174 P. 704 | Mont. | 1918
delivered the opinion of the court.
The motive power of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway for a distance of 440 miles in this state, extending across several counties thereof, including the county of Granite, is electric; that is to say, its trains are drawn by electric motors instead of by steam engines. These motors receive the current necessary to actuate them from a trolley wire suspended directly over the center of each track. The currentitself comes from remote plants not owned by the railway, and is conveyed by means of poles, towers and wires — the property of the supplying company — to seven of fourteen substations, where it is transformed and sent out along a transmission line to the other substations. The transmission line is located on the right of way, at a uniform distance of thirty-eight feet from the center of the main track, and it, together with all the substations, belongs to the railway company. From the substations the transformed current is carried to the trolley wires, which are hung from poles and brackets spaced about one hundi'ed and fifty feet apart. These poles are set in the roadbed at a uniform distance of ten feet from the center line of the track, and they carry the necessary feeders, signal wires, message wires, wires for the power limit and indicating systems. To the same poles is attached a supplementary negative wire, which at certain points is connected with bonds attached to the rails, and the joints of all rails are bonded by a copper wire, so that, as the motor makes contact with the trolley wire, a circuit is completed through the rails, bonds and supplementary wire to the substations.
It is alleged in the complaint, which is by the railway company against the treasurer of Granite county, that this electrification system is used exclusively in the operation of its railroad, is necessary to the efficient and economical operation thereof, and constitutes a single continuous system; that the company made no return of it to the assessor of Granite county for the year 191.7, but said assessor, notwithstanding, assessed 29.63 miles of the transmission line at a valuation of $2,830 per mile,
But one question is presented, whether the county assessor
No solution of this question is entirely free from objection. Section 16 of Article XII of the Constitution provides: “All property shall be assessed in the manner prescribed by law except as is otherwise provided in this Constitution. The franchise, roadway, roadbed, rails and rolling stock of all railroads operated in more than one county in this state shall be assessed by the state board of equalization and the same shall be apportioned to the counties, cities, towns, townships and school districts in which such railroads are located, in proportion to the number of miles of railway, laid in such counties, cities, towns, townships and school districts.” The meaning of this is perfectly clear, viz., whatsoever is franchise, or roadway, or road
Considered separately, the trolley line is in a different
We realize that in a large sense the transmission line and the trolley line are parts of one electrification system, and that their separation into two taxation jurisdictions may not, at first blush, commend itself. So, also, may it be said that the substations are part of the same electrification system; but it is not questioned that these are within the jurisdiction of the local assessor. In point of fact, every piece of property owned and used in the operation of a railroad contributes to the usefulness, and to some extent enters into the value, of the railroad considered as a whole, yet by the Constitution some of these are regarded as primarily local in character, and therefore not within the jurisdiction of the state board. If as a result the command of the Constitution becomes inharmonious with a
It follows that so far as the trolley line is concerned, a cause of action was stated in the complaint, and the demurrer thereto should have been overruled. The judgment is therefore reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.