County of San Bernardino v. Southern Pacific Railroad

TEMPLE, J.

This action was brought in the name of the county to recover school district taxes levied to pay interest and installments, due upon school district bonds of the Needles School District. The complaint contains several distinct causes of action, each for taxes levied for the same purpose, but in different years.

The first point made by appellants is, that the county has not the legal capacity or the right to sue to recover these taxes for the school district.

The property upon which it is sought to collect the tax is a portion of a railroad operated in more counties than one. As to such property, the constitution provides (sec. 10, -art. XIII), “The franchise, roadway, road-bed, rails, and rolling-stock of all railroads operated in more than one county in this state shall be assessed by the state board of equalization at their actual value, and the same shall be apportioned to the counties, cities and counties, cities, towns, townships, and districts in which such railroads are located, in proportion to the number of miles of railway laid in such counties, cities and counties, cities, towns, townships, and districts.”

In

People

v.

Central Pac. R. R. Co.,

105 Cal. 576, it is said, in considering the assessments made by the state board of equalization: “It is the ‘value’ of the property after it has been assessed that is to be apportioned to the several counties. There is no apportionment to the counties of the property itself, or of any particular part of that property. . . . Only the apportioned part of the assessed value is entered upon the books of the county auditor as the basis of the taxes to be levied within the county, the amount upon which the percentage of tax is to be computed and from which is to be derived the amount of taxes to be paid by the railroad.”

It is further said that the constitution itself, by the peculiar manner of assessment of this class of property, has made

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the laws providing for the collection of other taxes inapplicable to the collection of taxes upon this class of property and from this class of taxpayers.