50 Kan. 378 | Kan. | 1893
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This was an action brought in the district court of Wyandotte county by the Midland Elevator Company against M. W. Stewart, county treasurer, S. S. Peterson, sheriff, and the board of county commissioners of said county, to recover the sum of $241.44, alleged to have been illegally levied against the plaintiff as taxes for the year 1891, and paid by the plaintiff involuntarily and under protest, and to prevent a seizure of its property. A demurrer to the plaintiff’s petition was sustained by the court, on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and plaintiff brings the case to this court.
It appears from the allegations of the plaintiff’s petition that the taxable property in Wyandotte county for the year 1891 exceeded $13,000,000; that the county board for that year, and under provisions of chapter 134 of the Laws of 1887, levied a tax for general county purposes to the amount of 10 mills on the dollar of the valuation of the taxable property of that county, although, as claimed by the plaintiff, the county board would have no authority, under § 220 (or
“An Act authorizing the boards of oounty commissioners of Cowley and Wyandotte counties to levy and collect a tax of not exceeding 10 mills on the taxable property of said counties, for general county purposes.
“Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:
“Section 1. The boards of county commissioners of Cowley and Wyandotte counties are hereby authorized and empowered to levy and collect annually a tax of not exceeding 10 mills on the dollar on the taxable property of said counties, for general county purposes.
“Sec. 2. Such levy when so made by said boards shall be extended on the duplicate tax rolls, and shall be collected as other taxes, and shall be in lieu of all taxes of general county purposes.
“Sec. 3. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its publication in the official state paper.” Approved March 1, and published March 2, 1887.
Said § 220 (or more properly § 181) of the act relating to counties and county officers, so far as it is necessary to quote it, reads as follows:
“Sec. 220. The board of county commissioners of any*382 county shall not levy upon the taxable property of such county a tax for current expenses of said county of any one year, in excess of the following amounts: Upon a valuation of . . . over nine millions, one-half of one per cent.: Provided, That the electors of the county, by a direct vote, may order an increase in such levies.”
It is claimed by the plaintiff that the said act of 1887 is unconstitutional and void, for the following reasons: First, it is in contravention of § 16, article 2, of the constitution, for the reason that it is in effect an amendment of said § 220, having the effect to change and alter its provisions, and yet it does not contain the entire section as amended, nor repeal the original section, nor even mention it. Second, the new act is in contravention of §1, article 11, of the constitution, which provides that “the legislature shall provide for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation.” Third, the new act is in contravention of § 17, article 2, of the constitution, for the reasons, (1) that it attempts by a separate act to limit or defeat the uniform operation throughout the state of a general law; (2) that it is itself a general law or a law of a general nature, and yet it is not to have a uniform operation throughout the state.
It can make but very little difference what might be the views of the individual members of this court, as the court is now constituted, if the questions now. presented by counsel were original questions presented to them for the first time now; for we think they have all been heretofore settled by numerous prior decisions of this court. (The State, ex rel. v. Hitchcock, 1 Kas. 178; Beach v. Leahy, 11 id. 23; and many other cases which will be hereafter cited.)
The first question presented by counsel for the plaintiff with regard to the new legislative enactment (said chapter 134), amending, changing or modifying the old one (said § 220), without embodying in the new act all the provisions of the old one that are to remain the law, and without repealing the old one, is in effect settled against the views of the present plaintiff by the decision of this court rendered in
The second contention of counsel for the plaintiff, that the new act is in contravention of § 1, article 11, of the constitution, which provides that “the legislature shall provide for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation,” is wholly untenable. That provision of the constitution, as we have many times decided, requires merely that there shall be “a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation” only in each separate taxing district of the state. (Hines v. City of Leavenworth, 3 Kas. 186, 201.) In the case of Comm’rs of Ottawa Co. v. Nelson, 19 Kas. 234, et seq., will be found an elaborate discussion with regard to the question when an assessment or a tax is at a uniform and equal rate. Now, the county of Wyandotte, for all taxes levied for county purposes, is a separate and distinct taxing district, and a rate of taxation of 10 mills on the dollar of the valuation of all the taxable property in that county is certainly a uniform and equal rate of taxation for that county, or, in other words, for that taxing district.
With the views herein expressed, it follows that the decision of the court below was correct, and its judgment will therefore be affirmed.