Yuma County v. Arizona & S.R. Co.

• Citation: 30 Ariz. 27,243 P. 907
• Decision Date: 01 March 1926
• Docket Number: Civil 2322
• Parties: YUMA COUNTY, a Body Politic and Corporate, and a Subdivision of the State of Arizona, Appellant, v. ARIZONA & SWANSEA RAILROAD COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellee
• Court: Supreme Court of Arizona

243 P. 907

30 Ariz. 27

YUMA COUNTY, a Body Politic and Corporate, and a Subdivision of the State of Arizona, Appellant, v. ARIZONA & SWANSEA RAILROAD COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellee

Civil No. 2322

Supreme Court of Arizona

March 1, 1926

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the County of Yuma. Fred L. Ingraham, Judge.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded, with directions that the complaint be dismissed.

Mr John W. Murphy, Attorney General, and Mr. A. R. Lynch Assistant Attorney General, for Appellant.

Messrs Anderson, Gale & Miller, for Appellee.

Ross, J. McAlister, C. J., and Lockwood, J., concur.

OPINION

Ross, J.

The appellee is a railroad corporation, and in 1922 owned and operated a railroad between Bouse and Swansea in Yuma county, Arizona, a distance of about 21 miles. For the purposes of taxation the state tax commission assessed its property at $ 147,700. The plaintiff objected to this valuation as excessive and a protest was presented to the state board of equalization at its August meeting, but no reduction or change in the valuation was allowed. When the taxes fell due, plaintiff paid defendant, under protest, upon the assessed and equalized value of $ 147,700. In plaintiff's protest and complaint it claims the valuation as fixed by the taxing and equalizing officers was excessive by $ 101,000; that its cash value did not in fact exceed $ 46,700.

This suit was brought to recover back from the county the taxes paid on the alleged excess. It is charged in the complaint that the tax commission and board of equalization, without regard to the full cash value of property, arbitrarily and unlawfully fixed and equalized it at $ 147,700; that, therefore, the tax is illegal as violative of the revenue law requiring all property to be assessed at its full cash value, of section 1, article 9, of the state Constitution requiring uniformity of taxation, of the due process clause of the state and federal Constitutions, and the equal protection clause of the federal Constitution.

The defendant contended by proper pleadings that the facts stated in the complaint did not entitle the plaintiff to any relief; that the value fixed by the board of equalization is final; and that the court was without jurisdiction to review and reassess plaintiff's property. The court, however, thought otherwise and overruled the demurrers, took evidence as to the value of the property and found its full cash value to be $ 46,700, as claimed by plaintiff, and entered judgment in favor of plaintiff for $ 2,288.83, the claimed excess.

The county has appealed, and its assignments present the questions raised by its demurrers. The questions are not unmixed with vexation and doubt. They are important, in that the answers to them will afford a guide to the taxpayer as to when and how as the law is now written he may secure relief from an overvaluation, or what he considers to be an overvaluation, of his property.

The plaintiff contends that it is entitled to have the question of overvaluation re-examined by the courts under the provisions of paragraph 4939 of the Civil Code of 1913, being a part of the revenue law concerning the "Collection of Delinquent Taxes." This statute provides that no injunction shall issue to prevent or enjoin the collection of any tax levied under the provisions of the law. If, however, a taxpayer desires to test the validity of any tax, he may do so in a suit to recover the excess after first paying the whole tax to the county treasurer, but not otherwise. The action here provided is one to recover "any tax illegally collected" and cannot be maintained until after the processes of assessment and equalization have been finished and the taxes have become due and been paid. The legality of the tax or taxes is the only question that can be inquired into or litigated in this action. It presupposes the questions of assessment and equalization have long been settled according to other provisions of the statute.

The annual state and county tax is made up of many items and these items when added together fix the tax rate. Paragraphs 4834 and 4839, Civil Code. The amount of taxes is ascertained by multiplying the equalized valuation of property by the rate. If any item entering into the rate be not for a public purpose or is authorized by invalid legislation, or if the taxpayer is assessed with property that is exempt or that he did not own, or an overvaluation is the result of the adoption of a rule of appraisement which conflicts with the constitutional or statutory direction and operates unequally, not merely on an individual but a large class, it may be shown in this action and a recovery be had. 26 R. C. L. 453, § 409; Stanley v. Albany County, 121 U.S. 535, 30 L.Ed. 1000, 7 S.Ct. 1234.

In Arizona Eastern R. Co. v. Graham County, 20 Ariz. 257, 179 P. 959, we used language that might be construed as limiting the right of action under paragraph 4939 to recover only when the law under which it was levied was invalid. We do not think such a construction justified as we believe the legislature intended to give the taxpayer the right to test the validity of the tax upon any ground upon which he has not had an opportunity to be heard under other provisions of the law.

Under the system of taxation devised by our legislature, the state tax commission appraises and assesses all railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, all express companies, sleeping-car companies, private car lines, and all producing mines (paragraph 4829, Civil Code), and the county assessor assesses all the rest of the property of his county (paragraph 4854 et seq.). The board of supervisors, acting as a board of equalization, equalizes the property assessed in its county (paragraph 4880, Civil Code), and the state tax commission, acting as a state board of equalization, equalizes the property assessed by it (paragraph 4834).

Paragraph 4887, Civil Code, provides, among other things, that a taxpayer, feeling himself aggrieved by an overvaluation of his property, may, by first paying the taxes under protest, have the matter of value re-examined by the superior court, at which he may have a jury trial, if he choose, and, if successful in his suit, he may have judgment for any excess. However, the right of appeal, under paragraph 4887, is given only to those taxpayers whose property has been equalized by the board of supervisors of the county (State v. Inspiration Cons. Copper Co., 20 Ariz. 503, 181 P. 959); it does not authorize an appeal to the courts from an order of the state board of equalization refusing a reduction of value as made by the state tax commission.

The legislature, therefore, has provided for an appeal to the courts on the question of overvaluation where the property is assessed and equalized by the county officers, but not so where the property is...