Court Opinion

ID: 9605189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:31:25.102078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:31.278683
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
In addition to joining the views expressed in the opinion of Justice Bakes, I write briefly to disapprove of the Court’s denigration of Blomquist as obiter dicta. My reading of that case brings me to the conclusion that it is not at all dicta, but an appellate court’s comprehensive review of the then existing scheme for assessing and equalizing of taxes throughout the state. Such an appellate court review is not unusual and is a proper judicial exercise when circumstances so require. Examine, for instance, the language of the eminent jurist, Justice Ailshie, in his concurring opinion:
“It seems to me from an examination of the whole act creating the tax commission and the simultaneous act embodying the revenue laws, that the legislature had no intention of conferring any such power on the commission as is claimed for it. The revenue law was passed and approved the same day as the tax commission act, and must be considered and construed as a simultaneous act under the same rule of construction as if a part of this act. When we so consider it, there can be no doubt but that the legislature intended that the assessor and the county board of equalization and state board of equalization should still retain the same powers and exercise the same functions that have heretofore been exercised by them. Indeed, the revenue act specifically so provides.” Blomquist v. Board of County Commissioners, 25 Idaho 284, 306, 137 P. 174, 182 (1913) (emphasis added).
I, also suggest that note be taken of the Colorado Supreme Court’s assessment of Blomquist made in the Bi-Metallic case which came under discussion in the recently decided case of Idaho State Tax Commission v. Staker, 104 Idaho 238, 658 P.2d 350 (1982), and a portion of which is set forth in the dissenting opinion filed in that case. Commentators down the line may conclude that the Court in that case might have been influenced in a different direction upon a close reading of both Bi-Metallic cases, the Colorado court’s found at 138 P. 1010 at 1011 (Colo.1914), and the High Court’s at 239 U.S. 441, 36 S.Ct. 141, 60 L.Ed. 372 (1915).