Southern California Hardwood & Manufacturing Co. v. County of Los Angeles

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendant in an action brought by the plaintiff to recover the sum of $781.27, claimed to have been received by the defendant through the collection of taxes assessed against the plaintiff’s properties and which taxes the plaintiff asserts to have been erroneously and illegally collected.

The facts are practically undisputed, and are embodied in the findings of the court, which may be briefly summarized as follows: The plaintiff in the year 1914 was a lumber manufacturing corporation with its principal place of bxisiness in the city of Los Angeles. In the spring of that year, and during the period when assessments of property for purposes of public taxation are made, the plaintiff prepared a statement of its properties subject to taxation and of the deductions to which it claimed to be entitled, and handed the same to a deputy county assessor who called at its place of business for the purpose of receiving said statement. The statement thus prepared placed a valuation of $294,835 upon the unsecured credits and solvent debts due from others, including bank deposits, and also placed a valuation of $294,835 upon the plaintiff’s…