173 N.Y. 647 | NY | 1903
This record does not present a single question now open to review in this court.
The controversy grows out of an assessment against relator of $50,000 for personal property. He complained of it to the taxing authorities, and asked them to eliminate the assessment from the roll, which they refused to do. Thereupon he instituted the proceeding authorized by statute to review the assessment, alleging in the petition that his entire taxable property was $194,556, while his lawful indebtedness was $258,499. The indebtedness was entirely owing to a firm of stockbrokers, who had purchased stocks for him of about that value. The claim of the tax commissioners was that the relator's so-called indebtedness to his broker was not an actual and unconditional indebtedness, but that the transaction was purely speculative, and that, for all that appears, the assets in the hands of the broker were quite equal in value to the amount of the indebtedness incurred in the purchase.
This statement sufficiently suggests the nature of the controversy, which was on the one hand that the relator had personal assets over and above the indebtedness and equal to the amount of the assessment, and on the other hand that he had not.
This question was passed upon by the Special Term *649 adversely to the relator's contention and the writ of certiorari was, accordingly, dismissed. An appeal was then taken to the Appellate Division, where that question was again considered and the same conclusion reached as at the Special Term, whereupon the court unanimously affirmed the order of the Special Term.
The question of fact thus passed upon by the courts is not reviewable in this court, nor is the question whether it ought to be reviewable open for discussion at this time. It was carefully considered and decided in People ex rel. Manhattan R. Co. v.Barker (
Upon reasoning such as I have quoted, but further elaborated, the court held that the restriction imposed by the Constitution upon the review of a unanimous decision of the Appellate Division that there is evidence supporting a finding of fact applies to an order of affirmance in a statutory proceeding to review an assessment in which a trial de novo has been had at Special Term upon new evidence as to the value of the relator's property, resulting in an affirmance of the assessment and a dismissal of the writ of certiorari, and necessarily, therefore, that the effect of an order of affirmance unanimously made by an Appellate Division is a determination that the finding of fact as expressed or necessarily implied in the decision of the Special Term is supported by evidence, and, therefore, not the subject of review in this court.
It will be seen that that case entirely covers the questions of practice which have been suggested in this one, and it has been so frequently followed that the question would not now be open for reconsideration were we of the opinion that a different rule was possible at the time of the decision quoted (supra), and we are not.
The order should be affirmed, with costs.
GRAY, O'BRIEN, HAIGHT, MARTIN, VANN and WERNER, JJ., concur.
Order affirmed. *651