236 P. 133 | Cal. | 1925
This appeal is from a judgment in favor of the defendant as county assessor of the county of Los Angeles after an order sustaining a general demurrer to the plaintiff's amended complaint without leave to further amend. The action was one brought by the plaintiff to enjoin the defendant as such county assessor from the collection of certain taxes upon the plaintiff's property. The facts as they appear upon the face of the complaint may be briefly stated as follows: The plaintiff, a California corporation, is the grantee and holder of certain oil and gas leases granted to it by the owners of certain parcels of land described in its complaint, by the terms and conditions of which leases the plaintiff has been granted the right to drill for and extract oil, gas, and other hydrocarbon substances from said lands and to have the possession of the same for such purposes, the terms of said leases to be twenty years and as long thereafter as said substances can be extracted from said lands in paying quantities, the consideration for such leases being certain royalties to be paid by plaintiff to the owners of such lands, respectively, in proportion to the amount of such substances so to be extracted from their respective tracts of land. The defendant is county assessor of said county and is claiming and attempting to exercise the right to demand and collect county taxes upon the plaintiff's possessory rights and oil and gas leases in and upon said lands and to have the same paid in conformity with section 3820 of the Political Code, or, in default of said payment as provided in said section, to have the plaintiff's said possessory and leasehold rights seized and sold under the provisions of sections 3821 and 3822 of said code. It is the plaintiff's contention that its said possessory rights and leasehold interests in said real estate are themselves real estate, and that whatever taxes are or are to be imposed thereon should be assessed, levied, and collected in the same manner as taxes upon other real estate are assessed, levied and collected and that the foregoing provisions of the Political Code, in so far as they attempt or purport to authorize the defendant as county assessor to assess, levy, collect, or enforce the collection of taxes upon the plaintiff's said properties in any other manner than that provided by law for *150 the assessment and collection of taxes upon real estate are violative of the provisions of section 1 of article XIII and section 25 of article IV of the state constitution, and are also violative of the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution; wherefore it sought the relief prayed for in its amended complaint, and being denied such relief by the trial court has prosecuted this appeal. Section 3820 of the Political Code reads as follows: "The assessor must collect the taxes on all property when, in his opinion, said taxes are not a lien upon real property sufficient to secure the payment of the taxes. The taxes on all assessments of possession of, claim to, or right to the possession of land and the taxes on taxable improvements located upon land exempt from taxation, shall be immediately due and payable upon assessment and shall be collected by the assessor as provided in this chapter."
This section of the Political Code was amended in 1921 (Stats. 1921, p. 370) by adding thereto the clause therein reading "and the taxes on taxable improvements located on land exempt from taxation," but otherwise the wording of the second has remained unchanged since 1895. The first case before this court interpreting this section in its relation to leases for the extraction of oil from land was the case of Bakersfield FresnoOil Co. v. Kern County,
Judgment affirmed.
Shenk, J., Lennon, J., Waste, J., Lawlor, J., and Seawell, J., concurred.