Court Opinion

ID: 9665245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:43:15.654662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:14.170218
License: Public Domain

HYDE, J.,
"VVe held in that case that the questioned Fire District Act did not deal with “the organization and powers” of counties. Instead we said: “It deals with a different type of political sub-division, to-wit, a type of municipal corporation duly organized and existing under a general law providing for its incorporation by decree of the circuit court.” We held “that the statute, House Bill 7, is not unconstitutional as ‘an attempt to create an additional class of counties in violation of Art. VI, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of 1945’, nor is it á statute ‘regulating the affairs of counties’ within the meaning of paragraph 21 of Sec. 40, Art. Ill of the Constitution of 1945.” We have also held that a sewer district, even if wholly within a city, did not violate the similar provision of the Constitution of 1875 (Sec. 7, Art. 9) concerning the organization and classification of cities. (State ex inf. Gentry v. Curtis, 319 Mo. 316, 4 S. W. (2d) 467.)
I think the same thing is true of the Land Tax Collection Act. It does not deal with “the organization and powers” of counties and the Land Trust created by the Act is no part of county government. The Land Trust is a separate entity from the county; it is a public or political corporation. (Spitcaufsky v. Hatten, 353 Mo. 94, 182 S. W. (2d) 86, 1. c. 108.) The functions of the Land Tyust go beyond county government. Its services are rendered not merely to the comity but also to the State of Missouri and to every municipality, school district, road - district, sewer district, levee district, drainage district and other tax districts located in the county in which it operates. It has its own official seal; “the power to sue and issue deeds in its name”; “the general power to administer its business as any other corporate body”; and it may convey real estate “without in.any case procuring.any consent, conveyance or other instrument from the beneficiaries for which it acts.”- (1943 Act, Sec. 40, Laws 1943, p. 1056, now Sec.-141.750, R. S. 1949 V.A.M.S.) Thus it is completely independent of the county which may, through its county court, appoint only one of the three managing trustees. As a public corporation, it is really an agency of the State of Missouri in its governmental *1071powers of collection of taxes, created for the purpose of orderly-administration of tax delinquent lands to get reasonable returns for revenue, from taxation on all tax delinquent lands, to the State, its political sub-divisions, the municipalities and special tax districts created by the State in the county in which it operates. I do not think this is changed by the elective features applicable to Class One counties added by the Amendments of 1945 and 1949 (Laws 1945, p. 1926; Laws 1949, p. 602) because the organization, purposes and functions of the Land Trust remain -the same. Therefore, it is my conclusion that the Land Tax Collection Act is not in conflict with either of the constitutional provisions relied upon herein and is a valid Act under the 1945 Constitution.
Hollingsworth, Dalton, Leecly, Conhling, JJ., and Ellison, G.J., concur.