Galveston Gas Co. v. County of Galveston

Citations

• 54 Tex. 287
• 1881 Tex. LEXIS 20

Syllabus

<p>1. Taxation—Cloud on title—Payment under protest.—After the entire property of a private corporation had been listed by it for taxation, the county assessor, without authority of law, made a further assessment on the corporation for property that it did not own, and the land of the corporation was advertised by the collector for sale, to satisfy said illegal assessment; thereupon the corporation paid tiie illegal tax under protest. Five months after payment, a claim for the return of the money was presented to the commissioners’ court, and in nine months more suit was brought against the county. Held—</p> <p>1. That under sec. 13, art. VIII, of the constitution of 1876, and sec. 18 of the' act of August, 1876, regulating the duties of tax collectors, a tax sale of the property of the corporation would have constituted a cloud on its title.</p> <p>2. The taxes having been paid under protest to prevent the sale and consequent cloud on the title, the payment was so far compulsory as to allow of a recovery back, if sought with reasonable promptness.</p> <p>3. Expressions of opinion in Red v. Johnson, 52 Tex., noticed and explained.</p> <p>4 The necessity for action was sufficiently immediate and urgent to remove the payment made to the collector from the class of voluntary payments.,</p> <p>5. That an application for relief had been made to the county commissioners’ court and refused, would not bar a recovery back of the taxes illegally paid under protest. The question was not one of valuation, but of an illegal collection of money, to relieve against which the county court or board of equalization had no jurisdiction.</p>