Case ID: wis_192/html/0523-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Vinje, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hooper, Appellant, vs. City of Oshkosh, Respondent.
    
      March 9
    
    April 5, 1927.
    
    
      Constitutional law: Income taxes: Personal property offset: Res ad judicata: Order sustaining demurrer.
    
    1. An action to recover a personal property tax on the ground that sec. 1, ch. 57, Laws of 1925, which repealed the personal property tax of 1925 as an offset on income taxes, deprived plaintiff of due process of law, in contravention of amendm. V and sec. 1, amendm. XIV, Const. U. S., does not involve a federal question, p. 523.
    
      2. A decision on an appeal from an order sustaining a demurrer to a complaint is res ad judicata on appeal from a judgment dismissing the complaint, no amendment having been made thereto, p. 524.
    Appeal from a judgment of the circuit court for Winnebago county: Fred Beglinger, Circuit Judge.
    
      Affirmed.
    
    Plaintiff brought an action to recover income taxes paid for the year 1924, claiming that sec. 1, ch. 57, Laws of 1925, so far as it repeals the personal property tax of 1925 as an offset on income taxes, is unconstitutional. The defendant demurred to the complaint and the court sustained the demurrer. Upon plaintiff’s appeal to this court the order sustaining the demurrer was affirmed without opinion. Plaintiff offered no amendment to the complaint, and from a judgment dismissing the complaint plaintiff again appealed.
    The cause was submitted for the appellant on the brief of Ed M. Hooper of Oshkosh, in pro. per., and for the respondent on that of Lloyd D. Mitchell of Oshkosh.
   Vinje, C. J.

Plaintiff urges now as he did upon the former appeal that ch. 57 of the Laws of 1925 deprives plaintiff of his property without due process of law and therefore contravenes “art. V of the amendments to the constitution of the United States and sec. 1 of art. XIV of the amendments to the constitution of the United States.” The court was then and now is of the opinion that no federal question is involved.

The appeal from the judgment raises the identical questions raised and decided upon the appeal from the order sustaining the demurrer, and such former decision is res judicata. Ellis v. Northern Pac. R. Co. 80 Wis. 459, 50 N. W. 397; Case v. Hoffman, 100 Wis. 314, 75 N. W. 945; Wollman v. Ruehle, 104 Wis. 603, 80 N. W. 919; Finney v. Guy, 111 Wis. 296, 87 N. W. 255; McCord v. Hill, 117 Wis. 306, 94 N. W. 65; Cape v. Plymouth Cong. Church, 130 Wis. 174, 109 N. W. 928; Jeffery v. Osborne, 145 Wis. 351, 129 N. W. 931; Strehlau v. John Schroeder L. Co. 152 Wis. 589, 142 N. W. 120; John v. Pierce, 176 Wis. 220, 186 N. W. 600.

By the Court. — Judgment ‘affirmed.