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Reber v. Neibling

26 P.2d 269, 138 Kan. 331, 1933 Kan. LEXIS 198
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedNovember 11, 1933
DocketNo. 31,040
StatusPublished

This text of 26 P.2d 269 (Reber v. Neibling) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reber v. Neibling, 26 P.2d 269, 138 Kan. 331, 1933 Kan. LEXIS 198 (kan 1933).

Opinions

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Dawson, J.:

This was an action to test the validity of the method of assessing farming lands in Brown county.

Plaintiff owns two farms, each bounded on two sides by public roads. Their legal descriptions are as follows:

1. Northwest quarter section 35, town 1 south, range 15 east, less 7.4 acres owned by the St. Joseph and Grand Island Railroad Company.

2. West half of southwest quarter of section 26, town 1 south, range 15 east.

On the west side of these farms a public road, sixty-six feet wide, runs north and south. Between the two farms another public road of similar width runs east and west. On the northwest corner of the larger farm the highway authorities appropriated 13/100’s of an acre for a rounding comer at the-intersection of these public roads.

It was conceded that the acreage of the two farms as described in terms of government survey was diminished for all practical purposes to the extent of almost seven acres (6.95 acres to be exact) by these public roads — about four acres off the larger farm and three acres off the smaller.

[332]*332By consent of counsel the trial court dictated into the record another admission which reads:

“The Court: It is admitted by the defendants that it is their intention, unless restrained or enjoined, to tax the farm lands of the plaintiff, owned by the plaintiff, without allowing any deductions for the public highways or for the rounding comer . . . which it has been stated by the plaintiff has been used for road purposes and in which the county has merely an easement.”

Other agreements and admissions of counsel and evidence shown without dispute may be thus summarized:

The fee to the 80-acre farm and the 160-acre farm diminished by the railway right of way was in the plaintiff; that the deeds under which he held were in substantially the same terms as those of the original government patents; that no deeds or less important convey.anees for highways had ever been executed by the original patentees or by any one holding under them; and that when the plaintiff’s lands have been the subject matter of conveyances they have been described in terms of- government survey without mention of any diminished acreage on account of the adjacent public roads.

A page of the assessor’s field book, exhibit “A,” supplied by the state tax commission, containing pertinent entries made therein by the deputy assessor, was introduced in evidence. (See page 333.)

The deputy assessor testified that he made the entries and valuations shown in exhibit A:

“Q. Just tell the court the things you took into consideration in fixing a value on Mr. Reber’s land, highways and everything. A. Well, the law says land shall be assessed at its fixed value and of course that is pretty hard to arrive at. First, going to a place, I try to look at it without improvements, as though we had wiped all the improvements away, and then take into consideration the waste land, the road land and all that, and make my estimation according to' that.
“Q. And you did that in this case? A. Yes, sir.
. . . . . . . . . .
Cross-examination.
“Q. You didn’t deduct the road land? A. I have no right to deduct it. He has got so many acres there, but we take into consideration the waste land.
“Q. There are about' seven acres of land used for road purposes? A. In taking your estimate, you know you 'go about an acre to eighty rods, or in other words, I would consider it in the neighborhood of that.
. . . . . . . . . .
“Q. Yes, now, you did not deduct, in your valuation and assessment for the purpose of taxation made in the year 1930, that seven acres of land — you did not deduct about seven acres of land used for the purpose of public highways [334]*334taken from Mr. Reber’s land? A. Not directly. Indirectly, I did, I would say.
[333]

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Bluebook (online)
26 P.2d 269, 138 Kan. 331, 1933 Kan. LEXIS 198, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reber-v-neibling-kan-1933.