92 N.J.L. 398 | N.J. | 1918
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The Supreme Court took too narrow a view of its functions in this case. It held that the judgment of the county board of taxation was not unreasonably or illegally reached and was supportable upon the facts and the figures adduced before it. This involved merely a determination that there was no erroneous legal principle shown to have been adopted by the county board and that there was evidence to support its finding. But this determination was not a compliance with the mandate of the Tax act or of the Certiorari act. Section 38 of the Tax act of 1903 (Comp. Stat., p. 5121) enacts that "if it shall appear to the satisfaction of any court wherein anv certiorari is or may be brought, * * * that the value of taxable property, for which any person is therein assessed, is too great, said court shall amend such assessment and reduce the same to the proper and just amount.” Section 11 of the Certiorari act as amended in 1907 (Pamph. L., p. 95; Comp. Stat., p. 405) requires the Supreme Court to determine disputed questions of fact in tax cases as well as in other cases therein set forth. That the value of the property assessed may he one of those questions of fact would seem obvious enough from a reading of the two sections in sequence. If the mere reading could leave any doubt, that doubt would he removed by tbe decisions
There is, however, a difficulty that goes deeper. An important portion of the evidence on which the Supreme Court, relied as sustaining the action of the county board was not before that board. The situation was this: Various estimates of expert witnesses were before the county board. None was adopted or followed. The board took a valuation of its own expert and added twenty per cent, indifferently to real and personal property, to personal property like rails and wires and apparatus which was subject to rapid depreciation by wear, as well as to land, the value of which was a site value and not subject to depreciation by wear, and added the same percentage to property in the populous city of Trenton and in suburban and agricultural communities. This uniformity of percentage challenges attention to any evidence in its support, and we find none. The only evidence to sustain the addition of twenty per cent, is found in the testimony of members of the county board of taxation, taken
The Supreme Court wrns clearly in error in saying that this testimony “was admitted and treated wdth all the formal requirements, and subject to all the scrutiny and criticism that characterize opinion evidence in a formal litigation inter partes at law or in equity.” The difficulty with the testimony was that it was mere opinion coming from witnesses who confessedly knew nothing about the subject of their testimony. The requirement of special knowledge of his subject before a witness can express a mere opinion, is a substantial rather than a formal requirement. Such evidence if subjected to the scrutiny and criticism that characterize opinion evidence in a formal litigation at law or in equity would be rejected. It must for the same reason be rejected here. Without it, there is no evidence sustaining some three hundred thousand dollars increased valuation.
There is, however, another error more fundamental still, to which we ought to call attention as the case must go back. No opportunity was afforded the prosecutor to present its
The Supreme Court did not, as it thought it did, support the judgment of the county board upon the facts and figures adduced before that board, but in part on those facts and figures and in part on opinions of witnesses who were not qualified to express the opinions, first appearing in evidence in the Supreme Court and after the county board had rendered its judgment. Such procedure is not due process of law, Londoner v. Denver, 210 U. S. 373, 386.
Let the judgment be reversed and the record remitted to the Supreme Court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
For affirmance — None.
For reversal — The Chancellor, Chief Justice, Swayze, Parker, Bergen, Kaliscii, Black, Wi-iite, Heppeni-ieimer, Williams, Taylor, Gardner, JJ. 12.