Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-27 | Page 15 | County Loser in Mine Taxing

MKJUUNG 5011 State Supreme Court Rules Against Summit Treasurer on Appeal of Case. LOWER BENCH UPHELD Decides That Tunnels Necessary Nec-essary to Operation Are Not Subject to Tax. That it was not coTitrmplafcd by the constitution of the state that any of Die underground tunnels, drifts or inrlinos used in ronuvctioii wi'h and necessary to trie operation of iniiis should lie tased as separate and -rTpendcnt property is the. decision of e1r the supreme court, in an opinion lianded down yesterday in which judgment of the lower court in favor of the defendant defend-ant in the ca.-e of .T. M. Kixon, treasurer, treas-urer, ap.ainst the Ontario Silver Mining company, is affirmed a D'i approed. The ' suit was brought in Summit county bv Hixon as county treasurer to collect 'taxes on an assessment levied against the drain tunnel from the Ontario On-tario mine. The lower court held that the tunnel was a necessary and integral part of the mine, that the mine could not be successfully operated without this tunnel, and as such could not be taxed separate and apart from the mine itself, and rendered judgment in favor of the Ontario company. Appeal Lost by County. An appeal was talen to the supreme court by the county authorities, but here, too, the treasurer lost, and the judgment of the lower court was upheld. The opinion was written by Chief -Ins-tice J. Y,. Friek, and in conclusion said: It is sufficient to bold that, tunnels tun-nels in question arc not assessable as having a separate and independent independ-ent value, under our constitution In another idace it is pointed out that the tunnels have no value except in connection with the mine. As a result re-sult of the decision Summit county will not be able to collect taxes amounting to $21ii3.03, which had been assessed auainst the property. The supreme court also has handed down a decision in the case of Herbert C. Lewis against .John A. Beck, Jr., in which it was sought to collect an amount alleged to be due on a Contract. The rase was heard in Boxelder county. xie decision of the supreme court !ne judgment of the lower court is re-versed re-versed and tbo case is remanded to the district court with direction to dismiss the proceedings. District Court Reversed. Sjidginent against Beck had been obtained ob-tained bv default in a justice's court. Later Beck entered the district court and filed an affidavit that he was not a resident of the district over which the justice of tho peace had jurisdiction, and therefore the judgment against him in that court was held to be not valid. The supreme court held that Beck, in failing to file the proper affidavit for a change of place of trial in the justice court, waived his right to object ob-ject to the jurisdiction of the justice, and hence tho district court erred in entering en-tering judgment against Lewis.