Case ID: cal_48/html/0631-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court, McKinstry, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 4,034.]
    THE PEOPLE v. JOHN HANCOCK and JOHN C. HAYS and the MUSCUPIABLE RANCHO.
    "Void Assessment fob Taxes.—When the assessor assesses an entire tract of land to a person, and the person assessed had previously sold a part of the same by metes and bounds, and the assessment contains nothing to show what valuation the assessor placed on the part not sold, the assessment is fraudulent and void, and the tax cannot be collected.
    Appeal from the District Court, Eighteenth Judicial District, San Bernardino County.
    Action to recover a tax levied on an assessment of the Muscupiable Bancho, in San Bernardino County. The xancho contained twenty-four thousand six hundred and .fifty-six acres, and the entire ranch, as a whole, was assessed at twenty-four thousand six hundred and fifty-six -dollars. Two years before the assessment, the defendants, Hancock and Hays, had sold to A. J. Pope seven thousand four hundred and seventy - nine acres of the rancho by metes and bounds, leaving the defendants only seventeen thousand one hundred and seventy-seven acres. The answer alleged a. fraudulent assessment. There was no evidence to show the value placed by the Assessor, on the seven thousand four hundred and seventy-nine acres sold. The Court below rendered judgment for the defendants, and the people appealed.
    
      John L. Love, Attorney-General, for the Appellant.
    
      C. G. W. French and Henry Hancock, in pro. per., for the Respondents.
   By the Court, McKinstry, J.:

The defendants answered and proved that a tract of land containing nearly one third of the larger tract described in the assessment had been by them sold and conveyed by deed, duly recorded, two years before the assessment was made. The Court below found that the assessment contained no data from whjfeh could be estimated what sum should be paid by the defendants, and properly gave judgment for the defendants.

Judgment affirmed.

Neither Mr. Justice Crockett nor Mr. justice Rhodes expressed an opinion.