2 N.Y.S. 555 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1888
The charge made by the relator is that the defendant adopted •an erroneous method in making the equalization, and that the result was prejudicial to his town. The statute imposing this duty on the board of supervisors of each county provides the manner of its performance to attain the object to be accomplished. They are required to examine the assessment rolls of the several towns in the county, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the valuations in one town bear a just relation to the valuations in •all other towns in the county. They may increase or diminish the aggregate valuations of real estate in any town by adding or deducting such sum on the hundred as may in their opinion be necessary to produce a just relation between all the valuations of real estates in the whole county, but they shall in no instance reduce the aggregate valuations of all the towns below the aggregate valuation thereof as made by the assessors. 1 Bev. St. p. 395, § 81. In the petition upon which the writ issued it is alleged, and not ques'tioned by the return, that the result was produced by the adoption and use of a table of decimals, one for each town, which represented the percentage of the aggregate assessed valuations with which the towns, respectively, were charged in the equalization as made; and in the application and use by the •defendant of these factors the assessed valuations of the personal as well as the real estates were included, by which means the valuations in the respective towns of the personal property as they appeared in the assessment rolls were modified, and for some of the towns increased and for others diminished; but the aggregate valuations of the real or personal estates, and both, of all the towns, remained the same as that of the assessed valuations. This method was clearly irregular and erroneous, for the reason, if for no other, that the board of supervisors, in making the equalization, lawfully had nothing to do with the assessed valuations of personal property, other than to continue them as made by the assessors of the respective towns. Id.; People v. Hadley, 76 N. Y. 337. The return made to the writ contains the statement, in effect, that the defendant examined and inspected the assessment rolls of the several towns, and made a correct and just equalization of.the value of 'the property in the towns; that the valuation finally determined by the board -for the real estate in the town of Ontario bears a just relation between the valuations of all the real estates in the county; “that the equalization made by said board as aforesaid was and is, in fact, effect, and result, the same substantially that would have been accomplished and produced if the said board Fad employed exclusively the method of equalization indicated by the Revised •Statutes as a proper method; that the apparent irregularity of including personal property in the method of equalization employed was corrected by allowances in the valuations of real estate counterbalancing the effect of such alleged irregularities;” and that in making the equalization the board included and made the addition and deduction of such sums upon the hundred as was necessary to produce a just relation between all the valuations of real estate in the county. Ho data or information is furnished by the return of the process by which the decimal multiplier was obtained, or in support of the alleged conclusion that the result produced by the equalization as made was the legitimate one, and such as the statute required. The return, therefore, fails in that respect to furnish the means for the court to determine that no prejudice resulted to the relator’s town by the erroneous method adopted and employed by the board in the equalization so made. If the board pro
In respect to the assessment of the year in question, the functions of the board of supervisors have terminated. The tax based upon it has been collected. There is therefore no opportunity for the board to review or reconsider their action upon that equalization; nor can the court make any correction or grant any relief to the relator’s town by way of correcting the error or injury complained of. And any determination which the court could now make on this review would seem to have no practical effect. But the question of the right to review such proceeding upon this writ is raised by the defendant’s counsel. The statute provides that the writ of certiorari can be issued in one of the following cases only: “(1) Where the right to it is expressly conferred, or its issue is expressly authorized, by statute; (2) where it may be issued at common law by a court of general jurisdiction, and the right to the writ, or the power of the court to issue it, is not expressly taken away by statute, (Code Civil Proc. § 2120;) and that, except as otherwise expressly pre
Haight and Dwight, JJ„ concur.