Walton v. Arkansas County

• Decision Date: 24 April 1922
• Docket Number: (No. 324.)
• Citation: 239 S.W. 1054
• Parties: WALTON v. ARKANSAS COUNTY.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

239 S.W. 1054

WALTON v. ARKANSAS COUNTY.

(No. 324.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

April 24, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Arkansas County; George W. Clark, Judge.

Action by J. W. Walton against Arkansas County. On disallowance of plaintiff's claim for illegally collected taxes by the county court, plaintiff appealed to the circuit court, where a similar order was made, from which plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Appellant pro se.

W. J. Waggoner, of Lonoke, and Botts & O'Daniel, of De Witt, for appellee.

SMITH, J.

This cause was heard in the court below on an agreed statement of facts, which may be summarized as follows: Walton is a nonresident of the state and is the owner of 1,473 acres of land in Arkansas county, and when he paid the taxes thereon for the year 1919, there was included in the taxes charged against him a special nonresident land tax of ten cents per acre. Walton paid this tax without knowing that it had been included in his receipt. This acreage tax was levied pursuant to a special act of the 1917 session of the General Assembly (Acts 1917, vol. 2, p. 2173), regulating the working of public roads in Arkansas county and providing a tax therefor. This act was held unconstitutional by this court in the case of White River Lumber Co. v. Elliott, 146 Ark. 551, 226 S. W. 164, on December 20, 1920. It was stipulated that, while Walton did not know this tax had been charged against his lands and included in his receipt, that his lands would have been returned as delinquent and sold by the collector of taxes, if this tax had not been paid.

After the decision of this court, holding the special act unconstitutional, Walton filed a petition in the county court of Arkansas county, asking the refund of this tax. The petition therefor alleged that, of the tax so paid, $24 had been placed to the credit of road district No. 7 and $123.30 to the credit of road district No. 6. These districts were not improvement districts. They were two of the districts into which the county had been divided under the road law for general road working purposes. The petition for the refund of this tax was filed in the office of the clerk of the county court on May 3, 1921, and was disallowed by the county court on the same day. A similar order was made by the circuit court on appeal from the county court.

In the case of White River Lbr. Co. v. Elliott, supra, the lumber company paid its taxes under protest and notified the collector at the time that he would be called upon to refund the acreage tax then paid, and suit was brought against the collector while these taxes were still in his hands. We held, in that case, that, as the collector could have sold the lands for the nonpayment of the taxes, and would have done so if they had not been paid, that this would have constituted a cloud on the title, to prevent which the owner had the right to pay the taxes under protest and then sue the collector to recover them.

This proceeding was not instituted until more than a year had elapsed after the payment of the tax; in fact, it is a proceeding under section 10180 of Crawford & Moses' Digest, which reads as follows:

"In case any person has paid or may hereafter pay taxes on any property, real or personal, erroneously assessed, upon satisfactory proof being adduced to the county court of the fact, the said court shall make an order refunding to such person the amount of the county tax so erroneously assessed and paid, and, upon production of a certified copy of such...