Wild Goose Country Club v. County of Butte

Plaintiff brought this action to recover moneys paid under protest as taxes for the fiscal year commencing July 1, 1919, on the alleged ground that the assessment of its property was fraudulently excessive. The defendant was given judgment upholding the assessment and plaintiff appeals therefrom.

There was a general increase by the county assessor in the assessment of lands in Butte County in 1919. In that year, for the first time, the market value of lands for hunting purposes was taken into consideration in making assessments. The evidence covers a period of four years, during which the lands of plaintiff and those of an adjoining gun club were assessed at the following sums per acre: 1917 and 1918, $5; 1919 and 1920, $50. The assessments of other adjoining lands in 1917 and 1918 were from $4 to $6; in 1919, from $10 to $15; and in 1920, from $25 to $40.

July 5, 1919, the plaintiff filed its petition with the board of supervisors, sitting as a board of equalization, praying that the assessment of its lands he reduced to $10 an acre, on the grounds that $10 an acre was the full cash value thereof and that other lands in the county of the same quality and similarly situated were…

In its petition for rehearing appellant complains that the opinion filed does not accurately state its contention and that “plaintiff never did advance, and does not now advance, the contention” that “its lands should have been classed as grazing lands in making the assessment, without consideration of their market value as a hunting preserve.” In its petition to the board of equalization appellant alleged “that the only value agriculturally said land has is for grazing,” and made no reference to any other value. Mr. Adams, the secretary and treasurer of the appellant, who verified the petition and personally appeared before the board, testified at the trial that the application before the board was based on the assumption that the land should have been classed as grazing land. Mr. Hinsdale, who was a director of the club and appeared before the board as attorney for petitioner, testified at the trial: “I made the point there that I doubted very much that the mere fact that a man might satisfy a whim or follow a hobby would establish a value on his land, citing an instance of a man who might enjoy wild life and might pay any price or refuse any price to build a home or watch birds…