City of Oakland v. Albers Bros. Milling Co.
City of Oakland v. Albers Bros. Milling Co.
Opinion of the Court
The case upon which the appellant chiefly relies to sustain its contention upon this appeal is the case of San Francisco v. McGinn, 67 Cal. 110, [7 Pac. 187]. A careful examination of that case convinces us that it has no application to the case at bar, the essential difference between the two cases being that in the former case the court based its ruling that the defendant therein, who had placed the improvements in question upon the lands of the city of San Francisco, was to be held to be their owner for the purposes of taxation; while in the case at bar the improvements in question are expressly made the property of the city of Oakland, and hence the defendant herein could not have for any purpose any ownership in them. Under the express provisions of section 1 of article XIII of the state constitution, and also of section 3607 of the Political Code, the property of a municipal corporation in this state is not the subject of taxation. In the presence of these constitutional and statutory provisions it is needless to cite the earlier cases showing that this is and has long been the settled law of this state; but in the recent case of San Pedro etc. R. R. Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 180 Cal. 18, [179 Pac. 393], the supreme court declared void an attempted assessment of a breakwater built by a lessee of submerged public lands, as “improvements,” holding that while, as conceded by the parties in that case, the breakwater was not an “improvement” within the meaning of section 3617 of the Political Code, even if it were so considered to be, it would be such an improvement as would become fixed to the realty itself, “the fee of which was in the state, and hence not subject to assessment.”
Judgment affirmed.
Waste, P. J., and Bardin, J., pro tem., concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- CITY OF OAKLAND (A Municipal Corporation), Appellant, v. ALBERS BROS. MILLING CO. (A Corporation), Respondent
- Cited By
- 10 cases
- Status
- Published