Case ID: ohio-st_26/html/0315-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

George W. Dreake, Treasurer of Brown County v. Harvey Beasley.
    The road improvement act of 1867 (S. & 8. 671), does not make the owner of land assessed thereunder personally liable for the assessment, or require it to be charged against him on the duplicate, and therefore a personal action against him for such assessment is not authorized by the act of April 6,1875 (72 Ohio L. 37).
    Motion for leave to file a petition in error.
    
      John Q. Marshall, for the motion:
    1. The taxes and assessments against an individual are a personal debt.' Greps v. Baird, 3 Ohio St. 277.
    2. Under the laws of 1866 and 1867 assessments were to be collected as other taxes. S. & S. 672, sec. 7.
    3. How were other, taxes collected ? First. Either by distraint; or, second, sale of the land. S. & C. 1586, sec. 15; S. & C. 1588' see. 25.
    4. Up to the passage of the act of 1874 the county treasurer was limited either to distraint or sale at delinquent sales.
    5. The law of 1875, p. 37, extended the' remedy of 1874 to assessments.
    6. Taxes are a first lien on lands. S. & C. 581, sec. 82; S'. & C. 1505, sec. 30; S. & S. 835, sec. 131; S. & S. 844, sec. 156; S. & S. 672, sec. 39; S. & 0. 1591, sec. 42.
    7. The assessment being a debt and a personal one, the act of 1875 was not retroactive in its operation, and the demurrer should have been overruled.
    According to the position taken by counsel for defendant in error, suits will have to be brought against the land; and every assessment, however trivial in amount, would subject the delinquent to a suit in the Common Pleas, attended with heavy costs. The law was intended to prevent this, and to afford a cheap and speedy remedy. The law was intended for prior assessments as to roads, because undei the present legislation it is not probable that any new improvements of that kind will be made.
    
      
      Loudon $ Young, contra:
    An assessment is clearly distinguishable from a tax.
    And is not a personal charge, but is a charge only against the property against which the assessment is made.
    Taxes properly imposed are the personal debt of the owner of the property listed; hut an assessment on lands is not a personal debt of the owner of such land.
    And the law authorizing such assessments is held to be not unconstitutional, for the reason that the assessments are not taxes. The State ex rel. Eastman v. Commissioners of Warren County, 17 Ohio St. 558.
   By the Court.

This was a civil action, in which the plaintiff sought to obtain a personal judgment against the ■defendant for an assessment made against his lands prior to the year 1875, under the road improvement law of 1867 (S. & S. 671); and the only question involved is whether such an action is authorized by the act of April 6, 1875 (72 Ohio L. 37), supplementary to the several- acts for the collection of delinquent taxes. "We think with the court below that the action is not maintainable. The act of 1875 only authorizes the action where the tax or assessment is chai’ged against the “person or corporation.” The law under which this assessment was made does not, as we understand it, make the assessment a charge against the owner, but only a charge against the land. True the act provides (S. & S. 672, sec. 7) that the assessment “ shall, be collected in the same manner as other taxesbut we understand the law to be that no taxes assessed upon lands can be collected by a personal action against the owner, unless they are by law made a charge against him. In the acts for making assessments in cities and villages special provisions are found for making the owner as well as the property liable. No such provision is contained in the act of 1866, ■or in acts amendatory thereof.

Motion overruled.