Majority
p. 543The People of the State of New York ex rel. Rutland Railroad Company, Respondent, v. The State Tax Commission, Appellant. (Argued May 27, 1926; decided June 8, 1926.)
Headnote
Tax — railroads — franchise tax upon railroad bridges crossing non-navigable streams properly annulled.People ex rel. Rutland R. R. Co. v. State Tax Comm., 215 App. Div. 855 , affirmed.
Appeal, by permission, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the third judicial department, entered January 29, 1926, which affirmed an order, entered upon the report of a referee, annulling and setting aside special franchise assessments upon bridges belonging to relator in the towns of Madrid, Potsdam and Stockholm for the year 1920. The assessments against the relator for the occupation of the three crossings in the towns mentioned were canceled upon the grounds that the Grasse, Raquette and St. Regis rivers are non-navigable streams, and, at the point of the crossings, the relator owned the lands forming the bank and bed of the rivers and the said waters were not public highways and were not public waters.
Albert Ottinger, Attorney-General (Frederic J. Merriman of counsel), for appellant.
John M. Cantwell for respondent.
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs. We do not consider what effect, if any, chapter 180 of the Laws of 1810 and chapter 257 of the Laws of 1824 might have upon the conclusion reached by us. The case was not tried upon the theory that either statute was material, nor is such a claim argued before us by the Attorney-General.
His cock, Ch. J., Carúozo, Pound, McLaughlin, Crane, Andrews and Lehman, JJ., concur.
Order affirmed,