City of Jeffersonville v. Louisville & Jeffersonville Bridge Co.

83 N.E. 337, 169 Ind. 645, 1908 Ind. LEXIS 79
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1908
DocketNo. 20,074
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 83 N.E. 337 (City of Jeffersonville v. Louisville & Jeffersonville Bridge Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Jeffersonville v. Louisville & Jeffersonville Bridge Co., 83 N.E. 337, 169 Ind. 645, 1908 Ind. LEXIS 79 (Ind. 1908).

Opinion

Gillett, J.

Appellee instituted this suit against appellants, to enjoin the collection of certain taxes based on an assessment made against said company by the State Board of Tax Commissioners. Appellants appeal from an order granting a temporary injunction.

We shall attempt to give only an abstract of such of the facts -which the verified complaint discloses as appear pertinent in disposing of the case. In 1887 a corporation was organized in this State to construct and own a bridge and approaches thereto between the city of Louisville, Kentucky, and the city of Jeffersonville, Indiana. A corporation was also organized in Kentucky with authority .to construct a bridge between said cities, and subsequently, by virtue of an act of the legislature of the latter state, the franchises, interests and properties of the two companies were consolidated under the corporate name of the Louisville & Jeffersonville Bridge Company, the appellee herein. After 'the consolidation appellee became the owner of an iron or steel bridge located across the Ohio river at the point aforesaid, forty-eight-hundredths of a mile in length, of which forty-four-hundredths of a mile is in Kentucky and four-hundredths of a mile is in Indiana. The approaches to said bridge consist of iron or steel viaducts; the approach from [648]*648the Kentucky side being fifty-two-hundredths of a mile in length, while that in Indiana is ninety-four-hundredths of a mile long. Said company acquired certain real estate and personal property in Indiana, and it also obtained real estate and personal property in Kentucky, together with a system of railroad tracks located north and south of the Ohio river, and over and across said bridge and approaches. The complaint then alleges the manner in which said bridge and approaches are constructed, and the manner of acquiring what is referred to as “ certain large and valuable Louisville terminals.” The substance of this arrangement was that the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, having become the owners of all of the stock of appellee, guaranteed an issue of bonds to the amount of $3,500,000, bearing four per cent interest, which bonds sold for $3,205,389, and the proceeds were used in the purchase and construction of said property. The amount thereof, which was expended in Indiana, was $455,983, and the balance was expended in Kentucky. The Indiana expenditure was on account of the acquisition of real estate and the building of that part of the bridge, approach and terminals in said State. Of the Kentucky expenditure $1,549,298 was on account of the acquisition of the Kentucky terminals, which are described as consisting of valuable real estate, a freight-house, yards, tracks, roundhouse, bulking yards, and other properties for the use of said railway companies. Prior to the negotiations of said bonds plaintiff executed a lease to said railway companies, whereby they acquired the right to use said bridge, approaches and terminals in the operation of their trains, and in consideration thereof said companies assumed the obligation of paying the operating expenses of said bridge and of keeping the same in repair, and afterwards, in the year 1905, the plaintiff executed a lease to the Louisville & Southern Indiana Traction Company, whereby the latter was given the right to operate its street-ears over said bridge, upon the [649]*649agreement to pay one and one-quarter cents for each passenger carried over said bridge, which lease has yielded an annual revenue of from $12,000 to $14,000. The gross earnings of plaintiff have at all times been insufficient to pay its operating expenses and fixed charges, and on March 1, 1906 (the time to which the assessment relates), its capital stock was worthless. At said time, and for a year preceding said date, the true cash value of all of plaintiff’s property which was located in Indiana, or assessable therein, including the bridge, approach, railroad tracks, rolling stock, station holdings, real estate and personal property, was $218,941, and no more, and said property had never been assessed for any greater sum. The complaint then makes the following allegations, which we deem it necessary to quote: “Plaintiff states that on March 1, 1906, and for several years prior thereto, the plaintiff owned, in the city of Louisville, a very large amount of real estate of very great value, upon part of which it had erected a large freight station, which was used by said two railroad companies, and upon other parts of which it had built team tracks, and upon other parts of which it had built a roundhouse and tracks connecting its tracks with industries and with other railroads entering the city of Louisville, and a large amount of real estate of great value which it had purchased for the purpose of extending the before mentioned and similar facilities; that said real estate and improvements were independent of its said bridge and the approaches thereto and of the use thereof, one of said railroads, the Chesapeake & Ohio, not using said bridge or approaches at all, and the other using said before-described property independent of its use of said bridge and approaches. Plaintiff states that there was no community of use between such property and the plaintiff’s bridge and approaches or the part of plaintiff’s property which was in the State of Indiana, but it was entirely independent in the use thereof.” It is further alleged in said complaint that during each year prior to 1906 plaintiff made return of its [650]*650property to the proper authorities of the State of Indiana, and also to the local authorities. In 1906 plaintiff, pursuant to the demand of the Auditor of State, made a list of its Indiana property to said officer, and he laid said statement before the State Board of Tax Commissioners. Said board grouped said four-hundredths of a mile of bridge and said ninety-four-hundredths of a mile of approach, and twenty-three-hundredths of a mile of railroad track under the head of one and twenty-one-hundredths miles of main track, and valued and assessed the same at $700,000 per mile. Said board grouped all of the residue of said tracks under the head of four and eight-hundredths miles of side-track, and valued and assessed the same at $3,500 per mile. Said board grouped plaintiff’s locomotives under the head of one and twenty-one-hundredths miles of rolling stock, and valued and assessed the same at $6,000 per mile. Said board grouped plaintiff’s station building and appurtenances as improvements on right of way, and valued and assessed the same at $750. The aggregate assessment was an increase of more than $600,000 in the assessment of said property over former years. It is then charged that in making the assessment of 1906 the board proceeded on an erroneous principle and theory of taxation, and in violation of the Constitution of the United States, in this: “That said State Board of Tax Commissioners, in making said pretended assessment, took into consideration the ownership by the plaintiff of the before-described real estate and terminals in Louisville, and made said assessment upon the assumption that all of the property belonging to the plaintiff—that in Kentucky and that in Indiana, its bridge and its approaches and all of said terminal property—was to be considered as a unit, with the value imparted to such unit by the plaintiff’s ownership of said real estate and terminals before described, and in consideration thereof valued and assessed the plaintiff’s property, so denominated in said assessment as one and twenty-one-hundredths miles of main track and four and eight-hun[651]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
83 N.E. 337, 169 Ind. 645, 1908 Ind. LEXIS 79, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-jeffersonville-v-louisville-jeffersonville-bridge-co-ind-1908.