City & County of San Francisco v. Talbot

Sharpstein, J. This action was brought to recover taxes assessed and levied upon the Bark Buena Vista for the fiscal year 1875-76.

The findings are in substance: 1. That at the time of said levy and assessment, and for a long time prior thereto, said vessel was registered at Port Townsend in Washington Territory, where the ship’s husband resided, and that said vessel has been taxed in said Territory during all the times mentioned in the complaint herein. 2. That said vessel sailed out of said Port Townsend to various ports and countries in the regular course of commerce, transporting lumber and other freight, and was in the State of California only transiently in the course of its voyages, and only remained therein long enough to take in and discharge cargo, and was never permanently or at all in said State otherwise than as above stated.

It further appears by stipulation of counsel of the respective parties that said vessel was owned in the proportions of nine tenths by Pope & Talbot, who resided in San Francisco, [487]and one tenth by one "Walker, a resident of Washington Territory, who as the managing owner registered said vessel at said Port Townsend. It was admitted at the trial that said vessel had never been registered at San Francisco. Upon these facts the question whether said vessel was assessable at San Francisco for city and county and State taxes, must be determined.

According to the Code, vessels which are by law required to be registered must be assessed only in the county or city and county where registered. (Pol. Code, § 3644.) And vessels registered “ out of and plying in whole or in part in the waters of this State, the owners of which reside in this State, must be assessed in this State.” (Pol. Code, § 3645.)

There are two conditions which must exist concurrently before a vessel registered out of this State is required by said Code to be assessed in this State: (1) she must ply in whole or in part in the waters of this State; (2) her owners must reside in this State. “Plying,” when used in the connection that it is here, is a'nantical phrase, which is defined by Webster as follows: “To make regular tripsj as a vessel plies between the two places.” It might well be urged that a vessel making regular trips between any port in California and some port outside of California, was “plying in part in the waters of this State.” But can that be properly said of a vessel which sails out of a port outside of this State “to various ports and countries in the regular course of commerce, transporting lumber and other freight,” and touching at the port of San Francisco transiently in the course of her voyages, and “ only long enough to take in and discharge cargo?”