Case Name: Merchants' Mutual Insurance Company vs. Board of Assessors, et al.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1888-03
Citations: 40 La. Ann. 371
Docket Number: No. 10,077
Parties: Merchants’ Mutual Insurance Company vs. Board of Assessors, et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 40
Pages: 371–373

Head Matter:
No. 10,077.
Merchants’ Mutual Insurance Company vs. Board of Assessors, et al.
Neither the State nor the city of New Orleans can be required to give'an appeal bond. The State Tax Collector and the Board of Assessors are State functionaries, and their appeal is the appeal of the State, and no bond is necessary to perfect it.
Sec. 13 of Act 96 of 1882, which provides for the filling by each taxpayer of a list of his property, to be delivered to the assessor, is not mandatory. ‘ It provides no penalty for non-oompliance, and cannot produce the* effect of shutting out the taxpayer from all relief, owing to his omission.
It ia unnecessary to adduce evidence to justify an assessment apparently legally made. It stands until it is shown to be erroneous by satisfactory proof.
Assessors ought not to permit assessments to be made by others. Their sworn duty is to value the property themselves.
The rule is well settled as regards corporations, that they are liable to assessment only for the excess of the market value of their capital stock over and above that of its tangible property otherwise assessed and taxed.
Satisfactory proof that an assessment of the taxable property of a corporation is unwarranted and excessive, justifies a reduction to a reasonable amount.
APPEAL from the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Tissot, J.
W. 8. Benedict for Plaintiff and Appellee.
W. jET. Bogers, City Attorney, and Wynne Bogers, Assistant City Attorney, for Defendants and Appellants.

Opinion:
On Motion to Dismiss.
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Todd, J.
This is a suit for the reduction of assessment on the property described in the petition.
The city of New Orleans, the State Tax Collector and the Board of Assessments were made defendants.
There was judgment in favor of the plaintiff, from whicli the defendants appealed.
The motion to dismiss the appeal is, substantially, on the ground that there is no bond of appeal filed and none required by the order of appeal.
It is evident that the real and only parties in interest in this litigation are the plaintiff and the State and city of New Orleans. The Tax Collector is a State official and the Board of Assessors a State functionary. Neither the State nor the city of New Orleans are required to give an appeal bond; they are expressly exempted from any such requirement, and as the defendants are representatives of one or the other, there is no significance whatever in the omission of such bond.
The motion is, therefore, denied.