Western Maryland Ry. Co. v. Board of Public Works
| Decision Date | 30 June 1942 |
| Docket Number | 9355. |
| Citation | 21 S.E.2d 683,124 W.Va. 539 |
| Parties | WESTERN MARYLAND RY. CO. v. BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Sept. 7, 1942.
Syllabus by the Court.
William S. Wysong, Atty. Gen., Ira J. Partlow Asst. Atty. Gen., and Julius Cohen, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Eugene S. Williams, of Baltimore, Md., and E. A. Bowers, of Elkins for appellee.
The Board of Public Works brings here for review on appeal the order of the Circuit Court of Randolph County rendered on the 9th day of March, 1942, by which, on appeal to that court by the Western Maryland Railway Company, the assessment made by the Board and the valuations for the purposes of taxation of the railway's property in this State were reduced from $11,074,200 to $8,504,200.
The errors assigned are based solely on this reduction in the assessment. Upon the appeal to the circuit court, the Board in its answer to the railway's petition for appeal, by way of cross-assignment, insisted that the assessment of $11,074,200 was too low and should be raised "to a sum not less than $19,000,000.00." The same contention is made by the Board here, while the railway company argues that from the evidence, the assessment should have been not more than $5,826,258. (It was assessed at $8,000,000 for the years 1932-1940, inclusive.)
The original assessment by the Board was made in regular course, but as is customary, and proper, we think, no record was made by the Board of the data upon which the assessment was based. On the appeal to the circuit court, however, voluminous evidence was presented by both the railway company and the Board, and the judge, in deciding the issues, prepared and filed as a part of the record, a very full and carefully prepared written opinion, by which he directly points out the facts and the law upon which his decision was based. In this opinion, it is distinctly stated that the court adopted as the basis of his calculations a so-called "work sheet" prepared in the Tax Commissioner's office and laid before the Board at the time of the original assessment, and that he found all the items therein sustained by the evidence, save one, which he corrected. This item was the sum of $7,499,826 deducted from the total valuation of the Western Maryland property as a "tentative allowance for excess value outside of West Virginia." For this amount, the court substituted the sum of $23,164,209. We are concerned, therefore, ultimately with the sole question whether there is evidence in the record sufficient to sustain this action of the court.
The evidence shows that the Western Maryland Railway system complete, consists of approximately 711.71 miles of main track, about 293.83 miles of which lie in the State of West Virginia; that what is called the main line of the system extends from Baltimore westward to Connellsville in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania where it connects with the Baltimore & Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the New York Central and other railways; and that connection is made at Hagerstown, Maryland, with the Norfolk & Western, and through a principal branch of the system with the Reading System near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The road outside the State of West Virginia is shown to be a well constructed, single track road with modern rolling stock equipment. The West Virginia branch begins at Cumberland, Maryland, and follows the Potomac River alternately on the West Virginia and Maryland sides to Piedmont, and thence crosses the Allegheny Mountains to the Cheat River at Parsons, whence it extends across the divide to the Tygart Valley River at Elkins. From this city, branch lines radiate to Belington, Huttonsville, Durbin and Webster Springs. There are also two wholly disconnected sections in Harrison and Marion Counties, aggregating thirteen miles in length, which merely carry coal from the mines to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The West Virginia lines are shown to have been originally constructed primarily as lumber roads and to have been extended from time to time as available lumber was exhausted. The roadbed appears to be poorly constructed, the ties are not standard, the rails are second-hand and of light weight, the engines small and of obsolescent type, the grades and curves sharp and the expenses of operation are unusually high. The freight traffic is almost exclusively outgoing, and is about 97% coal. The freight handled by the whole system amounts, approximately, to eighteen million tons a year, and that furnished by the West Virginia branches to approximately three million. A general decline in freight has continued for years and there is no present prospect of betterment, although a representative of the Geological Survey testified to vast veins of coal near the Western Maryland lines which may ultimately be developed.
The power of courts upon "appeals" of this character is very limited.
We cannot resolve ourselves into an assessing body. Indeed, in order that we may find jurisdiction in this court for reviewing the actions of administrative bodies, it has been necessary that we proceed upon the theory that such "appeals" are in the nature of proceedings within our original jurisdiction. United Fuel Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission, 73 W.Va. 571, 80 S.E. 931; De Constantin v. Public Service Commission, 75 W.Va. 32, 83 S.E. 88, L.R.A.1916A, 329; Lively v. State Compensation Commissioner, 113 W.Va. 242, 167 S.E. 583. This is true for the reason that bringing to a judicial tribunal the action of an administrative body for review comes dangerously near to being a confusion of the functions of the executive and the judicial branches of our government. The holding of this Court, at different periods, has not been uniform as to whether, on such appeals in tax cases, the reviewing court acts judicially or administratively. At present, we view the functions of the reviewing court as partly judicial and partly administrative. Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Board of Public Works, W.Va., 21 S.E.2d 143, decided this day. But there is no doubt either in this jurisdiction, or in the country at large, that a reviewing court will not interfere with the conclusions reached by an assessing body, unless the assessment made is clearly illegal or grossly and palpably wrong on the facts. Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Board of Public Works, supra; West Penn Power Co. v. Board of Review, 112 W.Va. 442, 164 S.E. 862; Central Realty Co. v. Board of Review, 110 W.Va. 437, 158 S.E. 537; West Central, etc., Ass'n v. Commissioner of Agriculture, W.Va., 20 S.E.2d 797, decided February 24, 1942.
This principle, however, must be enforced conjointly with any applicable statute. And the proceeding before us is purely statutory. Hence, we are not to be greatly influenced by pronouncements made in chancery suits in which assessments are attacked on equitable grounds, such as Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Board of Public Works, D.C., 3 F.Supp. 791.
Section 12, article 6, chapter 11 of the Code, provides that, in an appeal to the circuit court from the assessment made by the Board of Public Works:
This proceeding is clearly not an ordinary appeal nor a review on the record made before the Board of Public Works. The statute mandatorily requires the court to hear "all such legal evidence as shall be offered", thus requiring, not only new evidence, but evidence largely of a different character from that permitted before the original assessment body. It also directly requires the court to "fix the true and actual value of such property according to the facts proved", and commands the court, without regard to the relief asked by the appellant, to increase or decrease the Board's assessment as to the court may seem right. These provisions plainly go far toward making the hearing before the circuit court a de novo proceeding. Nevertheless, the assessment made by the Board of Public Works comes before the circuit court with the high presumption that the Board performed its duty honestly and correctly, and the burden of justifying a modification by the circuit court of the assessment so made rests upon the appellant. But on appeal to this court from the circuit court's action, we, of course, hear no new evidence and we do bring up the record made and preserved by the circuit court. There is, therefore, little analogy between the functions of the...
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