Court Opinion

ID: 9417880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:41:39.965327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:51.854546
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brown,
dissenting.
I have no doubt whatever of the validity of the act of the legislature of Florida of 1883, requiring the assessor, upon discovering that any land in his county was omitted from the assessment roll of the three previous years, to assess the same *482for such years, since this was a provision applicable to all real estate in bis county omitted from the assessment rolls for such years. But the act of 1885 did not proceed upon this basis. It arbitrarily selects railroad properties from all other species of property, and requires their assessment for another three years prior to the three covered by the act of 1883, and thereby, as it seems to me, denies them the equal protection of the, laws. Under the act of 1883 all owners of real property omitted from the assessment rolls of the three previous years were put upon an equality, and made debtors to the State for the taxes of those years; but to segregate railroads from all other delinquent property, and tax them for another three years, as is done by the act of 1885, seems to me to open the statutes to the criticism of the court, wherein it is<said: “ Doubtless it ” (the Fourteenth Amendment) “ would prohibit a State from selecting some obnoxious person and casting upon his property the. sole burden of taxation, or a burden differing from that cast upon others whose property was similarly situated.”
It appears quite immaterial that under the act of 1883 the property was to be assessed by the county assessors, and in the act of 1885 by the State Comptroller.' The wrong done to the railway company is not in the selection of an agent to collect the taxes, but in the selection! of a specially odious tax, namely, for antecedent years, and imposing it upon one class of delinquents alone. If, for instance, a license tax, varying in .amount, were imposed upon a dozen different occupations, and by another act, subsequently passed, were made retroactive for three years, could the legislature by still another act, made applicable only to those employed in one out of these twelve occupations, make such act retroactive for another three years, without denying to those engaged in that occupation the equal protection of the laws ?
I do not wish to be understood as saying that the State may not impose a specific and even a discriminating tax upon railways, but after the liability to the State of all real property owners has once been established, and all placed upon the samé footing, I do not think a particular species of property can be arbitrarily taken and subjected to a discriminating tax for a *483series of years, during which, and upon the ground that, the state officers had neglected their duty. If state railway taxes may be made retroactive for three years, and again for another three years, I see no reason why this method of taxation may not be continued indefinitely, so long as any property remains from which it may be collected. This kind of discrimination seems to be measurable only by the rapacity .of the legislature.