West Va. Nat'l Bank v. Petitioner
| Decision Date | 28 January 1913 |
| Citation | 71 W.Va. 678 |
| Parties | West Virginia National Bank v. Spencer et al. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
1. Judgment Merger and Bar Nature of Causes.
An adjudication in a proceeding for the correction of an alleged erroneous assessment for taxes, begun before the County Court and prosecuted to judgment by appeal in the Circuit Court, under the statute as it formerly stood, Code
1906, ch. 29, sec. 129, is a bar to a subsequent equity suit seeking to enjoin the collection of the taxes on the same assessment involved in the former proceeding, by reliance on the same questions of error or illegality as to the assessment that were involved or were cognizable in that former proceeding. (p. 680).
2. Taxation Assessment Correction.
Taxability or judicial questions relating to ascertainment of valuation were properly cognizable in proceedings under Code 1906, ch. 29, sec. 129, even to the extent of appeal to this Court, and are now so cognizable in similar proceedings begun before the Board of Review and Equalization under Acts
1907, ch. 80, sec. 18. (p. 680).
3. Judgment Conclusiveness Matters Concluded.
Though a second suit is based on a different demand than one involved in a former suit between the same parties, still a right, question or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined between the parties by a court of competent jurisdiction in the former suit is conclusively established between them, as long as the judgment remains unmodified, and is a bar to readjudication of the same right, question or fact in the subsequent suit. (p. 681).
An owner of property liable to assessment can not now maintain a suit in equity to enjoin the collection of taxes assessed against that property on the ground of illegality. By Acts 1907, ch. 80, sec, 18, he must apply for relief to the Board of Review and Equalization for correction of his assessment on whatever ground of complaint he may have against the same. If he does not, he waives his right to have correction and is not permitted to question the assessment as fixed by the board. If he does so apply, and in that proceeding fails, the adjudication bars resort to equity. (p. 682).
Appeal from Circuit Court, Cabell County.
Suit in equity by the West Virginia National Bank and others against W. S. Spencer and another. From a decree for defendants, plaintiffs appeal.
Affirmed.
Vinson & Thompson, for appellants.
George S. Wallace, for appellee.
The West Virginia National Bank and certain of its stockholders, joint plaintiffs, have appealed from a decree dismissing their two suits, consolidated as one, by which they sought to enjoin the collection of taxes assessed against the stock of the bank. These suits were grounded on allegations that it was illegal not to allow the stockholders respectively to deduct their indebtedness from the value of their shares. The assessments were for the years 1908 and 1909, and the claim of right to deduct for indebtedness was denied by the assessor pursuant to the statute as it then stood. Acts 1907, ch. 80, sec. 79. This statute has since been amended so that such deductions are now allowable. Acts 1911, ch. 50, sec. 1.
This case comes under the former statute and challenges that statute as being in conflict with the State Constitution and the provisions of the Federal laws relating to the taxation of shares in national banks. The claim of illegal taxation is raised by two bills in equity, each by the same plaintiffs against the collecting officers, one to enjoin the collection of the taxes assessed, for 1908, and the other embracing for similar injunctive relief the taxes assessed for 1909. The two causes were consolidated and heard together.
We are of the opinion that the decree dismissing the bills must be affirmed. Neither bill makes a case justifying the interposition of a court of equity. The question of the alleged illegality of the taxes can not be adjudged in these suits.
The bill relating to the taxes of 1908 shows on its face an adjudication of the very matters sought to be litigated by that bill. It says: "The said plaintiffs made an application to the county court of Cabell county for the correction of said assessment and the allowance of the deductions so claimed, in manner and form as is provided by the statute; that said County Court after hearing evidence and argument refused to make said corrections and dismissed said application, and thereupon the plaintiffs took an appeal from said order of the county court to the circuit court of Cabell county, which likewise refused to make said corrections, and dismissed plaintiffs' petition and proceeding." Here is disclosed a former adjudication, between the same parties, of the very questions raised by the bill in this subsequent suit. Plaintiffs show that they pursued a very proper remedy for testing their legal right to have deduction of their indebtedness from the assessment of their national bank stock. As the law then was, they were given that remedy. Code 1906, ch. 29, sec. 129. They elected to pursue it and are bound by the result therein. They sought a court of competent jurisdiction in the premises. After adjudication in that suit for in fact it was a suit between the same parties they surely can not reopen the questions there settled by the maintenance of a subsequent suit. "It is settled law that a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction upon a question directly involved in one suit, is conclusive as to that question, in another suit between the same parties." 6 Enc. Dig. Va. & W. Va. 341.
It may be said that the county court and the circuit court, in the proceedings which plaintiffs prosecuted before them, had only jurisdiction as to valuation, and not as to taxability or judicial questions relating to an ascertainment of valuation. That taxability and judicial questions relating to an ascertainment of valuation were properly cognizable in such proceedings, even to the extent of appeal to this Court, and are now so cognizable in similar proceedings begun before the Board of Review and Equalization, is settled. Ilannis Distilling Co. v. County Court, 69 W. Va. 426; Copp v. State, 69 W. Va. 439. Plaintiffs might have pursued those proceedings to this Court by writ of error, thus bringing here the identical questions that they have attempted to bring in this equity cause. That they did not do so does not by any means argue that the judgment in their former proceedings is not a final adjudication of their legal rights as to whether their indebtedness should have been deducted from the value of their national bank stock in the assessment of 1908. The question of their legal rights in the premises was settled by the former proceedings; or at least was one so presentable there that it...
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