Walter v. Schuler, 34039

• Decision Date: 21 May 1965
• Docket Number: No. 34039,34039
• Citation: 176 So.2d 81
• Parties: Ralph N. WALTER, as Tax Assessor for Duval County, Florida, Clyde H. Simpson, as Tax Collector for Duval County, Florida, Julian Warren, T. K. Stokes, Jr., Bob Harris, Lem Merrett, Fletcher Morgan, as members of the Board of County Commissioners of Duval County, Florida, and Ray E. Green, as Comptroller for the State of Florida, Appellants, v. Charles G. SCHULER, Joseph F. Lowe, and the Jacksonville Investment Company, a corporation, on their own behalf and on behalf of all other taxpayers similarly situated, Appellees.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 81

176 So.2d 81

Ralph N. WALTER, as Tax Assessor for Duval County, Florida, Clyde H. Simpson, as Tax Collector for Duval County, Florida, Julian Warren, T. K. Stokes, Jr., Bob Harris, Lem Merrett, Fletcher Morgan, as members of the Board of County Commissioners of Duval County, Florida, and Ray E. Green, as Comptroller for the State of Florida, Appellants, v. Charles G. SCHULER, Joseph F. Lowe, and the Jacksonville Investment Company, a corporation, on their own behalf and on behalf of all other taxpayers similarly situated, Appellees.

No. 34039.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 21, 1965.

Rehearing Denied June 28, 1965.

Wm. Joe Sears, Jr., and Rogers, Towers, Bailey, Jones & Gay, Taylor Jones and Robert S. Smith, Jacksonville, for Ralph N. Walter, as Tax Assessor.

Stallings & Marr, Jacksonville, for Clyde H. Simpson, as Tax Collector.

Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Fred M. Burns, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Charles D. McClure, Tallahassee, for Ray E. Green, Comptroller of the State of Florida.

William G. O'Neill, Ocala, Franklin Reinstine, Francis P. Conroy, II, George Stelljes, Jr., and Marks, Gray, Yates, Conroy & Gibbs, Jacksonville, for appellees.

Paul E. Raymond, of Raymond, Wilson, Karl & Conway, Daytona Beach, J. W. Elkins, of Adams & Elkins, Naples, Thomas T. Cobb of Black, Cobb, Cole & Crotty, Daytona Beach, E. B. Larkin, of Larkin, Larkin & Goodson, Dade City, and Wallace Dunn, Ocala, as amicus curiae.

THOMAS, Justice.

From all accounts the tax roll of Duval County for 1964 is a mess.

It seems gradually to have become so since the one in 1941, which formed the basis for the rolls of succeeding years, until in 1964 it reflected valuations approximating 40 per cent. of taxable value, although the Constitution all the while had commanded a distribution of the tax burden on the basis of 'just valuation.' And the legislature in 1941 by Chapter 20722 had required that property be assessed at 'its full cash value.'

We are confronted with many and varied expressions relative to the means of fixing the value of property for purposes of taxation. It seems fitting, at the outset, to quote with emphasis the provisions of the Constitution on the subject for, after all, this is the criterion to which any decision in the present litigation must be anchored. The language is simple; the amount shall be 'just valuation' which for the immediate purpose we will call 'X'. (Italics supplied.) The confusion we are about to attack grew out of attempts to apply a definition of 'X'. The 1941 Act appears not to have been changed in any manner relevant to the prime point in this litigation, in respect of the figure on which taxes should be computed until the passage in 1963 of of 'X'. The 1941 Act appears not Sec. 193.021, it was provided that the assessors should assess 'all the real and personal property in * * * such a manner as to secure a just valuation as required by § 1, Art. IX of the state constitution' and that '[i]n arriving at a just valuation' there should be taken into consideration seven factors: the present cash value of the property; its present use and the highest and best use to which it might be put in the near future; its location, size or quanity; the cost of the property and the present replacement value of improvements; the condition of the property; and the income it yields.

To repeat, the key words in the Constitutional provision are 'just valuation' and in this regard the legislature was mandated to prescribe regulations that would produce a valuation of that character for tax purposes. Evidently the legislature did not get around to prescribing the considerations that were calculated to produce just valuation, until the enactment of Chapter 63-250 which is now Sec. 193.021, effective 1 January 1964, when the factors we have detailed were specified.

This litigation was commenced in June 1964 by complaint against the State Comptroller, the Duval County Tax Assessor, Tax Collector, and Board of County Commissioners charging systematic illegal assessment procedure by the assessor and seeking a decree that the terms 'just value' and 'fair market value' were synonymous, and declaring that any assessment at other than 100 per cent. of fair market value was illegal.

In the Assessor's Answer he denied the allegation that he had intentionally assessed property at a percentage of 'just value' or 'fair market value.' Thus it appears at this point that the pleaders were attempting to use the terms 'just value' and 'fair market value' interchangeably.

In the Constitution, the acts, and the decisions dealing with the subject appear many terms, to which we have already alluded, for instance, 'just valuation' the key designation, also 'just value,' 'full cash value,' 'fair market value,' 'true cash value,' 'real value,' 'cash value,' 'true value' and 'market value' to name a few.

A discussion of the quoted terms and an effort to differentiate among them would, we now think, be an academic excursion into semantics or a floundering in various definitions of dimly shaded meanings, but a comparison of the earlier Chapter 193, dealing generally with taxation, and the newer Chapter 193, on the subject leads to the conclusion that the effort is no longer justified or required. In the first act we find the expressions 'real value,' 'full cash value,' 'true value,' 'true cash value,' and 'assessed balue.' With one exception, the first four of these have been eliminated in the later law. We note that in Sec. 193.14 the term 'true cash value' was retained, whether by oversight or intention we do not know, and will not speculate. In the later act are references to 'assessed value' but this term is modified by Sec. 193.021 and from the whole pattern that appears despite the exception we gather that there was a positive attempt to simplify the language and relate the whole subject to Sec. 193.021 as well as Sec. 1, Art. IX where the descriptions are identical, namely, 'just valuation.'

Before the passage of the act, now 193.021, fixing criteria for determining just valuation which has since the adoption of the Constitution been the standard for computation of taxes, the legislature had adopted the yardstick 'full cash value.' Definition of the term was difficult as we often remarked. Schleman v. Connecticut Gen. Life Ins. Co., 151 Fla. 96, 9 So.2d 197; Osborn v. Yeager, 155 So.id 742 (Fla.App.2d 1963); State ex rel. Glynn v. McNayr, Fla., 133 So.2d 312.

We understand that by the expressions in these cases the courts were not reluctant to decide the validity of the taxes involved but were meeting difficulty in establishing an absolute test, observing however, the consideration which should be afforded the assessor's discretion in the performance of his duties.

It is contended by the appellants in their brief that if the chancellor's decree be upheld 'just valuation' can mean only 'fair market value,' that the adoption of any other gauge would contravene the Constitution and that the mandate to the legislature to prescribe regulations to produce a just valuation thus would become insignificant. We think not.

As used in the Constitution and the implementing statutes valuation is the act of arriving at the real worth, or so it seems to us from a study of the Constitution, statutes and decisions. If this idea be sound, and we think it is, then the seven factors prescribed by the legislature are more easily understood for in apporaching the correct basis for determining the tax burden, that is, the amount of 'X', the assessor shall on his journey take each factor into consideration.

Before going further, and mayhap compounding the confusion, we advert to the chancellor's exhaustive and erudite decree. We agree with some of it; with some of it we disagree.

As a preface to our analysis of the decree, we comment that the chancellor was dealing with a record of astronomical proportions. Over 1000 pages of testimony appear in the record. The arguments consumed six days. The briefs were many. From this voluminous record he distilled a decree that we think, in the main, properly settled the controversy.

At the outset he held directly that the suit was a proper one for declaratory decree. This aspect was challenged by the appellants here but we will not labor the point because it is plain to us that any owner of property in Duval County would in the situation...