Court Opinion

ID: 9868439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:35:13.829684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:50.423504
License: Public Domain

*580On Petition to Rehear.
This is a second petition for rehearing. It is said that chapter 501, Acts of 1911, as amended, under which the City of Morristown was proceeding to enforce an assessment against the courthouse is not broader than the caption; that the amendatory Act is a legislative declaration ; that the original Act should not be so construed as to exclude public property from its provisions.
As stated in the opinion, public property cannot be taxed and the tax enforced by sale of such property without express statutory authority.
The object of Article II, Section 17, of the Constitution requiring the subject of legislation tó be stated in the caption, was not put there without good reason, and its enforcement rests upon like ground.
The remedy provided in the Act for the enforcement of abutting property assessments is by sale of the property assessed. It could not be reasonably supposed that the legislature contemplated, when chapter 501, Acts of 1911, was passed, that the courthouse property would be assessed and sold under that Act. Neither this Act nor any other Act provides a method for payment of the tax. Therefore, the only remedy for enforcement of the-assessment was by a sale, as in cases of personal property. The original Act could not be construed by either the legislature or the court to embrace public property, especially a courthouse, and a legislative construction that enlarged the Act and which authorized the town to sell the courthouse for payment of the tax, made the- Act broader than the caption and clearly void under Article II, Section 17.