City of Davenport v. C., R. I. & P. R. R.

38 Iowa 633
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJune 19, 1874
StatusPublished
Cited by45 cases

This text of 38 Iowa 633 (City of Davenport v. C., R. I. & P. R. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Davenport v. C., R. I. & P. R. R., 38 Iowa 633 (iowa 1874).

Opinions

Miller, Ch. J.

— This case is one of paramount importance, both in the amount of money involved and the gravity of the legal questions presented. It has been argued by learned counsel, with great and unusual ability, and we have endeavored to give the case that careful and deliberate consideration which its magnitude demands.

i pleading-on answer, practice: judgment up-I. The District Court did not err in rendering judgment on plaintiff’s motion for the sum, confessed by the answer to. ^e due and ™p&id as taxes, upon the north half of its bridge. The answer, in plain and unqualified language, says that the “ plaintiff is entitled to the [638]*638sum of $3,500,” for taxes on the north half of its railroad bridge for the year 1871, “ for which amount and costs to the date of filing this answer, defendant tenders judgment.” The Statute, (Revision section 3135,) provides that “if only part of the claim is controverted by the pleading, judgment may, at any time, be rendered for the part not controverted.” The petition claims to recover city taxes levied upon the depot grounds and buildings thereon, upon its railway tracks, side tracks, switches and road bed within the city limits, and also upon the north half of its railroad bridge across the Mississippi river, also within the city limits for the years 1867,1868, 1869, 1870 and 1871. Now the claim for taxes on the north half of the bridge, for the year 1871, the defendant does not controvert, but confesses that they are due and payable, and offers judgment therefor. The case comes very clearly within tire section of the statute above quoted. The plaintiff claims taxes on different properties for different years. The defendant does not controvert the claim on one of the pieces of property named, for one of the years. This being so, the court did not err in rendering judgment for the sum admitted. The confession in the answer is not to be governed by section 3404 of the Revision. The offer to confess judgment, there provided for, does not contemplate admissions or confessions contained in the pleadings. Under that section the offer must be made in court in presence of the plaintiff, or after notice to him that the offer will be made. It is collateral to the pleading, for, if not accepted, it “ shall not be deemed an admission of the cause of action or amount to which the plaintiff is entitled, nor be given in evidence at the trial.” The offer likewise must be as broad as the .acceptance is required to be, and since the acceptance must be in full of all demands, it follows that the offer must be equally broad. It is quite clear that the answer in this case does not come within the provisions of this section.

• II. Did the court err in sustaining the demurrer to the first division of the answer?

[639]*6392 taxation • upon groa?: -earnings. [638]*638The substance of this count in the answer, is that having, for each and every- ■ year for which plaintiff .claims, fully paid [639]*639to the State of Iowa, the taxes on its gross receipts, according to the requirements of the statutes, the defendant was n°t' liable to pay the taxes claimed, except those on the north half of its bridge, for 1870 and 1871, that the payment of taxes by the defendant, on its gross receipts, was in lieu of all other taxes, including taxes which might have been levied by the city.

In Dunleith & Dubuque Bridge v. The City of Dubuque, 32 Iowa, 427, this court held (Cole, J., dissenting) that payment by a railroad company, of a tax of one per centum, on the gross éarnings of the road,'under chapter 169 of the Acts of the Twelfth General Assembly, did not relieve the railroad company from the payment of city taxes, levied upon its property within the limits of the city. The act was held to be confined in its operation to State and county taxes. Under the doctrine of that case, the first count of the answer presented no defense and the demurrer therefore was properly sustained.

3. estopml : year’s a separate cause of action. III. In the second count of the answer, the defendant pleads, as an estoppel, a judgment rendered, February, 1867, in the District Court of Scott county, enjoining the city of Davenport from collecting city taxes, f , ® , \ , levied by it upon the same property on which taxes are claimed in this case, for the years 1863,1864 and 1865, in a suit brought by the Mississippi & Missouri Eailroad Company against the plaintiff herein, and alleging that the defendant in this suit is now the owner of the said property, on which taxes were levied, having purchased the same in 1866, at sheriff’s sale, on special execution, issued on a judgment of foreclosure of a mortgage on said property. The demurrer raises the question whether that judgment works an estoppel of the plaintiff, to collect the taxes sued for in this action. We are of opinion that it does not. While this action may be conceded to be between parties and privies to the former decree, yet we think it is clear that the subject matter of the two actions are not the same. The taxes enjoined in the former suit were those for 1863, 1864 and 1865. This action is to recover for subsequent taxes. Each year’s taxes constitute [640]*640a distinct and separate canse of action, and the determination of the matters, involved in the injunction suit, reached no farther than the taxes of the years then in question. The cases are unlike those where two causes of actions, (as two proinisory notes,) forming the subject matter of successive actions between the same parties, both growi/ng out of the same transaction, in which a defense set up in the first suit, and held good, will conclude the parties in the second. So a judgment of a competent court upon the validity of coupons attached to a bond is conclusive in another action, between the same parties upon other coupons attached to the same bond, Bochard v. Dias, 3 Denio, 238; Whittaker v. Johnson County, 12 Iowa, 595. But the taxes of sepai’ate years do not in any just sense grow out of the same transaction. They are like distinct claims on two different promissory notes made upon two distinct and separate, though similar transactions between the same parties. A judgment on one of such notes, it is quite clear, would not be of .any force as an estoppel in an action on the other note between the same parties.

In support of these views, see the following cases: Arnold v. Arnold, 17 Pick., 4; Ferrer's Case 6, Coke, 7; Cleaton v. Chambliss, 6 Rand (Va.), 86; Clark v. Young, 1 Cranch, 181; Beere v. Fleming, 13 Irish, C. L., 506; Norton v. Huxley, 13 Gray, 285; Ricker v. Hooper, 35 Vert., 457; Harding v. Hale, 2 Gray, 399; Marsh v. Pier, 4 Rawle, 273; Packet Co. v. Sickels, 5 Wall., and cases cited; Meyers v. Johnson County, 14 Iowa, 47; Simmons v. Van Pelt, 12 Id., 368, and cases cited.

Again, this case does not fall within the principle involved where a particular issue of fact is tried and determined, and judgment rendered upon such determination, which judgment estops both parties from afterwards denying the fact thus found and determined. See Bigelow on Estoppel, page 22.

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Bluebook (online)
38 Iowa 633, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-davenport-v-c-r-i-p-r-r-iowa-1874.