Court Opinion

ID: 9856765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:57:20.041157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:34.101435
License: Public Domain

ON DENIAL OF PETITION FOR REHEARING
McQUADE, Justice.
Appellants’ petition for rehearing, which notes that the opinion filed in this action does not discuss one of their assignments of error, is limited to questions concerning whether the trial court properly found respondents proved that their predecessors had satisfied the tax payment requirements of I.C. § 5-210.1 Appellants specifically *623contend that the opinion has overruled sub silentio Blayden v. Morris, 37 Idaho 37, 214 P. 1039 (1923).
The assignment of error to which appellants refer is an objection to a trial court ruling under which Robert Wilson, Valley County assessor during the period 1947 to 1953, was permitted to testify regarding the extent of land which he had assessed in 1947 as belonging to respondents’ predecessors, the Flehartys. Wilson testified that he had examined physically tract A and B and assessed the whole to the Flehartys; he “assessed everything within the perimeter of this fence [bounding tract A and B].” Relying on Blayden v. Morris, supra, appellants contend that the assessment plat maps and records of Valley County were the only evidence competent to show actual payment of taxes. Thus, Wilson’s testimony was inadmissible, appellants argue, and inasmuch as it is the basis for the trial court’s finding that respondents’ predecessors had paid all taxes levied and assessed on parcel B from 1930 to 1953, that finding should be disregarded and the judgment reversed.
One question necessarily presented by appellants’ petition concerns the import of Wilson’s testimony. Appellants note correctly that the trial court’s memorandum decision and findings expressly rely on Wilson’s testimony, but this Court’s opinion emphasizes primarily that
“The tax records of Valley County show that George Fleharty annually, between 1931 and 1947, paid taxes for two acres. Fleharty owned only one tract in the pertinent area, and while parcel A comprises but .98 acres, the combined tracts A and B aggregate almost exactly two acres.”
The opinion also states:
“the property area assessed to respondents’ predecessors for tract A and B was decreased on Valley County tax records during 1947 from two acres to 1.18 acres. There is no showing, however, that respondents were notified by the county assessor prior to this change, and it should be noted that their tax payments were not decreased after the modification.”
Pertinent in this regard is a conflict between two plat maps from the Valley County assessor’s office, Boydstuns’ exhibit 43 (Whites’ exhibit 43a), and Whites’ exhibit 5 (enlarged in Whites’ exhibit 6). The first map (exhibit 43) shows appellants as the assessed owners of parcel' B, but it was not drawn until the middle 1950s, the second map (exhibits 5 and 6) lists appellants’ only assessed property in the lot and section within which parcel B is located as a twenty-five foot easement between the southerly boundary of the land assessed to the Flehartys (and then to respondents) and that assessed to Susan' A. Harbert whose property’s northerly boundary is in fact twenty-five feet southerly of parcel B’s southerly boundary. The metes and bounds description contained in Boydstun’s exhibit 37, a register of tax numbers upon which appellants primarily rely to support their petition, also is contradicted by the plat tracings in Whites’ exhibits 5 and 6.
The testimony of Wilson to which appellants object concerns only assessments for the years 1947 and after,2 and so has no *624bearing on the period from 1931 to 1947 during which the Flehartys were assessed for two acres while apparently appellants’ assessment was limited to a twenty-five foot strip below the southerly boundary of the Flehartys’ property. As stated in the opinion, any five continuous years during which the adverse claimant or his predecessor has paid all assessed and levied taxes on the claimed land will satisfy the tax payment requirement of I.C. § 5-210. The information contained in the assessor’s records themselves, therefore, is properly susceptible to an inference that respondents’ predecessors were assessed and paid taxes on parcel B for a longer period than necessary to satisfy the tax payment requirements for adverse possession, and so even had this Court favorably considered appellants’ assignment of error and decided that Wilson’s testimony was incompetent, such trial court error would have been harmless and the judgment still affirmed. See Idaho R.Civ.P., 61; Hartley v. Bohrer, 52 Idaho 72, 11 P.2d 616 (1932); cf. Parks v. Parks, 91 Idaho 420, 422 P.2d 618 (1967).
Nevertheless, because the trial court relied expressly on Wilson’s testimony and since appellants have argued so vigorously that the testimony was incompetent, that assignment of error should be discussed.
The inconsistencies in the assessment records presented in this action create a state of confusion in which respondents’ predecessors were or were not assessed for parcel B depending on which record the investigator considers. In addition to the conflicting plat maps discussed above, the metes and bounds description contained in the county register of tax numbers on which appellants primarily rely contains internal inconsistencies: under tax #71, respondents’ predecessors’ property is described as only parcel A; but in the description under tax #74, the southerly boundary of their property is the same as the southerly boundary of parcel B.
Whether the records list a person as assessed taxpayer for a particularly described property is, of course, a question different from whether he was in fact assessed for the property and did pay the taxes on it. The criterion of I.C. § 5-210 is actual payment of assessed taxes, not a listing on county records as assessed taxpayer, and so assessment records are admitted in evidence not for their own sake, but rather for their relevance in determining actual assessment and payment of taxes. Assessment record descriptions are probative regarding the extent of property actually assessed, and if the records are clear, precise and consistent (which the records here are not), it may be presumed that the listings they contain describe the actual assessments. But this does not make incompetent and inadmissible other relevant evidence, for example, that of present concern, the testimony of an assessor regarding his physical examination of property circumscribed by a fence and his assessment based on the examination. See Calkins v. Kousouros, 72 Idaho 150, 156, 237 P.2d 1053, 1057 (1951); cf. Eagan v. Colwell, 86 Idaho 525, 388 P.2d 999 (1964); Beneficial Life Ins. Co. v. Wakamatsu, 75 Idaho 232, 270 P.2d 830 (1954); Edgeller v. Johnston, 74 Idaho 359, 262 P.2d 1006 (1953); Mulder v. Stands, 71 Idaho 22, 225 P.2d 463 (1950); O’Malley v. Jones, 46 Idaho 137, 266 P. 797 (1928); Bayhouse v. Urquides, 17 Idaho 286, 105 P. 1066 (1909); Annot., Tax Payments by Adverse Claimant, 132 A.L.R. 216, 227-229 (1961). It should be emphasized that evidence besides the assessment records is admitted not in order to cause a physical alteration of the records, indeed the assessment descriptions must remain as listed even if the trier of fact finds the actual assessment has varied from that described. This other evidence is admitted because the question of material fact is not what the records reflect was assessed, but what was in fact assessed. It may be added that were evidence other than assessment records not admissible to show satisfaction of the tax payments required by I.C. § 5-210, the statutory device of obtaining title by adverse possession would become almost meaningless. See I.C. § 5-206; cf. I.C. *625§§ 5-209 and 5-210; Calkins v. Kousorous, supra.
In Blayden v. Morris, supra, which appellants cite for the proposition that no evidence except assessment records themselves is competent concerning the extent of property on which a claimant has paid taxes, this Court upheld a ruling which refused to permit an adverse claimant himself to testify that at the time his land was assessed,
“he pointed out the lands in question to the assessor as being part of his lands, and that this was given to the assessor for the purpose of enabling the assessor to arrive at a valuation of the land, and particularly as to the acreage of appellants’ land which was under improvement and which was being farmed and cultivated at that time.” Idaho Sup.Ct. case #3802, tr. p. 80, f. 221-222. See also Blayden v. Morris, supra, 37 Idaho at 41, 214 P. at 1040.
The sustained objection to this offer of proof was a general one, that it was “incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.” Idaho Sup.Ct. case #3802, tr. pp. 80-81, f. 222, 214 P. at 1040. See also Blayden v. Morris, supra, 37 Idaho at 41, 214 P. at 1040. The Blayden opinion states that the claimant in fact paid taxes only upon his property as assessed “by legal subdivision or regular portions thereof,” id. at 40, 214 P. at 1040, and that the strip of land claimed was irregular, “varying from nothing to an extreme width of approximately 100 feet,” ibid., while the assessor’s plat followed the regular straight quarter line. Ibid.
In its discussion of the offered testimony’s,probative value, the court said :
“Had such evidence been admitted, it would not have proven that these lands had been assessed to appellants, nor would it have proven that appellants had paid any taxes whatever thereon. This evidence was therefore clearly inadmissible.” Id. at 42, 214 P. 1041.
This statement concerns the probative value or relevance of the offered testimony, not its competence. The statement expresses an opinion that, if admitted, the testimony would have tended to show only that the claimant had indicated to the assessor that he possessed the land in dispute, and so would have been no direct proof that appellant was then actually assessed and paid taxes on it. In this regard it may be noted that Blayden stresses that before and after the alleged assessment claimant and his opponent each was assessed and in fact paid taxes upon his land by subdivision description alone. If the quoted statement contains the court’s reason, it would seem that the ruling was upheld primarily on grounds that the offered testimony carried no weight with respect to the actual assessment. Thus, Blayden would be no direct authority concerning the competence of a county assessor’s testimony about actual assessments.
The Blayden opinion, nevertheless, also includes several broad assertions that assessment records are the only competent evidence regarding what lands actually were assessed, for example “the official records are the only means by which can be shown the property actually assessed,” Blayden v. Morris, supra at 41, 214 P. at 1040, and assessment record “descriptions cannot be impeached, varied, or explained by parol evidence.” Id. at 41-42, 214 P. at 1040. Those declarations from Blayden v. Morris, supra, must be disapproved insofar as they vary from the views in this opinion.
Petition denied June 16, 1967.
TAYLOR, C. J., and SMITH, McFAD-DEN and SPEAR, JJ., concur.

. “5- -210. Oral claim — Possession defined, — Payment of taxes.
* * * in no case shall adverse possession be considered established under the provisions of any sections of this code unless it shall be shown that the land has been occupied and claimed for the period of five years continuously, and the party or persons, their predecessors and *623grantors, have paid all the taxes, state, county or municipal, which have been levied and assessed upon such land according to law.”

. The opinion’s complete discussion of Wilson’s testimony regarding assessments is as follows:
“From 1947 to 1953, Flehartys’ [respondents’ predecessor] assessment was recorded as 1.18 acres, hut Robert Wilson, Valley County assessor during that period, and former sheriff, testified that he had in 1947 physically examined tracts A and B and had assessed the whole to Fleharty. It should be noted too, that although any assessments made were charged to Fleharty, it is quite possible that no taxes were assessed on parcel B, for Wilson testified that his assessment method was based entirely on lakefront footage and the plat sketch inserted above reveals that B hardly, if at all, touches the shore.”