Birch

Plaintiffs brought this action to recover the sum of $11,173.86, which amount they alleged had been paid to the tax collector of the county of Orange under protest. Incidental to that recovery the court was asked to set aside an assessment valuation entered by the county assessor against the plaintiffs’ property for the year 1918 as to all amounts in excess of $150,000. A judgment of nonsuit was granted, from which plaintiffs, have appealed.

Plaintiffs, as copartners, owned 20.16 acres of land in the county of Orange, upon which there were, during the year 1917-1918, nine or ten wells producing crude petroleum. As a by-product of the wells gas was also marketed, which increased the income. Surrounding this property were various other oil-producing lands, notably those owned by five corporations. Some of these latter were, in 1918, producing more, but the majority less, oil than were the wells of plaintiffs. The plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that the assessment levied against them for the year mentioned as for their real property, totaling a valuation of $569,615, was disproportionate and not uniform with the valuation plaeéd upon other oil-producing property of similar…