Youngstown Bridge Co. v. Kentucky & I. Bridge Co.

• Decision Date: 21 November 1894
• Docket Number: 8,918
• Citation: 64 F. 441
• Parties: YOUNGSTOWN BRIDGE CO. v. KENTUCKY & I. BRIDGE CO. et al. (TREASURER OF FLOYD COUNTY, Intervener).
• Court: United States Circuit Court, District of Indiana

64 F. 441

YOUNGSTOWN BRIDGE CO. v. KENTUCKY & I. BRIDGE CO. et al.

(TREASURER OF FLOYD COUNTY, Intervener).

No. 8,918

United States Circuit Court, D. Indiana.

November 21, 1894

Miller Winter & Elam, for intervening petitioner.

Bennett H. Young, for receivers of defendant Kentucky & I. Bridge Co.

BAKER District Judge.

The treasurer of Floyd county, in the state of Indiana, filed his intervening petition in the above-entitled cause, asking that the receivers of the Kentucky & Indiana Bridge Company be directed to pay him, as such treasurer, the sum of $5,693.13 being the amount due from said bridge company for state and county taxes. The receivers, answering the intervening petition, allege that the taxes were not lawfully assessed upon the property of the bridge company, because the principal part of its property so assessed, consisting of a bridge across the Ohio river, with its approaches and appurtenances, is located in the state of Kentucky, and that the assessment was made in a lump sum upon its property in both states. It is insisted for the receivers that the assessment is void, if not in whole, at least pro tanto because the state board of tax commissioners were not, and could not be, clothed with power to make valid assessment upon the property of the bridge company located in the state of Kentucky. For the petitioner, it is insisted that the state board of tax commissioners is given jurisdiction to assess all property of the kind here assessed, within the limits of the state, and to hear evidence, and determine its value for the purposes of taxation, and that its determination is final and conclusive, in the absence of fraud.

It is the settled law of this state that the state board of tax commissioners is not a judicial tribunal, within the meaning of the constitution, and that it has only such quasi judicial powers as are possessed by every public officer vested with discretionary power; but when, in the exercise of its quasi judicial power, it has fixed the value of property falling within its jurisdiction, and has assessed such property, its action in that behalf is final, and cannot be avoided or set aside, except for fraud on the part of the board. Railway Co. v. Backus, 133 Ind. 513, 33 N.E 421. Upon its face, the assessment in question appears to be within the jurisdiction of the board. It professes to be an assessment made upon the property of the bridge company in Floyd county, in the state of Indiana. It is conceded that a portion of the property assessed is located in the state of Indiana, but it is insisted that the board did not confine its assessment to the property in this state, but included therewith property of the bridge company located in Kentucky. The precise question for decision, then, comes down to this: The board, professing to assess property in this state, by mistake, erroneously assessed some portion of the bridge property actually located in Kentucky as though located within the state of Indiana. Jurisdiction is the power to hear and decide. The board is vested with the power to hear and decide, not only on the value of taxable property, but it must necessarily have the power to hear and decide what property is properly assessable. Its decision is no more void when it decides erroneously than when it decides correctly. It is of the essence of the power to hear and decide that the determination may be erroneous as well as correct. To hold that jurisdiction is lost because of an erroneous decision would be to overturn principles as ancient and venerable as...