Court Opinion

ID: 9865202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:27:00.831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:53.585457
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Boucic, dissenting.
From the majority opinion I dissent on the ground, among others, that it is wholly inconsistent with, and exactly contrary to, the decision of this court in Commissioners v. Cortes Co., 81 Colo. 266, 254 Pac. 996, a perfectly parallel case. The opinion there, by Mr. Justice Denison, is brief, and the statement of facts is not elaborate. However, I have made an examination not only of the briefs in that case, but also of the original record, now remaining on file in this court. The record contains a remarkably keen, fair and illuminating analysis which the late W. N. Searcy, the trial judge, made of the facts *355and the law. The complaint of the plaintiff here is almost word for word identical with the complaint in the Cortez Co. case, and a careful comparison of the two cases, pleading by pleading, fact by fact, and argument by argument, discloses nothing that logic or justice could pronounce a substantial difference in fact or principle between the two.
As against the Cortez Co. case, the language used by Mr. Justice Garrigues in Shaw v. Bond, 64 Colo. 366, 171 Pac. 1142, cannot matter. The decision there being in favor of the exemption claimed, the language referred to is purely dictum.
The majority opinion’s quotation from the opinion of Mr. Justice Butler in Comstock v. Olney Springs Drainage District, 97 Colo. 416, 50 P. (2d) 531, cannot aid us here. The question then under consideration was whether a drainage district assessment was effective against the land and its water rights or merely against the. land itself. There could have been no other reasonable decision on that proposition. It simply does not touch the question before us, namely, whether the Colorado Constitution and statutes exempt certain property from general taxes.
Kendrick v. Twin Lakes Reservoir Co., 58 Colo. 281, 144 Pac. 884, is likewise inapposite, as it does not involve the question here before us.
Lack of time forbids further discussion at present.