Collins v. King County
Collins v. King County
Opinion of the Court
The lower court sustained a demurrer to the appellant’s complaint in which he sought a reduction of taxes for the year 1912, and he appeals.
The only question here is the sufficiency of the complaint, which alleges, that the appellant is the owner of a certain lot improved with a two-story and basement reinforced concrete building, fronting upon Second avenue south, Seattle; that the county assessor, following an established custom of valuing real property for assessment purposes, had fixed the reasonable cash value of appellant’s property, exclusive of im
The complaint does not show that the assessment is not uniform or proportionate to the assessment of adjacent property, nor that, as compared with such property, the assessor has capriciously or arbitrarily determined the real and assessed value of appellant’s property. Neither does it allege that the valuation of $120,000 as made up in 1912 is not
It was early held by this court in Andrews v. King County, 1 Wash. 46, 23 Pac. 409, 22 Am. St. 136, that courts of equity will not interfere to correct errors in judgment as to valuation, as “value is a matter of opinion, and when the law has provided officers upon whom the duty is imposed to make the valuation, it is the opinion of those officers to which the interests of the parties are referred.” And before it can be held that the valuation of the proper assessing officer is not conclusive, there must be some showing that the assessment is not the exercise of the assessor’s judgment, but is the result of a rule or system of valuation designed to operate unequally and to violate the fundamental principles upon which such assessment should be based. This may be done by either showing fraud and arbitrariness in fact, or by alleging conduct on the part of the assessor the effect of which would be fraud in law. When the assessor takes the property of any taxpayer and gives to it a value much greater in proportion to its real value than other like property of other taxpayers, such act is of itself fraud in law; but there is no showing in
The complaint, in our opinion, fails to state a cause of action, and the judgment is affirmed.
Crow, C. J., Parker, Mount, and Fullerton, JJ., concur.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Josiah Collins v. King County
- Cited By
- 1 case
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- Published
- Syllabus
- Taxation— Assessments — Excessiveness •—• Complaint — Sufficiency. A complaint to secure a reduction of taxes upon city property, alleging that the same was assessed more proportionately than other business property upon another street, is insufficient where it does not allege that the valuation is in excess of the reasonable cash value of the property, nor that the same is assessed more than like property in the immediate vicinity upon the same street. Taxation—Reduction of Tax—Fraud. There is no such disparity between the actual and assessed value of property as to give a right to a reduction of taxes on the ground of fraud, where appellant alleged the value fixed by the assessor to be $33,712, but that the actual value did not exceed $30,000; since the courts will not interfere to correct errors in judgment as to valuation, in the absence of evidence of fraud.