Woodworth v. Gibbs

• Decision Date: 15 June 1883
• Citation: 61 Iowa 398,16 N.W. 287
• Parties: WOODWORTH AND OTHERS v. GIBBS AND OTHERS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

61 Iowa 398

16 N.W. 287

WOODWORTH AND OTHERS

v.GIBBS AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed June 15, 1883.

Appeal from Palo Alto circuit court.

Action of certiorari brought to test the validity of certain taxes voted in different townships in Palo Alto county to aid in the construction of a certain railroad. The plaintiffs are tax-payers, one of whom owns property in each township respectively. The persons made defendants comprise the present county supervisors, the county auditor, and county treasurer. The petition sets up the fact of the note, the levy of the taxes, and the attempt to collect the same by the county treasurer; and, as ground for the issuance of the writ prayed for, it sets up certain alleged defects in the proceedings, by reason of which it is averred that the board of supervisors never acquired the right or power to make the levy in question. The writ was issued, and afterwards, upon the hearing, the court quashed the writ and dismissed the plaintiffs' petition. They appeal.T. W. Harrison and Geo. E. Clarke, for appellants.

Soper, Crawford & Carr, for appellees.

ADAMS, J.

The defendants insist that the plaintiffs, being each a tax-payer in a different township, cannot properly unite in an action of certiorari to test the validity of the taxes in the different townships; and we have to say that it appears to us that their position is well taken. They are not interested in defeating the same taxes. They do not, therefore, seek the same relief, but only a similar relief. The plaintiffs' theory, doubtless, was that while it is true that the taxes sought to be defeated by each are different from those sought to be defeated by any other, they aim at a common result, and that is the annulment of the levy. The plaintiffs, we think, misconceived the true character of the levy, so far as the question before us is concerned. They doubtless regarded it as a single act. Possibly the levy of the taxes in the different townships was made by a single resolution. The record does not show how it was made. But it is not important to know. The levy of the taxes in one township was, in the nature of the case, something distinct from the levy of the taxes in another township, and this constitutes the controlling circumstance. It may be that if the levy had been made by a single reso lution, and the defects complained of had inhered in the resolution itself, and had been of a common character, the plaintiffs might be said to have a common interest in the annulment of the levy. But such are not the defects. One pertains to the character of the election held in Freedom township; one pertains to the character of the election held in Emmetsburg township; others pertain to the mode in which the different township clerks certified to the county auditor the result of the elections in their respective townships. And while the defect complained of is of the same kind in each certificate, the different certifications aver different acts, and have no relation to each other. The interests of the plaintiffs, it appears to us, would not have been more distinct if the taxes in the different townships had been voted, certified, and levied in different years. The levy of the taxes, then, in one township must, we think, be treated as something distinct...