Budd v. Allen

The action was to recover the value of personal property of the plaintiff, sold under direction of the defendant, in the collection of a school tax levied by the latter, in the year 1891, as sole trustee of joint school district Mo. 10 in the towns of Ontario, in Wayne county, and Webster, in Monroe county, upon certain farm lands of the plaintiff of about seventy-five acres lying within the bounds of that district, and in the town of Ontario.

The plaintiff for about three years before, and at the time of the levying of the tax in question, lived on a parcel of land of about fifteen acres situate in the town of Webster, and within the bounds of school district Mo. 11 of that town. The two parcels of land adjoined each other, the east line of the fifteen acres coinciding with the west line of the seventy-five acres for a distance of sixteen rods along the center line of the highway, which lay on the town and county line, and the whole ninety acres was used " and worked as one farm by and under the direction of the plaintiff. His hired man lived on the seventy-five acres, and was paid yearly wages in addition to the use of a house and garden spot. In the years 1889 and 1890 and 1891 the whole ninety acres was assessed as one lot in the town of Webster, and no part of the same was assessed in the town of Ontario in either of those years.

The foregoing are all the facts which are essential to the disposition of the main question in this case, viz.: whether the seventy-five acres of the plaintiff’s farm which lay within the joint district Mo. 10 of Ontario and Webster were taxable for school purposes in that district. Tlie question is one purely of statutory construction, and the statutory provisions to he construed are found m the consolidated school act of 1864, Laws of 1864, chap. 555, as amended by chap. 828 of the Laws of 1889.

By § 66 of that act, as so amended, Birdseye, p. 567, § 149,. it is provided as follows, viz.: “ School district taxes shall be apportioned by the trustees upon all the real estate within the boundaries of the district which shall not be by law exempt from taxation, except as hereinafter provided, and such property shall be assessed to the person or persons or corporation owning or possessing the same at the time such tax list shall be made out, but

The case before ns seems to be brought precisely within the latter and exceptional provisions of this section by the facts above stated. The 90 acres of land lies in one body ; is occupied by the same person, as owner; was assessed as one lot on the last assessment roll of the town in which the owner lived, and, therefore, though situated partly in two school districts, was, it would seem, taxable in that one of them in which such occupant resided.

But the appellant contends for the application to the ease of § 71 of the same statute, Birdseye, p. 568, § 154, which reads as follows:

“ Every person owning or holding any real property within any school district, who shall improve and occupy the same by bis agent and servant, shall in respect to the liability of such property to taxation be considered a taxable inhabitant of such district, in the same manner as if he actually resided therein."

It is very plain, we think, that this section has no application to the case before us. The distinguishing fact contemplated by the provision is that the land referred to is occupied and improved by an agent or servant of the owner, and that fact does not exist when it is occupied and improved by the owner himself. The section clearly has application only do land belonging to an owner who does not reside upon it, but occupies it by an agent or servant who lives upon it and works it for the owner; such agent or servant being distinguished equally from the owner of the land and from a tenant who works it for his own account. The plaintiff is not a nonresident owner, but lives upon, occupies and works his own farm and the whole of it. The fact that his hired man lives on the other side of the district line can have no effect upon the status of the owner as a taxable inhabitant of the one district or the other.

The foregoing examination of the statute leaves, we think, no room for doubt that the whole of the plaintiff’s farm of ninety acres was taxable for school purposes in district No.. 11 of Webster, and that no part of it was taxable in joint district No. 10 of Webster and Ontario. This seems to be the construction which 1ms been uniformly put upon the statute by the department of public instruction, as shown by decisions of several superintendents to which our attention is called by counsel for the respondent; and the quotation made by counsel for the appellant from a note to § 71, supra, contained in the code of public instruction, published by the superintendent in 1887, at page 353, is, we think, quite to the same effect.

The construction here given also brings the statute in question into harmony with the general statute in respect to. the taxation of lands divided by town and county lines, 1 B. S., 389, §4; Laws of 1886, chap, 315, § 1; Birdseye, 2961, § 52, and with the decisions of the courts which have passed upon the effect of

Such being the law of the case, defendant acted without jurisdiction in assessing any part of the plaintiff’s land for taxation in district Ho. 10, and by issuing his warrant and directing the levy upon and sale of the plaintiff’s property to pay such tax was guilty of a trespass, for which a recovery was properly had in the justice’s court

The only other question in the case which seems to require consideration arises upon the denial by the county court of the defendant’s motion to strike out the allowance of costs in the judgment appealed from.

We are asked to review this order, apparently, upon the assumption that the record shows a certiñeaté made by the justice of the peace to the effect that it appeared upon the trial before him that the defendant acted in good faith in the matters out of which the cause of action arose. Code Civ. Pro., § 3244. But this assumption is a mistaken one. The record contains no such certifi cate, nor any evidence that such a certificate was ever presented to the county court. On the contrary, it does appear that counsel for the appellant on the hearing of the appeal in the county court moved for and obtained an order requiring the justice to make a special return certifying whether or not it appeared on the trial before him that the defendant in the acts complained of acted in good faith; and that the justice made such return certifying that such fact did not appear. It is true the justice went further in his return and narrated a transaction between himself and the defendant, in which his signature was obtained to a paper which the justice afterwards understood was a certificate of good faith, but which he did not understand to be such when it was signed, and which, if it were Such, was untrue.

It is apparent why this return could not have been regarded by the county court as equivalent to the certificate required by the statute, § 3244, supra, as a condition of exempting the defendant from liability for costs.

The judgment and order appealed from should be affirmed.

Judgment and order of the county court of Monroe county appealed-from affirmed, with costs.

Lewis, Macomber and Haight, JJ., concur.