of taxing officers that `it would be a dangerous precedent to hold that any absolute power resides in them...